Brenton Butler Case

After careful review of the assigned film titled “Murder on A Sunday” The viewer is introduced to the events that take place in Jacksonville, Florida on 7 May 2000 at approximately 0730. Mrs. Mary Ann Stevens was shot and killed in the breeze way of the Ramada. Stevens was accompanied by her husband Mr. Stevens, who was the only was the only eye witness in the case. Mr. Stevens identified 15 year old Brenton Butler as the shooter. Butler was arrested and charged with the murder of Mary Ann Steven. Detective James Williams, Detective Michael Glover and Detective Dwayne Darnell all testified stating that Mr. Butler signed a statement admitting to the shooting. Butler was assigned Ann Finnell and Patrick McGuinness to defend him in this case. This posed as a difficult and lengthy task for Finnell and McGuinness. They built a case surrounded by the facts of poor detective work, corruption, and falsely accusing a random …show more content…
Judges tend to come from upper-middle-class families, average more that fifty years of age, attend college and law school in their home states, and are typically born in the communities in which they preside(Barak, Leighton, and Cotton, 2014) In the case of Brenton Butler he was faced with this same demographic in his case. With all odds against him Butler and his defense prevailed. Brenton Butler was very lucky to have such a great legal team beside him to defend him in this case. Most indigent offenders (82%) are represented by public defenders (DeFrances and Litras, 2000) A 2007 survey of public defender offices found nearly 1,000 such offices in 49 states. These offices handle more than 5.5 million cases and had more than 15,000 attorneys (4,000 at the state level and 11,000 at county level) and nearly 10,000 full-time staff members (investigators, paralegals, and administrative staff). (Gabbidon and Greene,