Well, since your first post calling me out here claimed that her crime aligned with manslaughter and not murder, I doubt the murder statue says what you thought it said.
I was thinking more criminally negligent homicide. As in, "should have known better, but didn't". As opposed to recklessness' "Knew better but ignored the risk" more or less.
So, when she pointed a gun at the victim, did she 1) intend to cause serious bodily injury? 2) commit an act clearly dangerous to human life? 3) cause death?
Yes, Yes, Yes.
Does that in any way contradict or disagree with my summary? No. So no, your "When a violent attack intending to kill, ends the life of another person, the perpetrator shall be charged with Murder" doesn't fit because the Texas Penal Code gives Zero Fs if your intent was to kill. The law clearly states "Intends to cause serious bodily injury" Not, "intends to kill" If you point a gun at a person and pull the trigger, you are intending to cause serious bodily injury. I mean, it's possible that she could have tried to argue that she didn't know her gun was loaded, or that maybe she thought there were happy fun time giggle bullets in it, but we know that wouldn't have lasted a moment in court so we won't waste our time with that pedantry here.
So... Are you actually familiar with the legal concepts of "actus reus" and "mens rea"?
Actus reus basically being the "guilty act", and Mens Rea basically being the "guilty mind" more or less. I forget their exact latin translations, but that should give the idea.
The possible "Mens Rea" are as we've talked about. Negligence, Recklessness, Knowing, and finally Intent/Purposefully.
When you see that language in the statute... I mean I guess 100 people in the legal field can go into a debate on this, but I think I didn't properly clarify, or maybe I did and should just rephrase..?
So... When you see:
(b) A person commits an offense if he:
(1) intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individual;
(2) intends to cause serious bodily injury and commits an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes the death of an individual; or...
When you see "intent" there, it's not really referring to the act of raising your gun and shooting, in and of itself. It's referring to your state of mind WHILE doing that.
Sec. 19.05. CRIMINALLY NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE. (a) A person commits an offense if he causes the death of an individual by criminal negligence.
"She should have known she was on the wrong floor and should have checked a door number before she entered the dwelling that wasn't hers, but she didn't, and therefore negligently caused the man's death."
But her saying afterwards, that she literally
intended to kill him, changed the charge VERY quickly.
Now, I see what you're saying. "If the defense was justified, there's an exception under Texas law. If it wasn't, it'll be classified as murder."
No, not necessarily. The appropriate charges in that case, are not as black and white as either "justified" (no charge), or Murder in the First Degree. No, there's some in-between nuance. And even if those were the only two options under Texas law, we both know that the situation in question here meant she was not
fully criminally responsible and sure as hell didn't meet the max sentence for First Degree Murder. And I think we saw that in her sentence..
Doesn't mean any of that in-between applies to Guyger. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. I'm just saying that it's not as simple, and (from my perspective), it would be useful to look more into Actus Reus and Mens Rea, and what those statutes are actually describing. In my opinion (and I could be totally wrong, I'll admit), I think you're getting those two wires crossed.
Sorry for the essay by the way ha.