Brenton Butler case
| Brenton Butler case | |
|---|---|
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| Court | Duval County Courthouse |
| Full case name | State of Florida v. Brenton Leonard Butler |
| Decided | November 21, 2000 |
| Court membership | |
| Judge(s) sitting | Waddell Wallace |
The Brenton Butler case (officially State of Florida v. Brenton Leonard Butler) was a murder case in Jacksonville, Florida. During the investigation of a shooting death outside of a motel in 2000, police arrested 15-year-old Brenton Butler and charged him with the murder. Butler subsequently confessed to the crime, and the case went to trial. However, during the trial he testified that he had been brutalized into his confession, and he was acquitted. The case gained significant notice in the media, and became the subject of an award-winning documentary, Murder on a Sunday Morning.
In May 2000, two tourists from Florida were accosted outside the Ramada Inn on University Boulevard. Mary Ann Stephens was shot in the head in front of her husband and the killer fled. 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. Butler was brought to the victim's husband, who identified him as the killer.
Police brought Butler in for questioning without a parent or attorney present or informing his parents of his whereabouts, and coerced him into confessing to the murder by signing a timeline of events written by Detective Williams. State Attorney Harry Shorstein decided to prosecute the case. During the trial, Butler went on to testify that two detectives involved in the investigation, including Michael Glover, son of the then current Sheriff Nat Glover, had physically abused him and intimidated him into confessing.
Butler was represented by Patrick McGuinness and Ann Finnell, two attorneys from the Public defenders office. They supplied a photograph of Butler with bruises on his face, which they claimed was the result of the interrogation. 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. State Attorney Shorstein and Jacksonville Sheriff Glover took the unusual steps of apologizing to Butler and re-opening the case of two unrelated suspects. However, Michael Glover denied the allegations against him, and Shorstein said there was no evidence that Butler had been physically abused during the interrogation.
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