IMAGES FROM Selma Butler’s life, sentenced to 50 years after a 45-minute trial. Clockwise: Butler, courtroom, Robert Taylor Homes, and 1995 crime scene bedroom.
The trial began with no opening statements. Time flew by as the public defender asked few to no questions from witnesses presented by prosecutors.
There were photos and individuals available to prove that Selma Butler didn’t kill Angela Young, stabbed 65 times in her apartment in the Robert Taylor Homes public housing project decades ago. The teenager’s public defender didn’t use any of them to prove his client’s innocence.
More than 25 years ago, Butler, a Black teenager from a poor family on the South Side, stood helpless as he was convicted, with no evidence, in a trial that lasted a mere 45 minutes, or less than the average workday lunch break.
The closing argument from the prosecutor took an estimated 90 seconds. Butler’s public defender took even less time with his closing statements.
There was no jury that decided Butler’s fate. Instead, a judge convicted Butler after hearing the false testimony of a scared 6th-grade boy, who as the State’s main witness, said 11 times in court that police forced him to say Butler did it and carried out a gruesome murder. Selma Butler ended up serving 25 years in jail as an innocent man.
Butler’s case gets even worse. He had a co-defendant, Gino Wilson, 16, who like Butler was a student at Wendell Phillips High School in Bronzeville. He was charged with the same crime with similar evidence. The two were tried under the same judge, who acquitted Wilson but not Butler. While Butler spent decades in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, Wilson remained a free man for most of his life.
It’s an old criminal case that has come back to haunt the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, which could have had Butler’s conviction thrown out. But instead, the agency in the last six years has fought Butler’s efforts in getting his case overturned in Cook County’s notorious criminal justice system, where delays and continuances have forced Butler’s post-conviction case to drag on for years.
When Butler was convicted in 1998 of first-degree murder, he knew his public defender did a bad job representing him. But decades later, Butler learned just how poor was the legal representation he received, when he and his new attorneys uncovered crime photos and documents his public defender never presented in court. DNA tests and credible witnesses who could have helped Butler win his case were obtained.
When an Appellate Court reviewed Butler’s conviction, several judges grew disturbed and expressed alarm at how poorly his public defender represented him and the amount of unused evidence that was available to prove his innocence.
Butler was granted an evidentiary hearing after the Appeals Court concluded that he demostrated “substantial showing of actual innocence.” In fact, the appellate judges were so convinced of his innocence they said, had all the available evidence been presented during Butler’s extremely short trial, he would likely have been acquitted.
“I’ve never seen a record like this,” said Justice Terry Lavin in a hearing with the Illinois Appellate Court, First District. “Waived opening statements; first witnesses no question, no question, no question, then four questions. You didn’t even need a lunch break and the case is over.”
But despite the appellate ruling and overwhelming evidence supporting Butler’s innocence, the State’s Attorney’s Office is determined to keep Butler a convicted felon. As bad as Butler’s public defender was, the State’s Attorney’s Office believes justice was served and that Butler received fair legal representation. They plan to make their case September 4 at an evidentiary hearing that was scheduled for June 25 after a string of delays that have forced Butler to wait for his day in court since 2022.
In 1998, one of the shortest and most bizarre trials in Chicago history took place at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse on the West Side. The trial and verdict represented a new low for Cook County’s notorious criminal justice system and the county’s overburdened public defender’s office responsible for representing poor defendants charged with the most serious crimes.
On November 13, 1995 Butler was a 17-year-old student at Wendell Phillips High School. He lived with his aunt on the 10th floor of the Robert Taylor Homes at 4331 S. Federal. Three floors above him lived 34-year-old Angela Young, a single mother who for three years lived in unit 1301. But on this day, Young was dead.
Wearing black lingerie, and black and brown shorts, Young had been stabbed 65 times. Police found her body in a pool of blood on the floor of her bedroom. Blood splatter covered the walls and some of it stained the blanket that covered the made-up bed. In the kitchen, police found Young’s wig on the floor. They also found sprinkles of blood on the stove.
An autopsy report concluded that Young had been stabbed in the head, chest and back and in the right hand. Her mother, Luster Young, identified her body; the funeral was held on November 20, three days before Thanksgiving.
One day after the murder, Butler was picked up and taken to the Area 1 Police Station where he was read his Miranda rights. During a polygraph test, police detective Bernard Ryan testified that Butler admitted to being at Young’s apartment on the day of her murder. But Butler never signed a document or recorded his alleged confession to Ryan, who was never questioned or challenged during Butler’s trial by Butler’s public defender, George Grzeca.
