00:00:00 Speaker 1: Hey, y'all, it's Maggie today. I'm sharing an interview I did last year, but we chose to hold off on releasing it. At the time, Selma Butler was working on his post conviction relief and it was in a precarious place. We didn't want to mess up anything with his appeal. But sadly, despite strong evidence of his innocence, Selma's request for post conviction relief has been denied. Now, for the second time, he has to go before the Illinois Appellet Court to continue his fight. Selma's story is a painful reminder of how our justice system can fail and how easily innocent people can pay the price, how easy it is to lock someone up and how hard it is to get them out. I also want you to be the first to hear that next week I'll be making a very big announcement. My love of for Good colleague Gilbert King will be joining me to discuss something I've been working on for two years. It'll be coming out in the Bone Valley Feed very soon, so stay tuned for that. In November of nineteen ninety five, the body of thirty four year old Angela Young was found in her thirteenth floor apartment. She had been stabbed over sixty times. Angela lived in the Chicago Projects in a building that was said to be ruled by the notorious gangster Disciples. Rumor had it that she was holding drugs for someone in the gang, and that she had been killed in a drug related dispute. Seventeen year old Salma Butler, who lived three floors below, saw the police and sirens outside that day.

00:01:46 Speaker 2: I could remember the day they found her body. It's the project building, so everybody want to know what happened. You know, someone was killed in the building.

00:01:58 Speaker 1: A few weeks later, Selma was picked up and arrested for Angela's murder based on a statement that police had taken from another teenaged boy during an unrelated interrogation.

00:02:09 Speaker 2: When we got in the car, the detective reached back and grabbed my neck and he choked me out and like spit on me and told me I did it, and things like he really spit in my face. My name is Selma Butler. I was wrongfully convicted in nineteen ninety five and I served twenty five years for a crime I didn't.

00:02:28 Speaker 3: Commit from LoVa for good.

00:02:32 Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling Today, Selma Butler.

00:02:52 Speaker 2: Yeah, I grew up in Chicago in a projects, a Robert Taylor projects.

00:02:57 Speaker 1: Selma Butler was born in nineteen six sixty eight.

00:03:01 Speaker 2: My mom's passed away when I was thirteen, and my father was in cost rated basically my entire life. He went to prison when I was five, so he did the maximum of like thirty.

00:03:12 Speaker 3: Did you have any kind of relationship with him? Yeah?

00:03:16 Speaker 2: When I was younger, he used to like for Christmas and toy cars and stuff and write letters and things of that nature.

00:03:22 Speaker 1: Did Soma had two older sisters. He was closest to his sister, Lakeisha, who was two years older than him.

00:03:33 Speaker 3: So what was growing up like where you grew up? What did you guys do? What was life like?

00:03:39 Speaker 2: It was fun, you know if he was in a projects, you know, you had all your friends and things like that, so it wouldn't as hardsh as you would think it would be. You know, by was living in the ghetto. You know, it was loving in the house old.

00:03:53 Speaker 1: But gangs and gang violence were all around him. By the time he reached first grade, Selma had already seen his first shooting.

00:04:02 Speaker 2: Like I seen them. They shot the garbage man, like the guy to get the trash. And in that day, I was probably like six or seven somewhere days. They shot like five six people out there that day, you know. So, and I was on the basketball court and I seen it, you know what I mean. So you see it like every day.

00:04:20 Speaker 3: Were you scared? Is that scary to grow up like that?

00:04:23 Speaker 4: Yeah?

00:04:24 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's real scary, you know, because I done seen guys like come down from school and the guy was like just dead out on the bench in front of the building.

00:04:33 Speaker 3: Were you worried something could happen to you?

00:04:35 Speaker 2: Always? Really always, you know, not just me and my sisters, you know, my family, friends, everybody's life. It's just not mine, you know. And then I chose not to be part of a game, even though like they automatically put all us in the gang, right right, you know what I mean. So it don't really matter if you're not in the gang. Is in the game when to pull a least gonna see you in the gang anyway, depending on where you live, you know, sure, you always find yourself at a disadvantage.

00:05:06 Speaker 4: You know.

