The same is true of Butler's confession in this case. FindLaw.com Free, trusted legal information for consumers and legal professionals, SuperLawyers.com Directory of U.S. attorneys with the exclusive Super Lawyers rating, Abogado.com The #1 Spanish-language legal website for consumers, LawInfo.com Nationwide attorney directory and legal consumer resources. Brenton Leonard Butler) was a murder case in Jacksonville, Florida. She had eight test readers, four of them Black, read the book before publishing, to offer opinions and advice. According to their attorney, the family decided to settle for various reasons, including concerns about how long the case would drag on and the difficulty in proving the case under federal civil rights law.[9]. "Acquitted of Killing, Man Testifies in Case Retrial." St. Petersburg Times (Florida), 13 October 2004. http . Betty Brenton of Foxboro received a big surprise when her children made an exhibit of her own art at the Happy Hollow Gallery in Mansfield and hosted a reception attended by a . He said that he put the gun inside the purse and threw the purse into the woods near the motel. 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. "Seen" is self-published,with a cover by Jacksonville artist Hope McMath, former executive director of the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, and founder of the Yellow House gallery in Riverside.
Laws and rules in our justice system are in place to make trials fair for everyone. By First Coast News StaffJACKSONVILLE, FL -- Brenton Butler, whose court case led to an Academy Award for HBO, is .
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 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. A grand jury determined that there had been no "criminal wrongdoing" on the part of the city, but changes to the department's interrogation policy were instituted. He was charged. They were white, middle-aged tourists from Georgia staying at a motel. Butler subsequently confessed to the crime, and the case went to trial. 15 year old wrongly accused of murder What did the black detective (Mr. Glover) do that was unethical and unlawful to Brenton? In particular, Butler views the Tenth Amendment as a mere tautology, a view which has changed in subsequent cases. Without it, the jurors could not have considered the remaining facts in a proper context. Like Butler, he is 15 when he's picked up by police after a woman from Georgia is shot at a nearby hotel. The cops figured they had it solved in record time. He should have ordered that the other officers go back to court because they played a part in the beating also. See 90.804(2), Fla. Stat. Brenton just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The central question of Seven Seconds, Netflix's new 10-part miniseries from Veena Sud (the creator of AMC and Netflix's The Killing ), is never who killed Brenton Butler, a . As these opinions implicitly recognize, a trial judge may be required to admit a third-party confession under constitutional principles, even if it does not qualify as a declaration against penal interest under the state law of evidence. Butler did not attempt to shift part of the blame to someone else. Curtis' lawyer objected to the exclusion of Butler's confession to the police. The court did not attempt to explain why that is the case. Brenton Butler Murder Case. Butler's family sued the city of Jacksonville over the ordeal, alleging racial profiling and inadequate training, and the parties settled on a $775,000 payout. Brenton Butler was solely charged based on the fact that, an eye witness, Mr. Stephens identified Brenton as the murderer. Director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade Stars Ann Finnell Patrick McGuinness James Williams See production, box office & company info Watch on Freevee Watch Free on Freevee TermsPrivacyDisclaimerCookiesDo Not Sell My Information, Begin typing to search, use arrow keys to navigate, use enter to select, Stay up-to-date with FindLaw's newsletter for legal professionals. Trending Videos The do's and don'ts of. Officer Williams said that he asked Mr. Stephens, Are you absolutely sure if this is the individual that you feel shot your wife? Stephens said, Yes, I am. According to Officer Williams, Mr. Stephens then emphasized the point by saying, I'm not going to send an innocent man to jail.. Undersheriff John Gordon said Friday he recommended a 30-day suspension for Sgt. Yet, all other things being equal, the availability of the declarant might be the very thing that requires the court to admit the confession as a matter of constitutional law, despite the Evidence Code. 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. We have no doubt that, if the defendant were the one who had confessed and then subsequently recanted his confession, the state could make a very effective argument to minimize the recantation. Mrs. Stephens gave him a mean look and mumbled a racial slur under her breath. However, during the trial he testified that he had been . The writers behind Seven Seconds gave us a real ending to the trial involving the tragic death of Brenton Butler and its cover-up. ``It was a long way from being our best example of what our detectives could do.
Select the best result to find their address, phone number, relatives, and public records. Butler had been identified by the victim's husband and he had confessed to police officers that he shot Mrs. Stephens. The Brenton Butler case (officially State of Florida v. Brenton Leonard Butler) was a murder case in Jacksonville, Florida. TV dramas don't get much timelier than Seven Seconds. Mr. Stephens described the assailant as a young black man wearing cut off jeans and sneakers in two or three colors of blue. The officers went with Butler to search the woods for the purse but did not find it. In his defense, Curtis presented evidence that Mr. Stephens had originally identified Brenton Butler. About fifteen minutes later, Curtis returned to the car and said, Drive. As they were driving away, Curtis told Williams that, when he snatched the purse, the lady threw coffee on him and the gun went off. Gooch v. McVicar, 953 F.Supp. his clip in gaol and other unfairnesss in the probe. Useful 1.
