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.
A Cook County judge, on March 20, will decide whether to grant a new trial to a Chicago man who decades ago was convicted within 45 minutes in a case that drew significant concerns from an Illinois appeals court.
If a judge decides in Selma Butler’s favor, it will be a big step forward in his long battle to win exoneration. A denial will cause more delays and perhaps a defeat and a criminal conviction he will have to live with for the rest of his life.
Selma Butler served 25 years in prison after he was convicted in 1998 of stabbing Angela Young, a 34-year-old woman, 66 times in her apartment at the Robert Taylor Homes housing project in 1995.
Butler and his friend Gino Wilson were tried during a bench trial before Judge Joseph Urso. Wilson was acquitted, but Butler was found guilty of first-degree murder in a trial that was shorter than a lunch break.
Today, Butler’s attorneys argue that he deserves a new trial based on DNA evidence, along with photographs and witnesses that were available but never presented in court by his public defender. Prosecutors say Butler’s attorneys have not met the burden of innocence for a new trial. An Illinois Appellate Court disagreed and granted Butler an evidentiary hearing.
The hearing began in September, where for five months, prosecutors maintained Butler was guilty, based on the recanted testimony of Earl Gilmore, at the time a 14-year-old boy who, during a police interrogation, said he was threatened with charges should he not testify in the trial. Butler’s attorneys said they have proven they met the burden of innocence with DNA evidence and arguments from the Illinois Appellate Court.
After hearing arguments from both sides, Judge James Obbish will announce his ruling in two weeks.
Butler’s is one of the shortest and most bizarre trials that have taken place at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse at 26th and California on the West Side.
On November 13, 1995, Butler was a 17-year-old student at Wendell Phillips High School when Young, a single mother, was found dead in the bedroom of her apartment. She had lived there for three years. At the time, Butler lived with his aunt on the 10th floor of the Robert Taylor Homes at 4331 S. Federal. Butler and Wilson, then 15, were charged with first-degree murder. They were eventually tried separately.
Prosecutors said the boys murdered Young over marijuana. Antonio Thomas, who told police he was friends with Wilson and Butler, said he and Gilmore were with them when they entered Young’s apartment. Police said Thomas told them he saw Butler kill her.
But during Wilson’s trial, Thomas said he was at another location during the murder. He even said “no” 42 times to the same open-ended questions he gave to the same prosecutor prior to Wilson’s trial. Wilson was acquitted on April 18, 1998, of first-degree murder and home invasion.
While cross-examining Gilmore during Butler’s bench trial, George Grzeca, Butler’s public defender, asked Gilmore just three questions. During that testimony, Gilmore said he did not see Butler stab Young and that police made him say that during his testimony to a grand jury.
There was no mention of Gilmore participating in a closed-door interrogation where police allegedly threatened to charge him if he did not testify against Butler.
During the proceedings, Gilmore told a prosecutor 11 times that he was forced to say certain details of the crime that involved Butler during his grand jury testimony. Gilmore, near the end of his testimony, recanted his story.
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.
A 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.
There was also an undocumented statement from Chicago Detective Bernard Ryan, who alleged Butler told him after a polygraph test that he was at Young’s apartment when she was murdered. Butler has denied the allegation.
The bench trial had no opening arguments from either side. The closing arguments were less than 10 minutes.
With poor legal representation, Butler was convicted and spent 25 years in prison. He was released in 2020. In 2024, Butler and his wife and family moved to Delaware for a fresh start in life.
In his appeal for a new trial, the three-member judicial panel expressed alarm about how Butler’s case was handled.
“This entire case is justice delayed,” Justice Terrance 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.”
Lavin also questioned Detective Ryan’s claim that Butler admitted to being at Young’s apartment during the murder.
“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.”
In arguing his appeal for a new trial, Butler’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, told the Illinois Appellate Court that 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 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.”