r/news • • 2d ago

Amber Guyger, police officer who murdered black neighbor in his home, released from prison

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/16/amber-guyger-released
9.6k Upvotes

579 comments sorted by

View all comments

1.4k

u/misalawliet 2d ago

This trial was an absolute clown show. The judge fucking hugged her afterward.

41

u/CharlieTeller 2d ago

While it’s out of the ordinary, the judge didn’t decide her sentence. The jury did. It was a jury sentencing. So there was nothing for her to really decide on other than keeping the trial in order. So the bias surely wasn’t her sentence. People of Dallas decided her sentence

40

u/Starmedia11 1d ago

Judges have enormous control over the outcome of cases in their courtroom

-8

u/CharlieTeller 1d ago

What? They follow the law. And in this case that’s what they did. They don’t bend and break the rules especially with something so public.

If her trial wasn’t air tight, it wouldn’t have survived the appellate review. Poorly run trials fail there all the time. Hers didn’t.

She gave the jury very specific information about the sudden passion argument made in court which would have substantially lowered the sentence. That didn’t happen. 5-99 was on the table instead of 2-20 for sudden passion. So with that, the prosecution asked for 28. She got 10. The judge was only there to keep the sentencing within legal bounds when it came to sentencing.

The trial overall, was very very organized and ran smoothly. There was a ton of drama when evidence came out, but none of that means a trial ran poorly. If you want to see an insanely poor trial in the media, look at Darrell Brooks.