A killer made to measure
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | A killer made to measure |
| Original title | Un coupable ideal |
| Country of production | USA , France |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2003 |
| length | 111 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Jean-Xavier de Lestrade |
| production |
Denis Poncet , Yves Jeanneau , Christine Le Goff |
| music | Hélène Blazy |
| camera | Isabelle Razavet , |
| cut |
Ragnar Van Leyden Pascal Vernier |
Murder on a Sunday Morning (. English Title: Murder on a Sunday Morning ) is an Oscar-award-winning documentary of 2003 , of a murder case from the year 2000 in Jacksonville , Florida tracing in which a black teenager is accused of having shot a white tourist. The film primarily shows the trial and focuses on the work of the public defender.
The case
On the morning of May 7, 2000, an elderly Georgia couple was ambushed by a young black man outside the Ramada Inn hotel in Jacksonville, Florida . The perpetrator steals the wife's handbag. A shot is fired that hits the woman in the head and kills her immediately. Immediately after the crime, the victim's husband describes the perpetrator as a male African American , tall, slim, in his mid-twenties, with black shorts, a plain-colored T-shirt and a baseball cap. Based on the description, the police issue a wanted man.
About two and a half hours after the crime, 15-year-old African American Brenton Butler, who lives a few blocks away with his family, stops by the scene of the crime to go to a local video store for an interview. He is stopped by a random police patrol and questioned about the crime. He then voluntarily gets into the vehicle to be questioned by one of the detectives who are still at the scene. There, the victim's husband, who is also still present, is asked whether this was the perpetrator. Although Brenton's appearance differs greatly from his first description, he is significantly younger and shorter and wears a blue "Nautica" T-shirt and glasses, the man claims that the boy in the back seat of the police vehicle was definitely his wife's murderer.
At the police station, the boy repeatedly protests his innocence during interrogations. The investigators drive him to a nearby wooded area. One of the officers goes alone with the handcuffed Brenton Butler deep into the forest near the scene of the crime, allegedly to look for the suspected murder weapon and the victim's handbag. Although it is quite dark there, he does not have a flashlight with him. According to the boy, he punched him in the stomach and face with boxing lashes. Photos of facial swelling support this claim. Later on at the police station, the youth signed a confession that was formulated and written down by an investigator. The next day, he revokes his confession. His family swears that he was still home at the time of the crime. The public prosecutor's office is still bringing charges .
The procedure
The film begins when the office of the public appointed lawyer from Jacksonville with the Defense commissioned the young person. Pat McGuinness, a chain-smoking lawyer of Irish descent, and his boyish colleague Ann Finnell are veteran criminal defense attorneys. You take on the matter and begin to meticulously investigate the background. The case will be heard in the criminal court. In her opening speech, the prosecutor told the jury that she had irrefutable evidence that unequivocally substantiated the guilt of the accused: the testimony of the victim's husband and a signed confession from the accused.
Attorney Finnell said the defense will prove that the defendant did not and could not have committed the crime. Instead of believing his insistent assurances, they threatened the boy massively and eventually even hit him in order to force a confession out of him.
Right at the beginning of the testimony , the victim's husband actually identifies the accused as the perpetrator in the courtroom. He seems quite sure. In cross-examination, however, Ann Finnell succeeds in shaking his testimony. The man admits that he saw the perpetrator for a maximum of five seconds. The witness initially claimed that the perpetrator had worn a T-shirt with a company logo from the company "Nautica" that belonged to Brenton. Then he turns and says the boy wore it when he was identified. So the attorney Finnell can show that he is inclined to say what people want to hear from him. He does not want to be able to remember the fact that he first gave a police officer at the crime scene a description of the perpetrator that does not apply to the defendant.
In the further course of the hearing, the defense lawyers clarify the omissions of the investigating police officers. They did not investigate where the boy was supposed to have got the murder weapon and the corresponding ammunition, nor what happened to the weapon after the crime. The officials do not clarify what he is said to have done with the looted money, nor the lack of bloody clothing. No major effort has been made to retrieve the victim's stolen bag, which is only found the next day by a man accidentally in a garbage can nine miles from the crime scene. How the boy supposedly got them there on foot is not explained. Although, as it turns out much later, it provides clear evidence, it is not investigated further. Failure to take fingerprints on the garbage can. A test for smoke traces would have immediately clarified whether Brenton recently fired a firearm; this was also omitted. The defendant's home was not searched and no attempt was made to find any other witnesses who might have seen him on the way to or from the crime scene. It also turns out that neither the minor's parents were informed in good time, nor that a lawyer was appointed to assist him. The detective in charge is confronted with the facts by defense attorney Pat McGuiness on the witness stand and eventually cornered to the point of having to admit that the police have not investigated thoroughly and responsibly.
