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Lionel
Tate | Johnnie
Mae Chappell
Brenton Butler
If he had not been the subject
of a documentary film, Murder on a Sunday
morning, which won an academy award, this
innocent young man may have been convicted despite the heroic
efforts of dedicated public defenders Pat
McGuinness and Ann Finnell | Subsequent developments: Butler lawsuit
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Academy Award-Winning
Documentary Showcases Public Defenders: Florida Defenders Successfully
Defend Jacksonville Teen Charged with Murder
4/2/2002
"Murder on a Sunday Morning," the winner
for Best Documentary at this year's Academy Award ceremony, premiered
on Home Box Office on March 31st. The two-hour movie recounts
the trial of Brenton Butler, a 15-year-old Jacksonville, Florida,
resident who had been falsely accused of murdering a tourist
during a robbery.
Butler was
defended by two veteran Jacksonville Public Defenders, Patrick
McGuinness and Ann Finnell. Butler had been identified as the
killer by the victim's husband and later confessed. However,
McGuinness and Finnell's investigation revealed that the identification
procedure had been suggestive and Butler's confession coerced.
These facts were brought out at trial and the jury found Butler
not guilty after deliberating less than an hour. Some months
later, the actual perpetrator was identified by a fingerprint
found on the victim's purse. Butler has since received an apology
from the Sheriff's Office and State's Attorney.
"'Murder
on a Sunday Morning' is a 'must see' for everyone, no matter
where they live," said Tom Becker, State Public Defender
for Iowa. According to Becker, the movie carries two important
messages. "First, the imperfections of the criminal justice
system are revealed, especially prosecutors' overreliance on
badly done eyewitness identification procedures and so-called
'confessions' obtained without reliable safeguards that they
are true." Becker explained, "After the identification
of Butler and his admissions to investigators, the police and
prosecutors just stopped working on the case. As a result, evidence
that would have supported Butler's innocence and helped find
the actual killer was lost."
"The movie's
more important lesson," Becker continued, "is that
it accurately portrays the dedication and skill of public defenders,
who are the first line of defense in this country against the
wrongful conviction of the innocent." According to the National
Legal Aid and Defender Association, approximately 75% of all
felony defendants are presented by court-appointed lawyers. "The
work done by Pat McGuinness and Ann Finnell on behalf of Brenton
Butler is typical of the high-caliber defense provided by public
defenders everywhere, including Iowa," Becker said. "Without
public defenders and other high-quality court-appointed counsel,
the American criminal justice system would have zero credibility."
Neither lying
cop Darnell or ambitious prosecutor Laura "cops don't lie"
Starrett could get the jury to accept this case, although they
have been successful at flying others.
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3/8/2001
"A white
tourist killed by a black man in Florida."
Assistant Public
Defender Patrick McGuinness speaks these words, leans back in
his chair and waits. Like all good attorneys, McGuinness has
perfected the art of the pause, making empty air vibrate with
unanswered questions. The moment lengthens. Sustains. And just
when he appears to have lost his train of thought, he gently
lobs a conclusion. "That puts a lot of pressure on the police
to arrest a suspect quickly."
The decision
to detain Brenton Butler as a murder suspect, McGuinness believes,
sprang from this "pressure." But his arrest - to say
nothing of the state's decision to prosecute - is less easily
explained.
Ann Finnell
agrees, and rattles off a list of flaws with the state's case.
There was no physical evidence linking the teen to the crime,
no blood on his clothes, no gunpowder residue on his hands and
no gun. The victim's purse, found in a North Main street Dumpster
by a homeless man, did not have Butler's prints on it, and the
only money police found on the teen could be traced to a paycheck
from his job at Burger King. More importantly, Butler - a high
school freshman with no prior record (and "not particularly
sophisticated," says McGuinness) - withstood nine hours
of police interrogation without once faltering in his claim of
innocence.
The only thing
police had on Butler was an eyewitness: James Stephens, the victim's
husband. Although Butler didn't match the description Stephens
initially gave police - 6 feet tall, between 20-25 years old
- police found the teen walking along a nearby road 2 1/2 hours
after the shooting and brought him to the hotel where Stephens
was waiting. Stephens said he was certain Butler was the killer.
