Attorneys representing Aaron Dean, the former Fort Worth police officer found guilty of manslaughter last year in the 2019 death of Atatiana Jefferson, is moving forward with his appeal.
Dean's attorneys filed a brief in appellate court Tuesday saying Judge George Gallagher made mistakes in the December 2022 trial and that the conviction should be reversed.
Dean fatally shot 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson in her home on Oct. 12, 2019, while investigating an open structure call. Dean entered the backyard and said when he looked through a window he saw a silhouette of a person and the barrel of a gun. Dean fired once, fatally wounding the woman on the other side of the glass.
Dean, 38, was convicted in Jefferson's death on Dec. 15, 2022, when a Tarrant County jury rejected a murder charge in favor of a lesser charge of manslaughter. Five days later the same jury sentenced him to 11 years, 10 months and 12 days in state prison.
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According to a brief filed Tuesday and obtained by NBC 5 on Wednesday, Robert Gill, one of the attorneys representing Dean, said the judge made mistakes in Dean's 2022 trial by instructing the jury about the lesser charge of manslaughter when Dean was indicted on a murder charge, by not changing the trial's venue under two legal standards and by giving jurors an erroneous general definition of "reasonable belief" when the court should have relied on a "specific definition."
- Point of Error One: The trial court reversibly erred by instructing the jury on the lesser included offense of manslaughter over the Appellant’s objections.
- Point of Error Two: The trial court erred by not changing the venue for the trial of the case because there was sufficient evidence developed of the existence of a dangerous combination of influential persons in Tarrant County.
- Point of Error Three: The trial court erred by not changing the venue for the trial of the case because the State’s controverting affidavits were insufficient as a matter of law.
- Point of Error Four: The trial court erroneously employed the general definition of reasonable belief in Penal Code sec. 1.07(42) over the Appellant’s objection when the court should have relied on the specific definition in Penal Code Chapter 9.
About the lesser charge, Gill wrote in the brief that there was no evidence that justified Gallagher's inclusion of manslaughter as an option and that he overruled the defense's objections to its inclusion in the instruction to the jury.
"Appellant therefore prays that this Court sustain his points of error, reverse the case and remand to the trial court for further proceedings," Gill wrote.
The state's brief on the appeal was ordered to be filed by Sept. 21.
Dean is currently serving out his sentence at the Ramsey Unit in Rosharon, about 25 miles south of Houston.