00:05:07 Speaker 2: You know, as kids, you have run ins with the law and stuff like that, not just like I'm a saying or anything. You know, I didn't get some trouble, not no murderer, but I got in some trouble.

00:05:20 Speaker 1: Despite getting into some trouble now and then, Selma resisted the gang life. He had other ambitions.

00:05:28 Speaker 2: A right, I'm a writer. I didn't have any really hopes and dreams like that because I really didn't have a good foundation or direction on where I was going in life, you know. I mean, I know, I enjoyed school, so I went to school and things like that. I would have loved to go to college, you know, like and be something in life, you know, but I didn't, unfortunately, get the opportunity to, you know, yeah, figure out like how great I could be out here. You know.

00:05:58 Speaker 1: When he was thirteen, Alma's mother died suddenly from a brain aneurysm. After that, he went to stay with his aunt and one of the other buildings in the project on the tenth floor of forty three thirty one South Federal. That's where he met Gino Wilson.

00:06:15 Speaker 2: I love sports. I played basketball, baseball, and I met Geno in a basketball court. He's really good at basketball, so we met each other like through sports what.

00:06:26 Speaker 1: Do you remember about him being good at basketball? I don't play basketball, So what does that mean now?

00:06:31 Speaker 3: That dude coat?

00:06:32 Speaker 2: That dude is that a dude coat?

00:06:35 Speaker 5: Selma Butler. He lived in a community in Bronsville, Chicago, Illinois, in a public housing authority Robert Taylor Holmes. It was pretty like a known area.

00:06:47 Speaker 1: This is Ashley Cohen, partner at the Bonjean Law Group. She and Jennifer Bonjean have represented Selma on his post conviction proceedings since twenty sixteen.

00:06:58 Speaker 5: And there were four or five separate project buildings. Each one of them was associated with a different gang. Basically the building that he was in, the specific one was allegedly run by the Gangster Disciples at the time. And if you think about it, it's a huge building. It's a housing project. It's has sixteen floors, there's ten apartments on each floor. It's a massive building.

00:07:21 Speaker 1: When Selmo was seventeen and Gino was fifteen, something happened in that building that would change both of their lives.

00:07:34 Speaker 5: On November thirteenth, nineteen ninety five, Angela Young is found stabbed to death in her apartment. She has sixty five stab wounds. The medical examiner opine that the wounds appeared to have been caused by either a scissor or another instrument with multiple blades.

00:07:56 Speaker 1: After Angela's body was found, the police were called. The first person to speak with them was a neighbor by the name of Hope Miller.

00:08:05 Speaker 5: And according to her, she saw an unidentified male come down the stairs and say there's a woman dead in that apartment, and then she goes up with a fella by the name of Andre Parks. They find her, and then the police are called and they examined the scene. The apartment was basically a disaster. A female black wig was found by the front door. She was found in the back bedroom. There's blood on the stove in the front She's sitting in a pool of blood. There's blood on the walls.

00:08:56 Speaker 2: I can remember that they found body, you know what I mean that they help, you know, because you know it's the Project building, so everybody is want to do what happened. You know, someone's killed in the building. And I can recall I was I stayed on. I stayed ten oh three, Miss Young stayed three floors above being thirteen oh one, you know, because I could recall like coming out the house and seeing to pull all the police looking off the porch and seeing all the police cars down there and things like that. Everybody knew everybody in the building. That's how I knew Miss Young. I knew her daughters. Her daughter Shamiko was our age. She was pretty so and Geno liked her, so you know, so you know, like so, yeah, that's how I knew Miss Young. We didn't. I never had a conversation with Miss Young, but I knew it, like you know how you doing types of switch you know.

00:09:45 Speaker 5: You know, and then the investigation ensues. But as I know from doing wrongful conviction work, I never trust what's in police reports, but it gives a little bit of a framework of what happened. After they find the body, they interview a bunch of witnesses. So Gina Wilson was one of the people that they interviewed. Miller is one of the people that they interviewed, and Andre Parks is another one that they interviewed. And Gino in his original interview to the police, if you believe it, he basically says that he went up to the apartment, and he says that he had been dating one of Angela's daughters and that he was going up for the apartment to go to see his girlfriend and he discovers the body. The police kind of ran with that and they were like, Oh, it's him, let's build a case around him doing it.