According to
Finnell, the flaws with Stephens' eyewitness account were significant,
not least because he had very little opportunity to see the killer.
By all estimates, Stephens had about five
seconds
in which to take notice of the gun and the assailant - a difficult
cross-racial identification, at that - even as his wife was killed.
Given that he identified the murder weapon as "an over-under
double-barrel Derringer," Finnell says, there is real doubt
as to whether Stephens saw his wife's killer at all.
The holes in
the case make the state's decision to prosecute seem threadbare
at best. In fact, the state probably wouldn't have prosecuted
without the boy's confession. Although it was contested by Butler,
and riddled with errors and inconsistencies, McGuinness says,
the state couldn't ignore a signed confession.
"I think
their position was, 'We have to prosecute or we'd be calling
the officers liars,'" he says of the State Attorney's decision.
At the same
time, he adds, the state is under no obligation to prosecute
a weak case. "They can say 'There is not a bit of physical
evidence in this case,' and go do some investigating of their
own," he says. "To file charges on this foundation
is somewhat frightening."
The weakness
of the state's case prompted more than a not-guilty verdict.
Jury foreman Vernon Young immediately asked for an investigation
"into issues of concern" - specifically "the JSO's
homicide office procedures and individual behavior." The
State Attorney's Office and the JSO were unrepentant, however.
Sheriff Glover said he could "see no reason to review our
interview and interrogation policy ... There are no apparent
flaws that I can see that would need correcting."
State Attorney
Harry Shorstein labeled allegations of police abuse "erroneous,"
even as he promised to investigate them. Two weeks later, Laura
L. Starrett, lead prosecutor for the case, wrote a letter to
the Florida-Times Union calling the teen's claims of abuse and
intimidation "clearly ... not credible."
Starrett further
suggested the teen had gotten away with murder: "The victim's
husband was, and still is, emphatic in his identification of
Butler as the person who killed his wife."
The official
version of events colored public sentiment. Justice Coalition
member R. O. Braendle wrote a follow-up letter to Starrett's,
saying he remained "convinced of Butler's guilt," in
large part because the teen's claims of mistreatment were "so
outlandish."
"Not only
did he claim physical abuse by three detectives," wrote
an incredulous Braendle, "but also that his signed confession
was coerced at gunpoint and the welfare of his parents threatened."
Of course in
retrospect, such protestations seem naive, if not cruel. Both
the JSO and the State Attorney's Office have since apologized
to Butler, and both Sheriff Glover and Harry Shorstein have requested
independent investigations of their agencies. Shorstein further
requested that Butler's criminal record be formally expunged,
meaning all records of the case will be removed from police and
court files.
But even the
apologies have their limits. Shorstein continues to insist that
his office "did what we thought was appropriate based on
the evidence." And Sheriff Glover says that despite the
ordeal Butler endured, his acquittal is proof that "the
system worked in this case."
For Butler
attorney Tom Fallis, this claim is like salt in the wound. "If
you believe the system worked for Brenton Butler, then you have
to believe that false arrests and beaten confessions are a legitimate
part of the system."
Teen's experience with cops
shows why system needs fix
December 1, 2000
In an age where character is
now an issue adulterated with politics and sanctimony, a pure
example of selflessness has emerged in our midst.
That example is Brenton Butler
and his parents.
Butler sat out the summer,
his 16th birthday and the first nine weeks of his sophomore year
in the Duval County jail. The teenager was there waiting to be
tried as an adult on charges that he shot and killed a 64-year-old
Georgia woman at a Southside hotel in May.
If convicted, Butler might
have spent the rest of his life in prison. But as it turned out,
the state's case against Butler was as weak as cafeteria chili.
Among other things, Butler
had no gunshot residue on his hands. His fingerprints were not
on the woman's purse, which was stolen during the shooting. The
$91 he had on him wasn't the spoils of a murderous ambush but
earnings from honest work at Burger King. And the confession?
Butler testified that police detectives beat it out of him.
The jury believed him.
Butler says he isn't angry.