Butler and Wilson were taken into police custody after police said two other teenagers, Antonio Thomas, 16, and Earl Gilmore, 14, told them they had been with Butler and Wilson as they entered Young’s apartment where they allegedly stabbed her to death.
Both Thomas and Gilmore were already in police custody and had credibility problems. Thomas had been serving time for burglary, and Gilmore was in police custody for violating a curfew. The four boys knew each other through their experiences with the Robert Taylor Homes. Their young lives were forever changed after Young’s murder.
For this story, the Crusader reviewed nearly 300 pages of police documents, court transcripts, grand jury statements and investigative documents from the State’s Attorney’s office, obtained from Butler’s attorneys, Ashley Cohen and Jennifer Bonjean.
Prosecutors believe Butler and Wilson together participated in Young’s murder. They were charged with first-degree murder and home invasion. Under Judge Joseph Urso, they were tried in separate bench trials.
Court transcripts show Thomas testified at Wilson’s trial in March 1998. Thomas in court documents said he and Wilson were friends for years. Police said Thomas told them he was at Young’s apartment and saw Butler kill her. But his testimony was different.
Thomas said in court that he was at his home at 63rd and Whipple when Young was killed in her apartment. Thomas then said ‘no’ 42 times to open-ended questions by prosecutor Maria Kuriakos, who kept trying to get him to repeat answers he allegedly told her during an earlier conversation in a back room before the trial.
On April 18, 1998 Judge Urso acquitted Wilson of first-degree murder and home invasion in connection with Young’s death. That meant no jail sentence or murder conviction on Wilson’s record.
Believing he would get the same outcome, Grzeca, Butler’s public defender, persuaded his client to also have his case decided in a bench trial, where Judge Urso would decide his fate instead of a jury.
During Butler’s trial, Thomas did not testify, despite documents that showed he was available to do so. Among those to testify were Ryan and police detectives who investigated the crime scene.
The State’s main witness was Gilmore, a 14-year-old 6th-grade student at Ludwig Beethoven Elementary School in Bronzeville. Gilmore provided testimony based on statements he made to a Grand Jury the same month Young was murdered.
Butler and his attorneys today said Gilmore made those false statements after police threatened to charge him with the crime if he did not go along with a story police wanted him to tell. Gilmore in court would tell Prosecutor Joseph Magats 11 times that the statements he made to a Grand Jury were forced. He told Butler’s public defender that he agreed to lie out of fear of being charged with Young’s murder.
According to Gilmore’s Grand Jury statement, he and Thomas had been at the security booth outside one of the Robert Taylor Homes 16-story buildings at 4331 S. State St. That’s where Young lived before she died.
Gilmore said he saw Butler and Wilson standing next to an elevator at 5:30 in the morning when they saw a man approach Wilson and Butler, who was known as “Little Boo” in the neighborhood. The unidentified name asked for marijuana. Gilmore said Wilson and Butler told the man they would be right back. Gilmore said the teenagers took the elevator to the 13th floor, and he and Thomas decided to follow them by taking the stairs. Gilmore said he saw Butler and Wilson come off the elevator on the 13th floor.
Gilmore also said during his Grand Jury testimony that Young scratched Wilson in the face.
But during Butler’s trial, Gilmore told Prosecutor Magats 11 times that he was forced to give these statements to the Grand Jury at a police station. When Magats would ask Gilmore a question during his testimony, Gilmore would give an answer and then would say, “I was forced.”
Gilmore said he was forced to say that he and Thomas were on the first floor the day of Young’s murder. Gilmore also said he was forced to say Butler and Wilson were standing next to the elevator at 5:30 that morning on November 13. Gilmore said he was forced to say he saw Butler pull Young up and stab her repeatedly in her back.
Then Gilmore told Magats during the trial why he made the false statements to the Grand Jury. Gilmore said he was taken to the police station without being told why.
“I asked them could they call my mama because I was nervous and scared. So, they said somebody from the street is getting locked up. So, my mama had came (sic) before I got a chance to call. They was (sic) saying, ‘well we got you now, we going to charge you with this case, with this crime, if you don’t go along with what we tell you to say’,” Gilmore told the court.
Gilmore said Butler and Wilson – who had a key because he allegedly was friends with one of Young’s daughters – then entered the apartment to get some marijuana. Gilmore said he and Thomas followed the teenagers into the unit.
Once inside, Butler and Wilson went to a bedroom where they found Young lying in her bed, according to Gilmore’s statement. Gilmore said that’s when Butler punched Young in the face and Wilson started stabbing her all over her body. Gilmore said Wilson then gave the knife to Butler. Gilmore said Butler pulled Young up and began stabbing her in the back and stabbed her in the head. Gilmore then said Butler and Wilson left Young’s apartment carrying a black shopping bag. He said the two then went to Apartment 1203 and stayed there for five or six minutes.
