''Murder on a Sunday Morning'' (french: Un coupable idéal, lit. ''An Ideal Culprit'') is a 2001

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

directed by

Jean-Xavier de Lestrade Jean-Xavier de Lestrade (born 1 July 1963) is a French writer, director and producer of films and television series. Early life and education Lestrade was born in Mirande, Gers, in southwestern France. He studied law and journalism in Paris, an ...

. Its subject is the Brenton Butler case, a criminal case in which a fifteen-year-old

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

boy was wrongfully accused of murder. The film won the

Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature An academy ( Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosoph ...

at the

74th Academy Awards The 74th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), took place on March 24, 2002, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles. During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards (commonly ...

in 2002.

Background

Jacksonville Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the List of United States cities by area, largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the co ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, on the morning of Sunday, May 7, 2000, a tourist was murdered outside of a

Ramada Inn Ramada is a large American multinational hotel chain owned by Wyndham Hotels and Resorts. As of December 31, 2018, it operates 811 hotels with 114,614 rooms across 63 countries under the Ramada brand. Name The ''Ramada'' name derives from t ...

by an unknown African-American young man. A couple of hours later, fifteen-year-old Brenton Butler was stopped and questioned by police as he was walking past the crime scene, which was not far from his house. Although Butler was shorter and younger than the description of the shooter that was initially provided by the husband of the victim, who had been standing next to his wife when she was shot, the husband identified Butler as the killer, and Butler was arrested, interrogated for twelve hours without the presence of his parents or a lawyer, and signed a

confession A confession is a statement – made by a person or by a group of persons – acknowledging some personal fact that the person (or the group) would ostensibly prefer to keep hidden. The term presumes that the speaker is providing information th ...

. After this, the police seem to have stopped investigating, and Butler was charged and tried for murder without any

physical evidence In evidence law, physical evidence (also called real evidence or material evidence) is any material object that plays some role in the matter that gave rise to the litigation, introduced as evidence in a judicial proceeding (such as a trial) to ...

against him; the prosecution's case was based solely on the positive eyewitness identification and the confession, which Butler later testified he had signed due to physical coercion by police.

Summary

The film follows Butler's defense team as they build their case and present it in court. In the end, the

jury A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartial verdict (a finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Juries developed in England du ...

only deliberates for 45 minutes before finding Butler not guilty.

Aftermath

After Butler was

acquitted In common law jurisdictions, an acquittal certifies that the accused is free from the charge of an offense, as far as criminal law is concerned. The finality of an acquittal is dependent on the jurisdiction. In some countries, such as the ...

, the police and the prosecutors were heavily criticized by a grand jury that investigated the case and the behavior of the police. Eventually, the Duval County sheriff was put in charge of the murder case and ordered it reopened. In 2004, someone else was convicted of the murder.

References

External links

* 2001 films 2001 documentary films American documentary films Best Documentary Feature Academy Award winners Documentary films about law French documentary films History of Jacksonville, Florida Films shot in Jacksonville, Florida Documentary films about Florida 2000s English-language films 2000s American films 2000s French films {{hist-documentary-film-stub