One gains more and more the impression that the officers did not bother to critically question the first appearances during their investigative work and to investigate further in other directions. Instead, they seem to have been quick to settle for having a suspect and just focus on blaming him for the crime. The defense attorney cross-examines the interrogator who took the confession. At first the man appears arrogant and arrogant. But Pat McGuinness shows how the officer manipulated the boy's testimony. He had put his service weapon on the table in front of the boy, formulated the entire confession word for word and handwritten it himself. The lawyer holds the investigator in front of formulations that obviously do not come from a 15-year-old teenager. The man claims that the boy just said what it said. McGuinness persistently asks why he didn't write it down as the boy said. "You just liked your own words better, didn't you?" The interrogator is increasingly on the defensive. His colleague, who observed the interrogation in the surveillance room, cannot remember any of the alleged statements of the accused written down in the protocol. In the end, the interrogator admits that he has not checked any statement in the protocol for its truthfulness. The man has to meekly admit that the boy didn't say any of these sentences himself. McGuinness has massively shaken the credibility of the so-called confession.
The officer who went into the woods with Brenton to allegedly search for the murder weapon is the son of the Jacksonville sheriff and is known to be an expert in getting suspects to confess. He is confronted with the accusation of beating Brenton there. Witnesses document the injuries the boy suffered after visiting the forest. The policeman denies everything, but Pat McGuiness manages to cast doubt on his credibility. He only got a scholarship for college because he was a good boxer. He provokes him with the question of whether his only qualification, as an interrogator for the homicide squad, is to be able to strike well. Even the indignant objection of the public prosecutor can no longer dispel this impression.
The defendant's deeply religious family firmly believes in his innocence and never loses their unwavering belief in justice during the trial. When they visit the detention center, they pray with their son. The entire parish stands behind him and holds services for Brenton. In a moving statement, the mother stands up for her son. Some people in the courtroom come to tears, including for the first time the young defendant, who until then had endured everything stoically. When the public prosecutor rudely interrupted the crying mother's testimony and protested because these testimony did not lead to anything, the mood in the courtroom finally turned against the indictment. When the prosecutor questioned Mrs. Butler, she wanted to urge them to testify that she saw her son at the washing machine on the morning of the crime in order to subliminally explain the missing bloody clothes to the jury.
The day before the verdict was announced, Pat McGuiness confessed to the filmmakers that he was personally involved in the case. He firmly believes in the innocence of the boy who tomorrow is about freedom or a whole life in prison. He hoped he did everything he could to win the case for him. A guilty verdict would hit him particularly hard.
In her plea, the prosecutor continues to insist on the guilt of the accused. The testimony of the only eyewitness proves beyond reasonable doubt that Brenton Butler was guilty of the murder. The allegation that the police beat the accused in order to obtain a confession is outrageous.
In his haunting closing remarks, Pat McGuiness reiterates all of the questionable aspects of the case. He asks the jury if they might be satisfied with the work of the investigators in this case. There was still a dangerous man out there between 20 and 25 years old, slim, about 180 cm tall, and carrying a gun. There is a great risk that he could harm people again, and all because the police did not do their job as it should have done. He appeals to her to give the Butler family a happy Thanksgiving and give them back their son, who is clearly a victim of police arbitrariness. After that, the jury withdraws to deliberate.
Just as Pat McGuiness lit a cigarette in the parking lot in front of the court, he got a call. After just 45 minutes, the jury is back with a verdict . They declare the defendants not guilty on all charges . Brenton takes this happily, but relatively calmly. The family, on the other hand, is beside themselves with joy. The father clenches his fists in triumph, the mother is shaken with tears of joy. Apparently relieved himself, the judge releases the boy from prison and thanks the jury for their service to society. Overjoyed, the boy embraces his family.