His parents, Melissa and Andre, made no public denouncements,
no cries of conspiracy, no calls for the Rev. Al Sharpton. Instead,
they prayed. They thanked God. And they prayed for James Stephens,
husband of the victim, Mary Ann Stephens.
They are
good people.
Far better people than those
who have shaped a justice system in which officers played so
fast and loose with the rights of their son that they questioned
him without telling them he was in custody. A system that, in
its zeal to protect the public from threats both real and perceived,
exposes children to possible abuses by police. A system that
can easily exploit their fears and their immaturity to get them
to confess to crimes they may not have committed. A system that
sees kids like Butler for having a propensity to prey on society
instead of having potential to become productive members of it.
It is a
situation that is bound to worsen.
According to The Sentencing
Project, a national non-profit organization that focuses on criminal
justice policy issues, Florida is one of the most aggressive
states when it comes to prosecuting juveniles in criminal court.
It was among the first states to give prosecutors the right to
file juvenile cases directly in adult court. In 1998 alone, those
cases amounted to 6,525.
With the trend going that way,
Jenni Gainsborough, a researcher with the project, said more
children like Butler could wind up being unjustly prosecuted.
And, like Butler's jury foreman, she also said his claims of
police abuse shouldn't be shunted aside.
"That [police abuse] can
happen," Gainsborough said. "But the truth is, with
many kids, they don't even have to do that. Many times, all they
have to do is tell a child that if he signs this or says this,
he can go home soon. Most of the time, kids just want to get
it over with.
"But the problem is that
they oftentimes don't understand the implications of their actions
... they don't always understand what's at stake."
Butler's predicament, Gainsborough
said, is an example of how prosecuting juveniles as adults can
hurt kids who may be innocent but don't have the financial resources
to either post bond or mount a defense. Butler's parents, in
fact, said the stress of their child being tried for murder drained
their finances.
He wasted six months in a cell.
And were it not for the diligence of his public defender, he
might still be there.
It's too bad lawmakers who
shape the way youths are prosecuted won't take a cue from the
Butlers. Too bad they embrace policies that ensnare youths in
a net fashioned more for revenge than justice. Too bad they no
longer see teenagers as humans still developing, still salvageable,
but as disasters to be thwarted; that in dealing with youths,
they weigh stereotypes and sanctimony heavier than reality.
At least this time, though,
there was a happy ending. Butler was freed. He and his parents
showed that character is more than just conservative code. It's
about compassion.
Even though the system didn't
see fit to grant it to their son.
Butler case spotlights interrogations:
Family says police forced confession
By Paul Pinkham Florida
Times-Union staff writer, February 22, 2001
Jacksonville - When 16-year-old Brenton Butler
stood trial for murder last fall in Jacksonville, juror Amanda
Eddy thought a confession and a firm eyewitness identification
sounded like strong evidence against him.
But by the time the trial was
over, Eddy and her 11 fellow jurors were convinced of his innocence
-- so convinced they took less than an hour to acquit him.
Eddy said she was thrilled
to learn this week that Jacksonville police and prosecutors had
come to the same conclusion and took the unprecedented steps
of apologizing to Butler and reopening the investigation of two
unrelated suspects in the May shooting of Georgia tourist Mary
Ann Stephens at the Ramada Inn on University Boulevard West.
Several veteran attorneys said
they know of no other case where that has happened in Jacksonville.
The experience has changed
Eddy's view of the criminal justice system.
"Don't assume someone's
guilty until you hear all the facts," she said. "I
think the police are still there to protect me ... but it really
made me think. ... Cops, sometimes they can go astray."
The case against Butler, on
the surface, looked strong. His confession was both oral and
in writing and was witnessed by at least two homicide detectives.
But testimony at trial that Butler was beaten into confessing,
including a photo of Butler with a bruised face, was among the
key factors that swayed the jury toward acquittal, Eddy said.
False confessions are more
common than people think, particularly when juvenile or mentally
handicapped suspects are involved, said Richard Ofshe, a sociologist
at the University of California at Berkeley who is familiar with
Butler's case and has testified in two other Jacksonville trials.
He said beatings are rare these days. Instead, he said, suspects
are given a break or a way to avoid the death penalty if they
agree to the interrogator's version of the crime.