Uncorroborated witnesses in police court documents said Butler and Wilson accused Young of stealing their marijuana that was stashed in one of her bedrooms. But these statements were hearsay and unproven.
During cross examination by Grzeca, Butler’s public defender, Gilmore told the court that his statements to the Grand Jury were not true and that he was forced to say they were. Neither was the statement he signed for the State’s Attorney. But Grzeca did ask Gilmore the following questions during cross-examination.
Grzeca: “You didn’t see Little Boo (Butler) do anything to any woman on November 13th, did you?
Gilmore: “No, sir.”
Grzeca: “You didn’t see him stab anybody?”
Gilmore: “No sir.”
Grzeca: “And on the two occasions you talked to me you told me it was all untrue because police made you say what you said in front of the Grand Jury, right?
Gilmore: “Yes sir.”
That was as far as Grzeca went in defending Butler.
A documented violent crime log dated November 28, 1995 documented dozens of photos that captured close-up shots of Young’s battered body. There are also close-up shots of Butler and Wilson, neither had scratches or bruises on their faces after Young allegedly hit them during the struggle. The photos show Butler had no injuries or bruises to his hands that indicated he stabbed Young over 50 times. Grzeca didn’t present any of these photos during the trial. And questions remain whether he took the time to review the violent crime log for evidence.
That same log said Butler at 17 weighed just 90 pounds. Young at the time of her death weighed 120 pounds. Those details raised questions as to how Butler could overpower someone who weighed 30 pounds more than him.
And there were questions as to why Thomas was used as a witness in the first place. In addition to denying that he was there the day Young was murdered, police documents show Thomas told detectives that Wilson beat Young to death with a crowbar, not the two-sided blade that was identified in the official autopsy report.
Grzeca also didn’t challenge Gilmore’s statement that Butler and Wilson used a knife to stab Young. The autopsy report revealed that the victim was stabbed with a double-bladed weapon like a pair of scissors.
Another State witness during the trial was Ryan, the detective who said Butler admitted being at Young’s apartment where he allegedly left before the stabbing began. Ryan’s testimony had holes, but Grzeca asked just four questions.
Grzeca could have grilled Ryan on why he didn’t have a signed documented statement from Butler, but he didn’t. Also, Butler’s alleged oral, undocumented statement of leaving the apartment before the stabbing began contradicts Gilmore’s Grand Jury statement, which says Butler stabbed Young repeatedly during her murder. Grzeca also didn’t challenge the detective’s statement that Butler had been in the apartment for over a minute. After all, how can a killer do so much damage in one minute?
That alleged statement from Butler was a key piece of “evidence” that prosecutors needed to prove Butler was there at Young’s apartment the day she was killed. Neither Butler’s or Wilson’s fingerprints or any other evidence linking them to the crime were found at Young’s apartment that day; not even the two-sided, scissor-like blade that was used to kill her was discovered.
There was also Gilmore’s statement that Butler and Wilson spent five or six minutes in Apartment 1203 after Young’s murder. But the woman who lived there at the time, Farrah Hubbard, in a 2018 sworn affidavit, adamantly denied that Butler, Wilson, Thomas and Gilmore came to her apartment that day. In that same affidavit, Hubbard said she didn’t even know Gilmore.
During his nearly two-minute closing argument, Prosecutor Magats said Butler’s undocumented statement of being at Young’s apartment “corroborated” Gilmore’s repudiated testimony. Grzeca in his one-minute closing argument said Gilmore’s testimony couldn’t be accepted and that the State failed beyond a reasonable doubt to prove Butler murdered Young.
On July 8, 1998 Judge Urso convicted Butler of first-degree murder and home invasion. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison. He was released in January 2020 after serving half of his sentence, or 25 years.
Butler’s attorneys also question why Grzeca did not have Thomas testify after he told the court in Wilson’s trial that he wasn’t at Young’s apartment the day of the murder. That testimony would have cast more doubt on Gilmore’s statements that he and Thomas were there when Young was killed. And who would walk up 13 flights of stairs just to see someone get marijuana?
In recent years more evidence has emerged to prove Butler’s innocence. Two DNA samples excluded him as a source. When Butler’s attorney Kathleen Zellner left him and failed to file a post-conviction case, Butler retained prominent attorney Jennifer Bonjean as his lead attorney in 2016.
That year, the State’s Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) had reopened its investigation into Butler’s conviction. Bonjean and Cohen hoped that Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s new CIU would throw out Butler’s conviction. But Cohen said delays were piling up as they heard nothing on the agency’s review of Butler’s case.