00:10:46 Speaker 1: Selma says he hadn't been anywhere near the apartment, but somehow, during an entirely separate police interrogation on a different matter, his name got pulled into the case.

00:10:58 Speaker 5: The Area one detectives claimed that two teenagers, Earl Gilmore who was fourteen years old at the time but he was in seventh grade or sixth grade, and Antonio Thomas, who is sixteen years old. They were both in custody for unrelated charges. Apparently Earl Gilmour was violating a curfew because you know, you just lock people up for violating their curfew back then. So Area one detectives have two teenagers in custody who they know don't have parents present, are underage, easily coursed, easily manipulated, and basically they tell them somebody died, and you're going to tell us who did it, and you're going to tell us the story of what happened. According to the police, they volunteered that they were present for the murder of Young, and that they did it with Gina Wilson and Selma Butler. There's this story that Angela basically was holding marijuana in her apartment for Gina Wilson and Selma Butler and that the reason that they killed her was because they discovered that three bags of marijuana was missing from the stash that she was holding. So naturally, three bags of marijuana equates to sixty six stab wounds. And that's how they kind of get their narrative.

00:12:21 Speaker 3: And did you know Gilmore that.

00:12:23 Speaker 2: Didn't know Gilmore, didn't know Gilmore, didn't know Antonio Thomas, didn't you know, didn't know these kids, you know, never hung out with him or nothing. He was in the sixth grade. I was a junior, you know, so he was a little kid.

00:12:36 Speaker 1: On November thirteenth, nineteen ninety five, Earl Gilmore testified before a grand jury that he had seen Selma and Gino punch and stab Angela Young in her bedroom. Earl was fourteen years old. There was no adult president while he was being questioned by police, and he was not allowed to leave police custody until he had given testimony. A few days later, Selma, and you know, we're both arrested and charged with first degree murder.

00:13:07 Speaker 2: I was took it to the police station and they just set me in a room for a long time. When I officer finally came in, I can't recall his name or whatever. He explained while I was there, saying that my name came up in a murder. They said, I killed me, is young, whatever the case may be like, And I explained to him, like, yo, could I killed someone? I got on the same clothes I had on yesterday, you know, like I got on my same clothes. So I was just you know, like, you know, so I asked for a polygraph test, and they took me to take a polygraph test and we came back. They never gave me the results. But when we got in the car, the detective reached back and grab my neck and he choked me out and like spit on me and told me I did it, and things like he really spit in my face.

00:13:49 Speaker 3: You're seventeen. Did you have an attorney with you?

00:13:53 Speaker 2: I did?

00:13:54 Speaker 3: Did you know you could?

00:13:56 Speaker 2: Nah? Not really nine?

00:13:59 Speaker 3: So they didn't tell you you had to write to you an attorney.

00:14:02 Speaker 2: Nah, Not that I can recall I was sent to the county jail. At the time I was seventeen, I was five feet ninety pounds. Oh, I mean I was placed in the county jail and that was the head.

00:14:29 Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. You can listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. In June of nineteen ninety eight, Gino Wilson and Selma Butler both went to trials separately before Judge Joseph Urso.

00:14:59 Speaker 5: Gino to trial first, he chooses to have a bench trial before Judge Urso and he's acquitted. At trial, Judge Urgow finds him not guilty. So my client then goes to trial.

00:15:16 Speaker 2: How come you opted for a bench trial, My attorney he made e had made the suggesting because Geno Wilson was acquitted. So he was like, well, if Geno Wilson was quitted, we have the same opportunities with a bench trial.

00:15:30 Speaker 1: So when you're at trial, did you think everything was going okay? Did you think it was going to wind up the same as Geno's and you'd be acquitted.

00:15:38 Speaker 2: Yes, ma'am, I did. Once they realized that he didn't do it, then I figured, like, h they don't realize I didn't do it as well. That was the case.

00:15:48 Speaker 5: The trial was appalling. So George Grizzeca represented my client, Sama Butler, and Joel mcgatz, who was the second in command to Kim Fox. He he prosecuted my client. He waves opening arguments. Selma's attorney waves opening arguments. And there was a total of five witnesses. The trial lasted maybe all of forty five minutes. There were a total of thirteen questions asked by Selma's attorney to any of the all of the witnesses.