"For someone who's scared
or desperate, that can lead an innocent person to confess because
they want to save their lives," Ofshe said. "One of
the problems, especially in high-profile cases, is police ...
are under such pressure to perform. That's very often when all
the stops come out and the worst forms of combat are displayed."
Butler, at the time a 15-year-old
Englewood High School student who set out that Sunday morning
to submit a job application at Blockbuster video, said in an
affidavit that detective Michael Glover, son of Sheriff Nat Glover,
threatened him with the electric chair, punched him and threatened
his parents. Another detective, Duane Darnell, punched him in
the eye and threatened to shoot him, Butler testified. His family
notified the city Feb. 4 of their intent to sue and yesterday
filed an internal affairs complaint alleging 46 procedural violations.
"To accept the conclusion
that the system worked, then you're going to have to accept the
hypothesis that false arrests and false, beaten confessions are
a legitimate part of the system," said the family's attorney,
Thomas Fallis.
Andre Butler, the teen's father,
said yesterday he hopes the apologies from police and prosecutors
are sincere, "but they will never make the family whole."
"It really hurts to know
that they would handle a child in that manner," Andre Butler
said. "We really want to make sure that a family will not
be sitting in front of you in the future. This should never have
happened."
Michael Glover (right) denied
the allegations. Darnell, who was transferred from homicide last
week, couldn't be reached for comment yesterday. Prosecutors
also said they knew nothing about a beating.
"There has never been
any evidence that this office was or is aware or that Brenton
Butler was physically abused in order to obtain a confession,"
State Attorney Harry Shorstein said Wednesday.
Still, Sheriff Glover has promised
an internal investigation that would include his son.
Butler's attorneys said the
problem could be eliminated if police taped confessions.
"I would certainly like
to see a change of policy in terms of alleged confessions being
recorded ... from the time they advise the suspect of his rights
until the interview with the suspect is completed," Assistant
Public Defender Ann Finnell said.
Ofshe said taped confessions
are policy in a number of police forces around the country and
required in Alaska and Minnesota.
"If police are required
to record their interrogations, bad tactics will ultimately be
eliminated, bad cops will ultimately be eliminated, and it will
eventually be possible for training to be improved," he
said. "The problem is that when push comes to shove, those
police who won't give up the right to break the law refuse to
do it. Most police, and there are lots of them, who know how
to do their jobs ... who know how to do interrogations, don't
object to the taping. The ones who are improperly trained ...
or rely on violence oppose it."
Frank Mackesy, chief of detectives
at the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, said police bought equipment
and planned to start taping all confessions before the Butler
case, but were told by the State Attorney's Office to hold off.
Since then, Glover has met with Shorstein on the issue and more
meetings are planned in coming weeks, Mackesy said.
Prosecutors did not return
phone calls yesterday.
Shorstein said earlier the
decision to prosecute also was bolstered by the fact that Butler
was identified by the victim's husband after police arrested
the youth and brought him back to the motel.
But though jurors often are
impressed by a confident eyewitness, that testimony can be tainted
by trauma, adrenaline, lighting or a host of other factors, said
Florida State University psychologist Jack Brigham, who has authored
45 studies on the subject. For instance, he said, the presence
of a gun causes the witness to focus more on the gun than on
the perpetrator's face, leading to a faulty memory when asked
to identify the perpetrator.
"Remembering faces in
general is difficult," he said. "If a face is observed
under poor witnessing conditions ... [that] can increase the
chances of very poor memory traces. What gets in is often very
weak or distorted.
"It's been demonstrated
that over half of all convictions of innocent persons are from
eyewitness mistakes."
Brigham cited a Justice Department
report that nearly all the cases overturned by the advent of
DNA evidence initially involved eyewitness testimony. He called
the Butler case a "classic example" of faulty eyewitness
testimony. Police brought Butler to James Stephens rather than
having Stephens pick him out of a lineup. And the fault isn't
Stephens', he said.
"He's doing his best in
a very difficult situation," Brigham said.
Andre Butler, the teen's father,
said yesterday he had no ill feelings toward Stephens but was
"disappointed that he didn't realize he made a mistake."
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
Monique Turenne: 