After the judgment
Four months after Brenton Butler's acquittal, public defender Pat McGuinness receives a tip from another client. A young man who fits Mr. Stevens's first description is convicted and brought to justice. His fingerprints are found on the handbag of the murdered woman. Brenton Butler's attorney said he confessed to assaulting the couple and shooting the woman. He will later be sentenced to twice life imprisonment with no prospect of parole.
In the end credits it is reported that the sheriff's office and the prosecution apologized to Brenton Butler for the false allegation and six months of wrongful pre- trial detention . The investigators were transferred from the homicide squad but were not charged with their misconduct. They investigated negligently, but it cannot be proven that they acted with bad intent. Brenton Butler's family received compensation.
In 2004, Brenton Butler published a book about his case.
The Florida police have been much more critical of eyewitness statements since this case. The interrogation methods have been revised. Suspect interrogations are now generally recorded on video.
background
The film shows how a young black man, who is completely innocent and should initially only be asked whether he has observed anything, is quickly treated as a suspect solely because of his skin color and charged with a forced confession.
It makes it clear how very suggestive situations can influence an eyewitness . Because he subconsciously assumes that a young black man in the back seat of a police vehicle must have committed a crime, under the impression of the murder of his wife, which he witnessed at close range immediately before, he may have had the feeling the officers who have caught a perpetrator so quickly that they cannot disappoint - although the boy is 10 to 12 years younger and a good 15 cm smaller than in the original description, which the man himself gave immediately after the crime. Once committed, the witness now firmly believes that he has identified the correct perpetrator and can no longer distance himself from his own testimony. A professional comparison with several similar-looking people would presumably have exonerated the defendant immediately.
Under the considerable pressure of the media to have to quickly present a perpetrator because a white tourist was murdered in Florida, this dubious testimony of the witness alone determines the whole further process. Everything is only aimed at confirming the boy's culprit. The duty to look for possible relieving points of view is completely neglected, alternatives are ignored. The defense succeeds in conveying the impression that standard procedures, such as a house search, questioning the surroundings or a smoke test, are deliberately omitted because they could have produced relieving results.
You can see how an innocent young person from a poor family might have received a life sentence if it had not been for a particularly dedicated team of public defenders. The film breaks with the stereotype that only wealthy citizens can be adequately defended in the US because they are able to pay expensive lawyers.
The film should also be seen as a critical examination of the US judicial system . Subsequently, Jean-Xavier de Lestrade made another documentary about the judiciary in the USA, The Staircase: Death on the Staircase , which accompanies the trial against the writer Michael Iver Peterson , who is accused of killing his wife. He is also the producer of the crime series " The Law of Las Vegas ", which, similarly structured, accompanies negotiations on murder cases from the gambling metropolis, especially from the point of view of the law firm for compulsory defense. In Germany, the series was broadcast by arte and ARD .
After retiring from the Public Defense Office in 2008, McGuinnes and Finnell became partner attorneys at a Jacksonville law firm.
Awards
The film won the Oscar for Best Documentary in 2002 .
Reviews
“This French documentary is one of the best I've seen. . . . Its strength lies in the calm chronological structure. "
"For anyone interested in a realistic look into the American justice system - apart from the usual Hollywood portrayals - this Oscar-winning documentary is an excellent study of a murder trial from start to finish."
"... shows the ugly grimace of naked injustice."
“Snappy, chain-smoking public defender Pat McGuinness senses that the charge stinks to heaven and builds a defense for Butler that will continue to serve as a textbook contribution to excellent law for decades. - While the trial itself will undoubtedly forever stand as an example of the dangerousness and bias of rapid justice. "
Web links
- Murder on a Sunday Morning in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Murder on a Sunday Morning (2001) - Article in the New York Times
- Homepage of the law firm McGuiness, Finnell, Nezami & Andux
Individual evidence
- ↑ Angry Young Man in: The Guardian, October 18, 2002
- ↑ The Butler Case in: The Florida Times Union, November 21, 2010 ( Memento of the original from April 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Homepage of Brenton Butler
- ↑ The legacy of the Brenton Butler case in: The Florida Times Union, November 21, 2010 ( Memento of the original from October 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Homepage of the law firm of McGuinnes and Finnell
- ↑ Brian Gibson at rottentomatoes
- ↑ contactmusic.com
- ↑ Hollywood Reporter ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Hal Erickson in the New York Times