On February 15, 2018 Mark Rotert, the head of the CIU, told Bonjean that although serious questions had been raised in Butler’s case, his office would not vacate his conviction. Bonjean filed a post-conviction case and Foxx’s office had it dismissed. Bonjean filed an appeal to the Illinois Appellate Court to have the case remanded back to Judge Mary Brosnahan.
The Crusader obtained a recording of a three-judge panel on the Illinois Appeals Court. Bonjean and Assistant State Attorney Joseph Alexander attended the hearing. Justices Lavin, Nathaniel Howse and Cynthia Cobbs presided over the hearing.
Justice Lavin grew disturbed after Bonjean’s presentation and reviewing Butler’s unusual trial.
“This entire case is justice delayed,” Lavin said… “I’m here to tell you that in a murder case where somebody gets 50 years in prison, for a lawyer to ask four questions at trial. Four questions at a trial, that is just ineffective assistance, OK? I don’t understand it because I’m sure he’s (Grzeca) a competent attorney who has gone on to other jobs and has done a great job. But something was amiss here, and a man sat in prison all this time on some of the skinniest evidence I’ve ever seen.
“This is a statement that wasn’t written or recorded. It was disavowed and the 6th- grader who testified was in jail on a curfew violation when the police told him to go in and talk to the Grand Jury and tell them what to say. I see a lot of cause, I see a lot of prejudice.
“What I don’t understand, and I respect the work that your office does, trust me, I really do. But what I don’t understand is why with all of this, and then you throw in the DNA and the Pearson report and all this other stuff, why at the end of the proverbial day didn’t you agree to an evidentiary hearing? Why don’t you agree today? You can agree today!”
Justice Cynthia Cobbs said to Prosecutor Alexander, “Can you honestly sit here before us this morning and in light of what Justice Lavin pointed out with respect to counsel’s performance at trial, can you honestly state to us that there was serial testing in this case?”
Bonjean said Butler’s appeal “is a very strong case of actual innocence. The problem is some of this stuff was available to trial counsel. Had he just done his job. This was a not guilty [verdict]. Any competent attorney would have gotten a not guilty [verdict]. Because there was no investigation obviously and even the information in the police reports was not adequately used. So, it’s the ineffective counsel claim and new evidence.”
Prosecutor Alexander asked the court to uphold Butler’s conviction. Citing the U.S. Supreme Court landmark ruling Strickland v. Washington, Alexander said though Grzeca’s performance as public defender in Butler’s case has raised questions, the State’s Attorney’s Office, we cannot make a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel just because counsel’s trial strategy proved unsuccessful. Grzeca choosing not to present evidence and witnesses was his choice of strategy that must be accepted and not judged in hindsight.
Alexander also said Butler has not done enough to prove his claim of actual innocence.
“If a case is raised where a defendant has concerns and the Conviction Integrity Unit sees those concerns and then investigates, then they’ll make a recommendation. In this case, they investigated it and did not recommend to vacate the sentence. At this juncture, when [the] defendant is arguing that he is actually innocent based on DNA evidence… Our position is that the evidence is not newly discovered. We can see that DNA can be relevant and, in this case, it was not cumulative because there was no DNA presented [during the trial]. But we argue that it wasn’t conclusive. Being excluded from two samples and not being not excluded from others does not conclusively show that the defendant did not commit this crime when we look at the totality of the other evidence.”
But on March 15, 2022, the Appeals Court granted Butler an evidentiary hearing, ruling that he made “a substantial showing of actual innocence.”
The court cited Gilmore’s recanted testimony and Butler’s undocumented statement that said he was there and left before the stabbing began. The court said this alleged statement from Butler was “inconsistent” with Gilmore’s recanted account of the murder.
The Appeals Court also noted the new evidence that includes DNA samples that exclude Butler from samples taken from the pool of blood in the bedroom and on the kitchen stove, as well as evidence that two gang members who had a conflict with Young were important in Butler’s claim of innocence.
“When the two groupings are compared, defendant has made a substantial showing that the new evidence would lead to a different result.”
Contrary to Prosecutor Joseph Magats’ claim in his closing argument, the Appeals Court ruled that no physical evidence corroborated Gilmore’s claim that Butler stabbed Young.
“The only other evidence of defendant’s involvement was his disavowed, unmemorialized statement, which stated he left before the stabbing began.”
Since the Appeals Court ruling in 2022, Butler’s case has dragged on in court with continuances and delays.
After serving 25 years in prison, Butler was released in 2020. Today at 46, Butler lives in Chatham, IL, over 200 miles southwest of Chicago. Married and struggling to move on with his life, Butler is looking forward to proving his innocence and being exonerated.
“They screwed me very bad,” Butler told the Crusader. “This whole ordeal has been awful.”
