I'm just curious if anybody thinks that this kid was really guilty? I came here expecting to see some debate like I did for boards on other courtroom documentaries (The Staircase, Paradise Lost, Capturing the Friedmans, etc.), but surprisingly found none!
The film was obviously presented to favor innocence and from what I saw, that certainly seems to be true. This film actually restored some of my faith in the American Judicial system.
I don't know about faith in the judicial system... It did expose some frightening police practices. I think that Butler was fortunate to get a public defender that actually cared about the outcome. I hope to think that the jury saw the cops squirming beneath their lies on the stand. I wouldn't want to roll the dice with my life in this judicial system.
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Amen
shareThe thing that I find is missing from these posts is an evaluation of the husband of the victim - The eye-witness.
He took great care to say in court how far down her arm his wife had got her purse before she was shot, and why not? It was a senseless crime and so it seemed right that the shot came from nowhere. But the inference in this statement is that she was going to give the guy her purse, but maybe wasn't doing it fast enough for his liking.
And then at the end there is a passing comment made by the assistant defence when the real killer is found that he shot her in the face because she threw her coffee at him when he demanded her purse.
The husband never mentioned this before, and the documentary crew made no further reference to it or padded it out further in the DVD extras.
It does,though, cast the Husband in a different light. Not that he come across that well to begin with, he's got that small town-small minded-bigot look about him, and I didn't find him believable. I just found it suprising that this was missing.
missing from this case... what scared me was the ability for incompetence to circumvent the prosecutor's office... they should have forced all the answers bringing the case... force the prosecuting attorney to answer why HIS/HER office was so inept to allow such a terrible evidence trail...
Yes, the husband angle is interesting but he was manipulated by the detectives. I think they bamboozled him to believing what they wanted him to believe... after all, the poor man was still in shock... how could anybody remember anything after being surprised, hearing a gun go off so closely, and seeing your dead wife all within 5 seconds... Logo? What logo?
2 Cheers for the public defenders.... thumbs down to the prosecuting attorney's office and the Sheriff Department...
My thinking is the gun went off. I dont think criminals typically rob someone for a purse and murder them. The guy said he was looking at the killers face, thats a lie. Ever had a gun pulled on you? I have, several times, you look at the gun. I felt bad for the husband, but eyewitness testimony is usually not very good, especially in traumatic situations like that. Typically when eyewitness testimony is all you have and there is no physical or circumstantial evidence at all, you've got a pretty bad case.
<< And then at the end there is a passing comment made by the assistant defence when the real killer is found that he shot her in the face because she threw her coffee at him when he demanded her purse.
The husband never mentioned this before >>
Well, to be fair, we can't be sure this coffee-throwing incident actually happened. The real killer may have said that to give himself SOME kind of excuse.
But I was struck by that, too.
No, didn't you hear that the guy they caught that admitted to doing it said that the lady spit in his face.
share*Reasonable Doubt* absolutely SCREAMED all over that poor old man's testimony.
IMO I don't think he deliberately lied. Although he is almost surely bigoted, he likely is of the (lower) intellectual and perceptive level of 'they all look alike' which is pathetic enough.
Guilty by association by being Caucasian, I am embarrassed and ashamed.
Please Brenton and family, please, try not to fear and hate us all;
although you have every right to do so :(
BTW, great point about the victim's throwing coffee not mentioned in Brentons trial. I also noted some of the syntax of the old man's testimony showed heavy practicing and coaching: if I remember correctly, he said about the perp's approach (may be paraphrased) "he proceeded towards us".
Yeah right. That likeliness of that phrase issuing new and as pure as Venus emerging newly born from the sea is about as likely as...
...well, me, stepping off of the half-shell looking just like that :D
"*Reasonable Doubt* absolutely SCREAMED all over that poor old man's testimony."
Exactly. Hence why the jury only took 45 min. to reach a verdict of not guilty ... and some of that time is spent selecting the foreperson. There were probably many, many things that rang in the ears of the jury; but one of the things for me is when the husband says, "No, the FIRST assailant" during the testimony about the logo. That almost seemed like a Freudian slip on his part that subconsciously he knew that guy that shot his wife and the kid the cops brought to him to identify were not the same person but, hey, the cops seemed to think this was the guy so it must be the guy, right? Excellent doc, scary to think how easily the DA took this case to trial with very little actual investigation. Eyewitness testimony is much more fallible than anyone realizes when able to be proven by forensic science that the witness got the wrong guy.
The lady prosecutor really bothered me. Especially her closing statement which basically said the husbands id of the kid was plenty of evidence.
shareI think Butler's chance of being convicted was higher than people think. I've often read of juries making notoriously bad decisions - both in acquitting and convicting people when they probably shouldn't.
sharePlease Brenton and family, please, try not to fear and hate us all;
although you have every right to do so :(
I'm sorry, I couldn't resist -- they have every right to do so? They have every right to fear and hate an entire race because of the actions of some individuals? That is exactly what racism is.
That kind of retarded white-guilt attitude perpetuates racism, it doesn't fight it.
@random_guy2
I'm sorry, I couldn't resist -- they have every right to do so? They have every right to fear and hate an entire race because of the actions of some individuals? That is exactly what racism is.
That kind of retarded white-guilt attitude perpetuates racism, it doesn't fight it.
"White guilt"? What a stupid statement. It's not even about that, it's about the fact that Florida, like most Southern states has a very long history of locking up innocent black folks just BECAUSE they were black--not always because they were actually always guilty. And that's something white people have ALWAYS done---hated,feared and made black people pay like hell for the actions of a few criminals who also happened to be black. Hell,that was standard operating procedure when it came to the treatment of black folks in the justice system--especially in the South. *beep* that white guilt bull****. Nobody's asking anybody to feel guilty about a damn thing.
what is really scary is that I am sure this is not the only case like this, and the only reason this kid got off is because he had a dedicated public defender. So many dont give a damn about the defendant to do that much work
shareIt was pretty obvious from the outset that the police grabbed a kid at random and tried to build a case around it. All the while watching this, I couldn't help but think of the time wasted while the real killer was free. Fortunately, he was caught later.
I wish I could say I liked this documentary more, but it was pretty obvious from the start they had the wrong person, and while I'm glad that justice was served, I thought this film was well made but not very riveting. 7/10 stars from me.
Shame on OP for even making this thread.
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