00:16:25 Speaker 2: I've never been to trial, you know, so I figured this had trial go somebody, you know. And then I thought he did a good job. I didn't know better.

00:16:34 Speaker 1: Earl Gilmore was brought in to testify for the prosecution.

00:16:38 Speaker 2: Like I prayed to God that Gilmore come to court and tell the truth, which he did. So I was hopeful. I was afraid, but I was hopeful as well.

00:16:47 Speaker 5: You know, Earl Gilmore gets on the stand and then Earl begins his testimony by saying that whoever brought him over to the grand jury basically said go along with everything they tell you, and that's why he did remember.

00:17:03 Speaker 1: While he was being held in police custody, Earl testified before the grand jury that Selma and Gino had killed Angela. When he appeared at Selma's trial two and a half years later, Earl tried his best to walk back his previous testimony.

00:17:19 Speaker 5: He actually, to his credit Dawes say. He says, when I was taken to the police station, I didn't know what I was taken there for while we got you. Now we're going to charge you with this case if you don't go along with what we tell you.

00:17:33 Speaker 1: But despite his recantation, the prosecution was still able to admit Earl's initial grand jury statement as evidence.

00:17:42 Speaker 5: And how they present this is they say, you know, did you take an oath to tell the truth before you testified? And he says yes. And when you testified before the grand jury, you were asked the following questions and did you give the following answers? So they basically put him in a scenario where he has to say, yes, I did give those answers. They're putting him in a perjury trap because if he says anything other than that, he can be charged with perjury for lying to the grand jury. Then they continue asking him questions or you asked this question, did you give this answer? And he says, yes, I was forced, Yes I was forced, And that's kind of how the narrative. But they get in the substance of the grand jury testimony, and that's the evidence that was ultimately used to convict Selma.

00:18:30 Speaker 1: On October twenty eighth, nineteen ninety eight, less than an hour after the trial started, Judge Urso found Selma guilty of first degree murder. He was sentenced to fifty years in prison.

00:18:44 Speaker 2: I'm being a more offlin cost ready four cram. I didn't commit No, I was that was hurt. I cried, I cried, I crid. I cried every day. I cried.

00:18:59 Speaker 1: Do you think, I guess do you think racism played a part in your case? Just lumping just because you lived in this building, because of your skin color, they said you were a gang member and really kind of just determined your faith that way.

00:19:15 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd say that in a sense of like I probably know hundreds of people in the same situation that I'm in. That's not given the opportunity to talk to you, but half the same exact situation. You know, like when you think about what Joseph Macgatz did because he was the state's attorney on this case, and like the little evidence that he used to convict me, how many other people was done like this? You know, African American poor people that couldn't afford attorneys and things like that. You know, how many other people was done like this? So yeah, race played the part, poverty paid the part.

00:20:13 Speaker 4: You know.

00:20:13 Speaker 2: I was afraid, and then I was really little, you know, I was little little, I was only five feet. I was afraid, you know. You know, then get you around all these guys that didn't committed crimes and stuff like that, and murders and things like that, and you know you not that guy, you know. I mean, I'm not that guy that's here tough and all that. You know. So I was hurt and afraid.

00:20:37 Speaker 1: Within a year or so, Selma began studying at the prison Law Library in order to appeal his case. His first appeals in two thousand and two thousand and four were dismissed, but he kept out it and eventually that led him to someone who would become very important in helping him survive life in prison.

00:20:56 Speaker 2: I'll never forget is the lady named Miss Flowers. She runs the law library. She said, my name, my name is unique Selma. And she asked me, she said, do you have a sibling by the name of Selma that I said, my father. She said, you know, you work here, so the whole time my father worked in the library.

00:21:19 Speaker 3: Wow.

00:21:20 Speaker 1: So you got to know your dad from inside prison. That is unusual.

00:21:24 Speaker 2: Uh, it was due to the fact I haven't seen him in so long since I was like five. When I met him, I was actually impressed on how intelligent he was, like because he studied law and he didn't he didn't help guys get out of prison and things of that nature. So he he's a blessing. He was actually my salesmate for for quite some time. You know.

