I'm seeing conflicting information as to the indictment. The Fort Worth local paper is saying that she was indicted on murder charges.

https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/crime/article222202180.html

She was indicted on both manslaughter and murder but the prosecutors clarified that they are only moving forward on the murder charge.

That's in contrast to the reporting:



unless i misunderstood what you mean. did you mean that a grand jury indicted her on both charges, and basically left up which charge to go for to the DA? because that seems right. although i havent kept up to the minute on this one.

Murder will be a harder sell in court, although I'm not privy to the preponderance of evidence here, either. I know the family wanted murder charges, but manslaughter would seem to be a slam dunk in this case, based on what we do know.

The fix is in. They should move on all charges so that at least something sticks.

View from a civilized country of holy Europe OFC this is murder.
But this is US and the choice of this country is to live like this (i guess the guy got shot because it's so easy to have guns...There's not other reasons, excepted a poor [or wrong] training)
They have to assume the consequences, end of story.

IMO it's not a big deal in comparison of what will happen the day they will face a serious crisis... heh

Inb4 "Why are they rioting?"

You can't prosecute her on both charges. If you're going to prosecute her for manslaughter then you cannot prosecute for murder. If you are going to prosecute her for murder you cannot also prosecute her for manslaughter. You could if there were separate instances or more than one victim. So no, the fix is not in. They would be charging her twice for the same crime when the variables within the crime committed only allow for one charge. They can charge her with a plethora of other crimes to go along with the murder charge though.

One of the ways lawyers get cops off in situations like this, and this has happened several times in just the past few years on high profile cases, is they make sure the cop is brought up on charges that have a higher burden of proof than can be reasonably cleared in that case.

To convict her of murder would require that she intended him to die, or acted in such a negligent way that she knew him dieing was a possibility based on her actions. It's unlikely that the prosecution will be able to clear this burden since she thought she was in her own apartment and it wasn't premeditated in any way.

If they brought her up on manslaughter it's a much lower bar since all it requires is her making an avoidable mistake that resulted in his death, which would be pretty open and shut in this case.

That depends entirely on the state. Here in MO she could be tried for murder and it would stick because she had no legally justifiable reason. She had already committed a felony (per MO state statutes) by entering the apartment while armed and without permission. She then drew her weapon, aimed it at the victim and shouted commands (Felony#2). She then fired her weapon without a legally justifiable reason (Felony#3). Then there is unlawful discharge of a weapon within city limits... etc.

You may be entirely right though. I'm not trained in the statutes covering her state.