AUSTIN, Texas — After hours of watching body and dash camera footage and listening to testimony, jury deliberations are now underway in the trial of two former Williamson County deputies charged with manslaughter in the 2019 death of Javier Ambler.
In closing arguments, prosecutor Holly Taylor argued that Ambler had "two seconds to comply and two minutes to die." She brought up the testimony of witnesses like Dr. Keith Pinckard, a chief medical examiner who said there was no way to separate the forcible restraint from his death and the struggle exacerbating Ambler's underlying condition.
Prosecutor Dexter Gilford wrapped up the state's closing arguments, saying that Ambler deserved to be arrested and taken into custody but did not deserve to die.
"That's what he deserved, and it was their job to make sure that happen – that didn't happen. Although he was a compliant man, he died a compliant, non-resisting man, pleading for his life and supplying them with all the information that any decent person would have found a way to at a minimum stop tasing him," Gilford said.
In defense attorney Ken Ervin's closing arguments, he brought up the demonstration where he participated in being shocked with a Taser, saying that the point of the demonstration was to show what it looks like when someone gets shocked. He asked the jury to contrast his experience with what they saw in the videos.
Ervin said Ambler did not do any of these things and was fighting the entire time, going on to say that Ambler also delayed his own medical care by not complying.
"And this office wants you to think they killed him, that that's their fault, not Mr. Ambler's. I don't know where personal accountability went in any of this, but they're doing their job. Mr. Ambler committed multiple crimes, felonies, he did this to himself," Ervin said.
If the jury does not agree on the manslaughter charge, they can also consider lesser charges of criminally negligent homicide or assault.