00:21:44 Speaker 3: Wow, Wait, so what was that like?

00:21:47 Speaker 2: It was a blessing due to the fact I had somebody there that was guiding me and things of that nature. And then you know, so it's a blessing. It was a blease, it was it was horrible. It was with him, still a blessing, you know.

00:21:59 Speaker 3: Did he give you advice? You know how to survive in there or anything.

00:22:05 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, in the sense, you know, state of yourself, mind your business, you know, I mean, you know, go to school. I went to school, made the President's list a couple of times in college, you know, so you know, you know, no, I just put my head down. It sucked that I was there for something I didn't do, but I tried to make the best of it.

00:22:23 Speaker 4: You know.

00:22:23 Speaker 3: Did he believe you?

00:22:25 Speaker 2: Yeah, well he do laws. So he read the case and knew that I was innocent, you know what I mean.

00:22:30 Speaker 1: So, and in addition to reconnecting with his father, there was another family member that helped Selma get through prison.

00:22:45 Speaker 6: I am Linda Butler. I am Sama's niece.

00:22:48 Speaker 7: I know him all my life, even though it was of course telephonically while he was in prison.

00:22:54 Speaker 1: Linda is the daughter of Selma's sister, Lakeisha. She was just a baby when he went to prison, but she says he's always been a big part of her life.

00:23:02 Speaker 3: Lakisha made sure of that.

00:23:04 Speaker 6: She talked to all of us about it.

00:23:06 Speaker 7: She's she's a mother of five and she just all I remember is her, you know, supporting him, having to put money on the phone to the point where it groomed us to do the same thing, you know, like this, this has become our norm. We got an uncle in jail for some he didn't do like this is our norm.

00:23:24 Speaker 1: Someone was at the Minard Correctional Center, nearly four hundred miles from Chicago. So throughout the first decade of Linda's life, their relationship was only by phone.

00:23:36 Speaker 7: We made the best out of it, you know, far as like when he called, but of course it was very limited, you know, like when he called, we'll try to, Oh uncle, can you, you know, help me write this? Can you you know, just I just I think it was hot. I feel like it was heartbreaking. And I remember when I was seven years old. I was turning seven, and he was like, I'm gonna come home for your birthday. I'm coming over your birthday.

00:24:02 Speaker 2: She was seven years old. I told you she her birthday was coming, and I told her, well, I'll be on for your birthday.

00:24:07 Speaker 6: And I was like, okay, okay.

00:24:09 Speaker 2: And on the day of her birthday, I called her a wish happy birthday. She told me out lia to and.

00:24:14 Speaker 7: I just remember being heartbroken. I didn't want to talk to him on the phone. And when my mom was like, just talk to her uncle, and he like, he was like, I'm sorry, you know, but I didn't know any better.

00:24:25 Speaker 1: When Linda was around seven years old, Lakeisha arranged for the family to visit Selma in prison, and Linda couldn't wait to finally meet her uncle in person. She remembers that they had to get up in the middle of the night to catch the bus.

00:24:40 Speaker 6: And we rode eight hours and they turned us around.

00:24:46 Speaker 4: Wow.

00:24:47 Speaker 7: Why because I think the prison just went on shut lockdown and all that. And mind you, my mom is a mo I thinkle mom. So this is the money that she put into it, she don't get it back.

00:24:58 Speaker 6: You know.

00:24:59 Speaker 1: Linda and Selma didn't meet face to face until she was eleven years old.

00:25:03 Speaker 6: Oh my god. We had so much to talk about. I was able to touch his hand.

00:25:08 Speaker 7: I was super excited because in my mind, I literally didn't know that he had a face, Like all I know, you know, is him being over the phone. We didn't have pictures. I didn't have pictures because he was so young when he was away. I think he was like seventeen. So when I first saw him, he just had this little smirk on his face and I'm like, you look like my mama.

00:25:34 Speaker 1: Over the years, throughout his appeals, Linda and Selma remained close.