At a hearing early Wednesday, he posted $30,000 bond and was released on the condition he was not to have any contact with the girl. This rule effectively thwarted Chambers' effort to force an admission that McDonald had made a series of oral confessions to the crime. Butler was acquitted of murder and robbery charges in November 2000, according to News4Jax. Nor is the due process problem identified in Chambers resolved merely because Florida recognizes an exception to the hearsay rule for declarations against penal interest. The announcement comes less than a month after Brenton Butler's family reached a $775,000 settlement with the city of Jacksonville.
The film Murder On A Sunday Morning, a documentary about Butler's arrest and the trial that followed, was released only a year later, and addressed how public opinion impacted the case. Murder On A Sunday Morning producer Denis Poncet told The Guardian of being in town during the trial, "Everyone came up to us and said, 'You're crazy, this kid is guilty.'" That may be what happened here, but there is no indication of it in the record. The case against Butler proceeded to trial, but he was acquitted. Police in Marion County, Ind., said they got a call that the 17-year-old girl was struggling with Butler and he was arrested on charges of criminal confinement, intimidation and domestic battery. However, the assailant shot and kill her. Brenton is the son of a middle-aged, middle-class black couple: his mother Latrice (King) works at a private school full of snotty white kids; his father Isaiah sweeps blood at a slaughterhouse. It began with a brutal and senseless murder. 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. Join Facebook to connect with Brenton Butler and others you may know. Williams entered a plea to a reduced charge and became a witness for the state. The Butler case was the subject of the French documentary film Murder on a Sunday Morning, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 74th Academy Awards in 2001. There is no need to be in denial when it 's a widespread problem that is heard about daily. [1] The jury deliberated for less than an hour before finding Butler not guilty; one juror later cited the testimony about the interrogation as one of the key factors in their decision. These people, these imaginary people, took on lives of their own, and I needed to do them right by finishing their story.. This argument is made with an acknowledgment that Butler's confession did not meet the formal requirements of the declaration against penal interest exception to the hearsay rule. The wrong person spent months in jail. However, Butler testified that he was beaten and coerced into making a confession. He argued that under the circumstances of the case, the exclusion of the confession would deprive him of his constitutional right to a fair trial. 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. However, it's not at all accidental that Seven Seconds is using Butler's exact name. The end goal of the officers was to arrest a dangerous man and get him off the street, but by not fulfilling a technicality that the man was released and free even after stating everything he was charged for was true. Minor injuries in Gainesville car accident, Piedmont student receives Coca-Cola scholarship, Hall County Board of Education Post 1 candidates discuss school improvements, Hodie Meats opening Alto further processing facility, Trump Org. And so do a surprising number of innocent people--teenagers in particular. The trial judge adhered to his earlier ruling and held that the proffered confession by Brenton Butler was inadmissible in evidence. [1] During the subsequent investigation, police picked up Butler, a 15-year-old student at Englewood High School who was on his way to submit a job application to a local Blockbuster Video. A flash flood watch has been posted for most of northeast Georgia. 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. Another man, Gable McDonald, had made a series of oral confessions to the crime several hours after it was committed. Butler was arrested and charged in May 2000, presence of racism in the American criminal justice system, how institutions treat marginalized populations, young black men are statistically more likely to encounter police violence. During the trial, however, Butler testified that two detectives involved in the investigation, including Michael Glover, son of the then current Sheriff Nat Glover, had intimidated and physically abused him into confessing. " 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. According to Officer Martin, Mr. Stephens said that there was no doubt in his mind that Butler was the shooter. See Chambers, 410 U.S. at 300-301, 93 S.Ct.
She was also struck by its long-lasting significance. Federal courts have come to the same conclusion. See United States v. MacDonald, 688 F.2d 224, 232 n. 13 (4th Cir.1982). [4], After Butler's acquittal, his attorneys tipped the Sheriff's Office to two other suspects, Juan Curtis and Jermel Williams. In Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 93 S.Ct. However, it would not be appropriate for us to take into account the news articles written about the case in evaluating Butler's confession. That is what the Court said in Chambers, and we are not at liberty to disagree. The Brenton Butler case was a 2000 murder case in Jacksonville, Florida. We have been unable to find the answer to this riddle in any of the court opinions addressing the Chambers case in the context of the declaration against penal interest exception to the hearsay rule.2 All we can say for certain is that availability is a key element in the constitutional argument for admitting a confession by another person. 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