Sabrina Butler - Expert Witness Testimony — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00[Music]
2. 0:05on the 12th of april 1989 sabrina butler
3. 0:09returned from jogging near her home in
4. 0:11columbus mississippi to find that her
5. 0:13infant son walter dean had stopped
6. 0:15breathing
7. 0:16she unsuccessfully attempted cpr before
8. 0:20rushing him to the local emergency room
9. 0:22where he later died
10. 0:24medical staff at the hospital noticed
11. 0:26bruises on the boy's body
12. 0:28and told police that they believed he
13. 0:30had been the victim of abuse
14. 0:32sabrina was interrogated by police and
15. 0:34despite protesting that the bruises were
16. 0:36a result of her attempts at cpr she was
17. 0:39arrested and charged with capital murder
18. 0:42at her trial the prosecution argued that
19. 0:44she had inflicted the fatal wounds
20. 0:46intentionally and she was found guilty
21. 0:49and sentenced to death before an appeal
22. 0:51granted her a new trial
23. 0:54in court it came out that walter dean
24. 0:56had likely died from a kidney problem
25. 0:58and that the original autopsy had been
26. 1:00inadequate
27. 1:01sabrina was exonerated and released in
28. 1:04december 1995.
29. 1:10when i came back from jogging i went in
30. 1:12the kitchen to get a bottle and took it
31. 1:14in the room and i noticed that he wasn't
32. 1:15breathing
33. 1:16i didn't know what to do the first
34. 1:18thought was just to grab him and run you
35. 1:21know just to try to get him some help
36. 1:24i found out later on the cpr that i was
37. 1:26doing was adult cpr
38. 1:28and i could hear him like making noises
39. 1:31but and i thought maybe it was working
40. 1:33you know what i mean on the way so i
41. 1:35kept on doing it because i thought maybe
42. 1:36that's what you
43. 1:38you know supposed to do when you do cpr
44. 1:40so
45. 1:41i kept on trying to do it until we got
46. 1:43to the hospital
47. 1:46when i got there they took it from me
48. 1:49and i stayed in the emergency room
49. 1:52i felt like it seemed like a long time
50. 1:54and they came out and they said there
51. 1:56was nothing they could do
52. 2:00the first thing came on my mind was you
53. 2:02know i left him at the house by himself
54. 2:04you know i'm gonna go to jail for
55. 2:06leaving him at the house by itself i
56. 2:08never in a million years thought that
57. 2:10they would say oh you killed your child
58. 2:14after they started questioning me at the
59. 2:16hospital they asked me to come to the
60. 2:18police station they started asking me a
61. 2:20bunch of questions and i was telling
62. 2:22them
63. 2:22what happened and he said naughty and
64. 2:24what happened he said you beat the baby
65. 2:26you stomped that baby you did this to
66. 2:27the baby and i kept saying no i didn't
67. 2:29do that and he said yeah you did you
68. 2:31killed that baby you know and every time
69. 2:34i write the statement out he'd take what
70. 2:36i said bottled up throw it away
71. 2:38and he wrote a statement out and they
72. 2:40kept screaming at me and then another
73. 2:42detective was in the room
74. 2:44and they scared me so bad
75. 2:47they had kept me up so long and i was
76. 2:49just saying whatever i could say for it
77. 2:51to be over
78. 2:53nine hours after he died i was charged
79. 2:56with murder
80. 3:01the quarter-point attorneys i had only
81. 3:04called one witness the state had 22.
82. 3:07they were expert witnesses
83. 3:09doctors and the coroner they made me
84. 3:11sound like a monster i mean they made me
85. 3:14sound like the worst person in the world
86. 3:16and i was saddened
87. 3:19by what they were saying but i knew i
88. 3:21couldn't do anything to change it
89. 3:23and i didn't understand a lot of it you
90. 3:25know what i'm saying because i was just
91. 3:27a young kid a young dumb kid really
92. 3:32i think that the jury believes the
93. 3:34expert witnesses because they're doctors
94. 3:36and they got ph degrees and all that
95. 3:38and they would say well they have no
96. 3:39reason to lie you know
97. 3:41and this got to be true
98. 3:43the jury really listened to them they
99. 3:45really did
100. 3:46when they found me guilty and they had
101. 3:48sentenced me to die i just gave up
102. 3:51i just said that you know my life is
103. 3:53over
104. 3:56i sit on the floor in that cell
105. 3:58i know i cried for two weeks
106. 4:02there was one girl already on death row
107. 4:04i was in the city in my cell alone and
108. 4:06she was in her cell alone
109. 4:08and our toilets were like connected
110. 4:10together so we would get on the floor
111. 4:12and use those as telephones to talk
112. 4:14back and forth
113. 4:16you know and she had been on death row
114. 4:17longer than me
115. 4:18so she would kind of talk to me you know
116. 4:21and keep me going
117. 4:22[Music]
118. 4:26i stayed on there for actually two years
119. 4:28nine months um they overturned my
120. 4:31sentence and i was under the impression
121. 4:33that i was going to go right on back to
122. 4:34court but the district attorney made me
123. 4:36sit in the county jail three more years
124. 4:39until i went to trial
125. 4:43the expert witnesses that the state had
126. 4:45most of all of them recant their story
127. 4:47they were like well cpr could have been
128. 4:50the cause of this you know
129. 4:52why her son died like he did and the uh
130. 4:56coroner said that at the time he did
131. 4:58diatoms the state really didn't have no
132. 5:00money so they kind of just throw that
133. 5:02out toxic together
134. 5:04i just was like
135. 5:06are you serious because these are
136. 5:08professional people and they're supposed
137. 5:10to be you know where they can tell
138. 5:12exactly what's going on
139. 5:14and all of a sudden you know they change
140. 5:16their stories
141. 5:22i'm the only female currently in the
142. 5:24united states that's ever been
143. 5:25exonerated of all different inmates it's
144. 5:27144 of us i think
145. 5:30right now um
146. 5:32i have two more children i'm married i'm
147. 5:35coach of my daughter's softball team
148. 5:38it's affected me tremendously because
149. 5:40even now
150. 5:41today when my children my husband asleep
151. 5:43i walk through my house and i check them
152. 5:46constantly i don't still don't sleep as
153. 5:48good
154. 5:49because i want to make sure they don't
155. 5:51nothing happened on my watch
156. 5:56[Music]