See Cunningham v. Peters, 941 F.2d 535, 540 (7th Cir.1991); Rivera v. Director, Dep't of Corrections, 915 F.2d 280, 282 (7th Cir.1990); People v. Kokoraleis, 149 Ill.App.3d 1000, 1020-21, 103 Ill.Dec. The jurors heard a great deal of evidence relating to Butler's guilt or innocence. Although Brenton Butler was ultimately found not guilty by a jury, the due process which was not afforded to him, the torture from the police and the anguish of spending six months in prison for a crime he had absolutely nothing to do with, all because he was a black male in the vicinity of a cop on the day of a crime is proof positive of the Butler eventually confessed to the crime, even though the. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. But the record does not disclose the presence of any of these factors. Looking for a suspect, the police grabbed the first convenient person they spotted: a 15-year-old kid named Brent Butler. The case gained significant notice in the media, and became the subject of an award-winning documentary, Murder on a Sunday Morning. Brenton Butler scores a career high 40 points (2014) On January 04, 2014, Brenton Butler set his career high in points in a Denmark - Ligaen game. Andy Joiner and 20 days each for detectives Duane Darnell and Jim Williams. Brent Butler is on Facebook. After he spent months in prison, a jury deliberated less than an hour before acquitting him. It began with a brutal and senseless murder. coming on campus to pick up the girl. [8] Finally, on April 29, 2002, the Butler family accepted a $775,000 settlement from the city. If the declarant is available to testify, the confession does not qualify as a declaration against penal interest and it is excluded because it is hearsay. Brenton's father, Andre, testified that he had heard Brenton playing music in his room on the morning of May 7, 2000, and that he was there until about 10:25 a.m., when he and his wife went to church. If so, the confession should be admitted in evidence, and the jurors should be allowed to consider the alleged discrepancies, along with the evidence of corroboration. Directed by Veena Sud, the 10-episode program chronicles the precarious process that assistant prosecutor K.J. Contact us. Fred Burke was arrested by police in March 1931 but was charged with the December 1929 murder of a police officer and sentenced to life in prison for that crime. The third-party confession in Chambers was offered exclusively by the defense and was never endorsed as reliable by the state. With accrued credit, he was released immediately. His rapid acquittal spawned a grand jury probe, an Oscar-winning documentary and the conviction of two other men. The events of Butler's real life are not recreated in Seven Seconds, but his is a story worth knowing. And not interfere with the progress towards coming to a conclusion on the case. Jacksonville station News4Jax reported that Butler was arrested and charged in May 2000 with killing a Georgia tourist at a motel. Her late father wasJim Geisenburg, a cop who spent more than a decade as a homicide detective in Jacksonville, a witness to much evil and violence. It is true that certain aspects of Butler's statement, such as the location of the purse and the kind of weapon used, were inconsistent with other facts, but the question is not whether there is some evidence casting doubt on the confession. In Czubak v. State, 644 So.2d 93, 95 (Fla. 2d DCA 1994), for example, the court noted that, regardless of the provisions of section 90.804, Chambers requires the admission of such reliable hearsay statements of witnesses to a third-party confession even if the confessor was available as a witness at the trial. (emphasis added). Defense counsel also established that, after the Butler trial, police officers showed Mr. Stephens several photographs, including a photo of the defendant Curtis. She was also struck by its long-lasting significance. Additionally, I would have investigated and interviewed other hotel guests to see if they saw anything. on February 14. Its subject is the Brenton Butler case, a criminal case in which a fifteen-year-old African-American boy was wrongfully accused of murder. The film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 74th Academy Awards in 2002. The victim, Mary Ann Stephens, was shot in the head at point-blank range. In May 2000, two tourists from Georgia were accosted outside the Ramada Inn on University Boulevard. This.

Under the circumstances, this was a critical piece of evidence. He remained in the county jail until the Curtis trial. 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. While the national law for post-birth abortion is legal and binding, the law may not be legal under United Nations international treaties and statutes. (2001). [1], Butler was represented by Patrick McGuinness and Ann Finnell, two attorneys from the public defenders office. Published: 5/25/2004 6:45:29 PM. Mrs. Stephens did not move fast enough, so he pulled out a chrome revolver that he had found several days earlier. Brenton Butler Case Bibliography Associated Press. In an interview with The Fix , the 25-year-old Australian actor was asked what he . Brenton is a very friendly and talented barber. Our conclusions are necessarily based on the evidence presented in the record. Seven Seconds is a show made for a world in which Black Lives Matter is a powerful political presence and where young black men are statistically more likely to encounter police violence. That teenager becomes the center of a politically-charged confrontation between law enforcement and those they are meant to protect, but the story of the real Brenton Butler is far different from the story seen in Seven Seconds. We conclude that the trial court erred in excluding evidence that another person had confessed to the crime. It tells the story of the prosecution of Brenton Butler for the murder of Mary Ann Stephens, a tourist to Jacksonville, FL. [1] Butler subsequently confessed to the crime, and the case went to trial. The second factor the Court relied on in Chambers was that the confessions were corroborated by other evidence. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. The story that inspired "Seen" is, however, quite real: the case of Brenton Butler, a Jacksonville teen who in 2000 was arrested in themurder of a Georgia tourist, though he soon claimed his confession was coerced with forceby police. The police might be liable under international law while they have no liability in the United States. Butler was acquitted of murder and robbery charges in November 2000, according to News4Jax. Butler confessed to police officers, knowing that they were not there to help him and with full knowledge of the consequences. Mr. Stephens described the assailant as a young black man wearing cut off jeans and sneakers in two or three colors of blue. The gist of this testimony was that Jermel Williams told Bryant that he and Curtis had robbed a woman, and Curtis got mad at Williams for telling the story. Join Facebook to connect with Brenton Butler and others you may know. On a Sunday morning in 2000, Brenton Butler went from being a fifteen-year old high school student to a suspected criminal being held in a ten by ten room. The police, prosecutors, courts, prisons an .more Get A Copy

