On the night of May 20, 1983, a 25-year-old white woman was abducted at knifepoint from the parking lot of the Brass Star Club in Tyler, Texas. The woman reported to police that her abductor was a Black man who forced her to drive her car to a rural area where he raped her twice. Both then walked away, she said.
The woman was taken to a hospital where a rape kit was taken. Police recovered her clothing as well as hairs from her car.
On June 1, 1983, the police arrested 28-year-old A.B. Butler Jr. for the crime after the woman identified him from a book of mug shots. She also identified him in a live lineup. Butler was charged with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated rape.
In December 1983, Butler went to trial in Smith County Criminal District Court. The victim testified and identified him as her attacker.
Butler testified and denied committing the crime. He said that he was with a woman friend at the time. Other witnesses supported his account.
On December 16, 1983, the jury convicted Butler of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated rape. He was sentenced to 99 years in prison.
Butler appealed, repeatedly asking that the evidence collected from the victim and the scene of the crime be tested. His appeals were denied.
Centurion Ministries, a nonprofit New Jersey-based organization dedicated to overturning wrongful convictions, began working on Butler's case in 1995. Biological evidence was located, and Centurion arranged for a local attorney, Randy Schaffer, to represent Butler. The prosecution agreed to the testing in June of 1997. However, the order to perform DNA testing was not signed by a judge until April of 1998.
On January 5, 1999, Cellmark Diagnostics reported that it had performed testing on the slide in the rape kit, but the testing did not yield sufficient data to determine whether Butler was or was not the source of the semen on the slide. The evidence was then sent to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in New York City, where Y chromosome testing had just been developed to better isolate male DNA. On February 26, 1999, a report was issued saying that the results of this testing excluded Butler as the source of the semen from the rape kit.
These findings were sent for confirmatory testing at the DNA testing laboratory at Bio-Synthesis, Inc., in Lewisville, Texas. On August 26, 1999, Bio-Synthesis reported that the New York findings were accurate.
The Texas Department of Public Safety crime laboratory conducted additional tests and reported on November 12, 1999 that Butler was not the source of semen stains on the victim’s skirt and was excluded as the source of the hairs found in the victim’s car.
Based on these results, the prosecution joined with Butler's attorney to file for clemency. Butler was released on January 7, 2000. He was granted a pardon on May 31, 2000.
In 2001, Butler was awarded $25,000 in state compensation plus a monthly annuity. Butler filed a federal civil rights lawsuit, but the lawsuit was dismissed.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 08-29-2011
Last Update Date: 01-07-2020
