By Kelli Smith, Krista M. Torralva and Maggie Prosser
FORT WORTH — Jurors were sequestered Monday after they deliberated more than seven hours about former Fort Worth officer Aaron Dean’s punishment for manslaughter, extending the sentencing phase of the trial another day.
The Tarrant County jury began deliberations just before 10 a.m. after prosecutors and defense attorneys gave their last pitches for the sentencejurors should give Dean, 38, for killing Atatiana Jefferson in 2019. The jury askedto leave about 5:30 p.m., sheriff’s deputies said. They’re expected to resume deliberations Tuesday morning.
The same jurors found Dean guilty of manslaughter Thursday after weighing his guilt for about 14 hours over two days, drawing mixed reactions from the community. Dean is white, and Jefferson was Black. Although some of the 12 jurors are people of color, none are Black. The jury rejected a murder charge, which could have led to a life sentence. Dean faces two to 20 years in prison but is also eligible for probation. Dean has been free on bond but was jailed after his manslaughter conviction.
From the jury room, jurors asked for police body-camera footage of the shooting and Fort Worth police policies. Throughout the afternoon activists lined the seventh-floor hallway in the Tarrant County courthouse. Some set up camp with phone chargers and cases of water, while others laid on the floor or rested on benches. Tamara Neal, of the Texas Organizing Project, quietly serenaded the narrow hallway by repeatedly singing Jefferson’s first name.
As deliberations continued, community members knelt and raised their fists in silence for about 77 seconds, representing the amount of time Dean was at Jefferson’s home before he fatally shot her. Sammie L. Berry, minister at Dallas West Church of Christ, ended the silence with a prayer. Berry was the minister for Botham Jean, a Black accountant shot and killed by former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, who is white. She was convicted of murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2019 for killing Jean in his apartment.
“We pray, Father, that through this process … healing can, will begin,” Berry said. “Father bless us that we can make the changes that need to be made in our criminal justice system — that all people can have justice.”
Deliberations Monday lasted longer than witness testimony during the punishment phase of the trial.
Closing arguments
Witnesses were called Friday by both sides to testify about Jefferson’s and Dean’s characters for the punishment phase, including a psychologist who said he evaluated Dean before he was hired by Fort Worth police and concluded Dean wasn’t fit for police work. Dean successfully appealed the psychologist’s finding and finished the police academy in 2018.
Prosecutors pleaded in closing arguments for a 20-year sentence.
Jefferson’s “life is worth so much more than a probation sentence — so much more,” prosecutor Ashlea Deener said. “This family, her memory, her legacy, this community deserves more.”
Deener paced back and forth before the jury as she spoke. Some jurors watched her while others gazed at the photo on a screen of Jefferson smiling in her college graduation gown.
“Mercy has been shown already for this defendant when your verdict was returned for manslaughter,” Deener said. “Mercy is earned, it is not just given.”
Bob Gill, one of Dean’s defense attorneys, asked jurors to give Dean probation, saying the judge will decide fair terms if the jury grants him the opportunity. Gill said the jury decided Dean acted recklessly and without malice, not intentionally and knowingly, and the former officer didn’t intend for Jefferson to die.
Dean acted to protect himself and his fellow officer, Carol Darch, when he shot Jefferson, Gill said. Dean didn’t set out to “hunt someone down,” Gill said, he was trained by Fort Worth police to “eliminate a threat.”
“If you take the emotion out of their remarks, there’s really very little left,” Gill said. “Aaron Dean is literally being judged for a second of his life today.”
Dean shot Jefferson, 28, through her bedroom window from the backyard of her mother’s East Fort Worth home on Oct. 12, 2019. A concerned neighbor called a nonemergency police line because the home’s doors were open and lights were on inside. Jefferson and her 8-year-old nephew, Zion Carr, were playing video games and left the doors open to air out smoke after they burned hamburgers at dinnertime. Jefferson, an aspiring doctor raised in Dallas’ Oak Cliff area, moved into the home to care for her ailing mother and Zion, whose mother was also in poor health.
Key questions for the jury during the trial’s guilt-innocence phase were whether Dean saw Jefferson’s gun — which she grabbed when she heard a noise in the backyard — and if he was justified as an on-duty officer to shoot her. Dean testified he saw the barrel of Jefferson’s gun. His lawyers said in opening statements he also saw a green laser attached to her gun pointed at him, but Dean did not testify to that.
Prosecutors argued since the trial began Dec. 5 that Jefferson had a right to defend herself and Dean didn’t see Jefferson’s gun or follow proper procedures when he arrived at the home. Defense attorneys said Dean acted within his Fort Worth police training to meet deadly force with deadly force.
Dean and a fellow officer did not announce themselves when they responded to the call, which was another focus of the five days of testimony. Dean said he didn’t announce their presence because he suspected a burglary was in progress and he didn’t want to alert a perpetrator.
Witness testimony
The punishment phase was the first time jurors heard much about Jefferson. Adarius Carr, Jefferson’s brother, testified that Jefferson was a tomboy and stellar student. He was absent from the courthouse Monday because he had to return to San Diego for work, according to a relative.
Ashley Carr, Jefferson’s oldest sister, told jurors that since Jefferson’s death, Zion struggles with emotional outbursts and often misses school. The now-11-year-old has been in counseling since 2019, she said.
Amber Carr, Jefferson’s other sister who is Zion’s mother, also wasn’t at the courthouse Monday. She had been hospitalized with pneumonia, Ashley Carr said last week.Related:‘Work to be done’: Fort Worth and beyond react after Aaron Dean convicted of manslaughter
Gill said during closing arguments Monday the jury’s decision will send a message to all police officers. The psychologist, who evaluated Dean and called him narcissistic, had an isolated, subjective opinion, Gill said, and jurors should instead consider the opinions of the people who knew Dean best — his family. Dean’s mother, brother and sister also took the stand Friday to talk about his character. The defense also called to the stand Fort Worth police detective Thomas Dugan, who testified that Dean was “pretty torn up” after killing Jefferson.
“There is nothing to gain by sending this man to the penitentiary,” Gill said. “Nobody can punish him more than he’s already punished himself.”
Toward the end of his argument, Gill asked Dean to stand. Dean blinked rapidly and stared silently in the direction of the jury with his hands clasped in front of him. A shadow of facial hair showed on Dean’s face after he spent the weekend in jail. One juror looked him up and down.
“This is the man you’ll be passing judgment on,” Gill said as Dean appeared to hold back tears. “He’s a very good man who finds himself in a very tough situation.”
Prosecutor Dale Smith said Dean’s actions led to this outcome. “He had so many opportunities to make other decisions so that we wouldn’t be here. And yet he didn’t. He continued to push forward because that’s who he is — his overconfidence, his personality traits.”
One juror who has shown emotion throughout the trial looked down at her lap and pursed her lips as Smith spoke. She gripped a mug as Smith walked photos of Jefferson before them and choked back his own emotions.