00:25:39 Speaker 2: She sent me money to send letters that I write to different attorneys and stuff like that, because it costs like seven bucks to send out my package. So she would make sure I have money to send my mail out and stuff like that and things. And she was young, she's probably nineteen twenty, you know what I mean. But she helped. She's been there on my entire life, you know, I mean.

00:26:00 Speaker 1: For a time, Linda even worked as a corrections officer. You decided to go into corrections, which is interesting because your uncle's in prison.

00:26:09 Speaker 3: So what prompted that? What motivated thought?

00:26:13 Speaker 6: I don't know.

00:26:13 Speaker 7: I just I guess I was I wanted to know, you know, I want to say, I feel like I wanted to know. And when I went into correstion, I'm like, oh my god, this is how my uncle's living. And I'm like, oh my gosh, he's caged, he can't. This is his life. Them having to go to bed, when they're being told to go to bed, the stuff they had to eat, you know, and them not being around their family. It just gave me a whole outlook on life like, oh my God, in the blink of eye anything, So I got to take life seriously.

00:26:55 Speaker 1: In twenty thirteen, with the help of a pro bono attorney, Soma filed a second motion for DNA testing, which was granted.

00:27:04 Speaker 2: I realized DNA was my case because Angie, whoever killed Angie Deshang, she had skin at her and nails. So once I realized that, I filed for DNA.

00:27:14 Speaker 5: Testing, and then the conviction Integrity Unit at Kim Fox's office decided to undertake an investigation into his claims.

00:27:23 Speaker 2: Fabio Valentini, he was in charge of the integrity durn it at the time, and he said he wanted to redo the DNA test because you want to cross his t's and got his eyes. And they gave me a court date of July twenty eighth. So I'm thinking I'm gonna go home. So I gave away all my items, my food and everything, and my T shirts and stuff.

00:27:42 Speaker 1: But when Solma got to court that day, no one was there for him, no one from the conviction Integrity Unit and no one from his attorney's office.

00:27:52 Speaker 2: And I had to go back to NRC which is Stateville and I was crushed. My soul was crushed. So I wrote to the court and they told me my case was off call, which something I never heard of. So I was in court, but I never had a court date for like a year.

00:28:12 Speaker 1: At that point, Selma wrote to Ashley Cohen at Bojin Law.

00:28:15 Speaker 5: Group and we started representing him pro bono in twenty sixteen, and we basically started from the beginning, and.

00:28:25 Speaker 1: That included reinvestigating the DNA evidence, what there was of it.

00:28:30 Speaker 5: What's so difficult about a case like Selma's is when there's no evidence to begin with, it's really hard to unravel it because there's really no evidence. In the first instance, you know, it's not a cut and dry DNA case, so you know the DNA evidence it excluded Selma from two of the bloodstains, but the victim's fingernails had five male profiles and could have been sixty four percent of the population and he was not excluded from that mixture. And then another stain he was excluded from was the top kitchen gas range, and that was a mixture of two male profiles and he was excluded from that. The problem with the DNA and what the CiU ultimately kind of hung their hat on, is like, well, he's not excluded, so we can't say it's exonerating, right.

00:29:27 Speaker 1: Ashley's team also wanted to explore the idea of alternate suspects.

00:29:32 Speaker 5: The three offenders who we believe are the ones who actually did it. One of them could not be excluded from the fingernails, and two of them were not excluded from a stobe sample and a hall sample.

00:29:47 Speaker 1: Those three individuals were Maurice Pearson, Ricky Buckley, and Andre Parks, all known members of the gangster Disciples.

00:29:56 Speaker 5: I mean, had the attorney at the time done any investigator at all, he would have come up with what we came up with twenty five years later, which was that everybody in the community knew that Angela was holding marijuana for Ruler, Reese and dre who were Maurice Pearson, Ricky Buckley, and andrake Parks, and that there is evidence to suggest that they are the true perpetrators.

00:30:25 Speaker 1: When their investigator spoke to Angela Young's daughter, Shamika, the team learned even more.