Mrs. Stephens' purse was recovered from a dumpster, but not as a result of any information provided by Jermel Williams. However, during the trial he testified that he had been . ``It was a poor piece of work,'' Gordon said of the case. When the police officers informed him that he had been identified by the victim's husband, he started crying and said, If that's the case, I need a lawyer. Butler asked to speak with the officers again that afternoon, but again he denied that he had committed the offense. Williams entered a plea to a reduced charge and became a witness for the state. Jablonski Jablonski was sentenced to 364 days of jail time (how disrespectful to not even round it up to a year). Click here to take a moment and familiarize yourself with our Community Guidelines. The detectives also can appeal it to the Civil Service Board or an arbitrator. Butler was picked up by police in May 2000 and taken to a Southside motel, where he was identified by the husband of Mary Ann Stephens of Toccoa, Ga., who was fatally shot during a robbery. Taking all of the relevant factors into consideration, we conclude that the exclusion of Butler's confession denied the defendant his right to a fair trial. Many will declare this case to be racial discrimination and racial profiling, due to the fact that Brenton was a black male like the murderer. All rights reserved. Many will declare this case to be racial discrimination and racial profiling, due to the fact that Brenton was a black male like the murderer. The Herschel Walker Unite Georgia bus tour rolled into Cleveland Wednesday morning to a large crowd of supporters in his bid for one of Georgia's U.S. Senate seats. We are aware of the fact that Brenton Butler's treatment by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office became the subject of a serious public controversy. Butler was acquitted by a jury of the May 2000 murder of Mary Ann Stephens, and later received apologies from Jacksonville's sheriff and top prosecutor, along with a $775,000 settlement from the city. Delegal, who's 57,comes from a police family and says the first letters she learned were J, P and D, for the old Jacksonville Police Department. The general principle that state evidence rules must, in some instances, yield to greater principles established by the Constitution has been applied specifically to require the admission of a confession by a third party. A few days later, the trial court adjudicated him guilty and sentenced him to life on the murder charge and fifty years on the robbery charge. 4/2/2002. During the investigation of a shooting death outside of a motel, police arrested 15-year-old Brenton Butler and . BOOTH, J., dissents with opinion. [1] Background [ edit] The prosecutor must have believed then that Butler's confession was reliable. The same is true of Butler's confession in this case. The job took its toll on him," she said. Now the state argues that the confession fails to meet the test of Chambers because it is unreliable, but the state is plainly not in a good position to make this argument. See Grim v. State, 841 So.2d 455, 464 (Fla.2003); Sliney v. State, 699 So.2d 662, 670 (Fla.1997); Gudinas v. State, 693 So.2d 953, 965 (Fla.1997); Hartley v. State, 686 So.2d 1316, 1321 (Fla.1996); Lightbourne v. State, 644 So.2d 54, 57 (Fla.1994).
Brenton Butler, who was accused of killing a Georgia tourist when he was 15, apparently drove to Indianapolis to see a girl he considers his girlfriend. Butler case spotlights interrogations: Family says police forced confession, Patrick McGuinness:Jacksonville defense lawyer, known from Oscar-winning film, dies at 70. Curtis contends that the trial court deprived him of the right to due process of law by excluding Butler's confession from evidence. The state does not contest this point. He shot 12/23 from two, 2/9 from three, shooting at 43.8% from the . In Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 93 S.Ct. Americans couldnt be investigated based on the First Amendment, which states that human has the freedom speech. The fallout included an apology to Butler and his family from the sheriff and state attorney, as well as a grand jury probethat criticized the police investigation and prosecutors for not thoroughly reviewing the evidence before indicting the teenager. [3] The grand jury investigation criticized the prosecutor and police for their handling of the case but found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Undersheriff John Gordon said Friday he recommended a 30-day suspension for Sgt. [2] Curtis was subsequently found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. If the directions we have received from the state legislature regarding the admission of evidence were all that we had to consider, the argument made here would be at an end. Though the series revolves around a black teenager by that name and highlights similar flaws in our systems of law and order, Seven Seconds is not based on the real Butler's life. Gooch v. McVicar, 953 F.Supp. Williams told the jury that he had no agreement with the state, and he denied that he had been promised a lighter sentence in return for his testimony against Curtis. "Seen" which recently won the Independent Publisher Book Award gold medal for best fiction novel in the Southeast regionis about a Black teen named Jason Royals. [2] The Butler case figured into the new trial; the judge allowed Curtis' lawyers to discuss the eye-witness identification, but ruled that Florida's evidence laws forbade them from using Butler's confession. Al S. JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA - Police have recommended three officers be suspended for their involvement in the case of a teen wrongly accused of killing a northeast Georgia tourist. Four years after he was acquitted in the slaying of a Georgia tourist, Brenton Butler took the witness stand Tuesday and described being beaten by a police . [1] Mary Ann Stephens was shot in the head in front of her husband and the killer fled. 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