Diversity of jury seen as key factor in officer’s conviction

The questioning dragged on all day and into the evening as lawyers queried hundreds of prospective jurors for potential bias in the trial of Amber Guyger, the white Dallas police officer who fatally shot a black neighbor in his own living room. “Nothing makes those biases disappear when we enter a jury room.” Guyger’s attorneys tried unsuccessfully to get the trial moved to another county, arguing that pretrial publicity made a fair trial in Dallas County impossible. While awaiting the jury’s sentence, an attorney for Jean’s family, Ben Crump, said the panel’s diversity would help them “see past all the technical, intellectual justifications for an unjustifiable killing.” But another Jean family attorney, Daryl Washington, said Thursday that the jury also represented Guyger because it included eight women. “We all agree that was a mistake, and I don’t think would want to take harsh vengeance,” said one of the jurors, a white man who wasn’t named by the network. Former Dallas County prosecutor Heath Harris, who is black, said all attorneys seek jurors who will “rule how you want.” Harris, now a defense attorney, said it’s just as common for attorneys of minority clients to try to limit conservative white jurors.