Acquitted of killing, man testifies in case retrial
By Associated Press
Published October 13, 2004
JACKSONVILLE - 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 officer and threatened into signing a confession.
Jurors heard his testimony in the retrial of Juan Curtis, 26, who was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in 2002 for the May 7, 2000, slaying of Mary Ann Stephens. The Toccoa, Ga., resident was staying in a Ramada Inn in Jacksonville with her husband when she was fatally shot by a man who took her purse.
An appeals court gave Curtis a new trial after ruling the judge should have allowed his attorneys to introduce testimony about Butler's confession.
Butler was acquitted of the killing in November 2000 and his case was the subject of an HBO documentary, Murder on a Sunday Morning, which won the an Academy Award in 2002. His public defenders tipped police off to Curtis and Jermel Williams, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and has testified against Curtis.
Closing statements are scheduled today and the case may go to the jury this afternoon. If convicted, Curtis faces a maximum of life in prison.
Under questioning by special prosecutor Brad King, Butler said police picked him up as he was walking to a video store to apply for a job and accused him of robbing and killing the woman.
When Butler, who was 15 at the time, denied it, detectives "told me I was lying."
On Monday, the three detectives who interrogated and arrested Butler testified he gave the confession willingly after Stephens' husband said he was the killer. They denied hitting Butler.
After Butler's acquittal, State Attorney Harry Shorstein and then-Sheriff Nat Glover apologized.
In Curtis' first trial, jurors convicted him based on the strength of Williams' testimony and his fingerprint in Stephens' purse, found in a trash bin. It had not been tested before Butler's trial.