00:30:31 Speaker 5: Ruler Ricky also ran a marijuana operation out of the building. This is what Shamika told our investigator, and that young people used to sell marijuana, but they ran the big operation out of the building. She also said that a woman and a man outside her building one day after the murderer told her that reci had killed her her mom. Ruler, Reese and dre were at a family gathering right after her mother was murdered, and they and watch some of the trial. It just seemed like they were keeping their presence known to make sure that nobody snitched. And that's the kind of community that they lived in. When we got the file, there was a report in there that said that someone called the police to report that Maurice Pearson was responsible for Young's murder. There's a report that shows he was picked up, there was no questioning him, and he was ultimately released. That report was not in the public defenders fat and as the as the appellate court even said in their decision, the Pearson report gives the distinct impression that more information was not available because the police did not want to find it. So and this is we've seen this in other cases and not just this case. But it wasn't uncommon for there to be some sort of relationship with police officers, like you scratch my back, eye scratch yours, you know, whoever had the connection to the police officers were like, you're going to cover me on this, and we're going to frame these other kids because I'm not going to prison for this. And you know, that's just how it shook out.

00:32:16 Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, the Bonjing group filed a post conviction petition based on newly discovered evidence of innocence and ineffective assistance of counsel. In March of twenty twenty two, Jennifer Bonjing argued Selma's case before the Appellate Court Justices Nathaniel House, Cynthia Cobbs, and Terrence Lanvin. Who is the attorney who's going to make a presentation for the pealant today.

00:32:42 Speaker 4: Good morning, your honored Jennifer Bonjing on behalf.

00:32:44 Speaker 5: Of mister Butler. I mean, I just listened to the oral argument again. The Appellate Corps, especially Justice Labin, was appalled by this trial.

00:32:55 Speaker 8: Yeah, and trying to compare with this is one of the more unusual cases that I've ever dealt with in my thirteen years in the Appellate Court. Here, but we have two defendants, co defendants who were tried in bench trials in front of the same judge. The first guy gets off, the second guy gets fifty years.

00:33:14 Speaker 1: Jennifer Bonjen went on to explain that much of the state's case against Selma hinged on the Coorest grand jury testimony of fourteen year old Earl Gilmore and at.

00:33:26 Speaker 8: The trial of mister Butler, his public defender, who by all accounts as a competent attorney, asked all of four questions of the police officer who allegedly took this statement, a statement that was never memorialized, wasn't signed off on, wasn't written, wasn't recorded.

00:33:44 Speaker 4: Nothing that's right, you're right, your honor, and there was just no effort to challenge it. And again it is mind boggling to me. I can only assume that what happened here is that he assumed and not guilty. But you can't make those types of assumptions can be.

00:34:01 Speaker 8: By the state. I don't know what the state was assuming either, because both parties waived opening statement. I've never seen a record like this the wave opening statement. First witnesses, no questions, no questions, no questions, then four questions, then you know, didn't even need a lunch break, and the case is over. I mean this entire case. Is justice delayed?

00:34:22 Speaker 4: Yes, so I just said I threw my hands up.

00:34:38 Speaker 1: The Illinois Pellet Court ordered the case to Cook County Circuit Court for an evidentiary hearing. In January of twenty twenty three, Selma was discharged from prison after receiving day for day credit for good behavior. He had served twenty five years of his fifty year sentence.

00:34:58 Speaker 7: Oh my gosh, you come home during the pandemic, like, what are we going to do? So I had looked up some things to do and we end up doing a boat ride just meet him and a couple of my friends. We finally able to really have some type of memory, and it's, oh my gosh, it was so much fun.

00:35:14 Speaker 6: Even when he's on a.

00:35:15 Speaker 7: Boat ride, everybody's dancing, He's just he just bombed me in his head, just chilling.

00:35:19 Speaker 4: You know.

00:35:20 Speaker 2: Once I got off parole, I was able to travel. I went to Miami. Wow, rode the jet ski. I got on a parasale. Wow, I got the helicopter. Was able to helicopter Beyonce house, Bill Gates house, you know, you know, was able to look at their backyards and they pools. I was able to do you know some things that I'm so, you know, I know there's the God's wee things to get better with, you know, I had. I've been having some fun, you know.

00:35:54 Speaker 1: While he awaits his evidentiary hearing, Selma is keeping busy with a cause that is close to his heart.

00:36:02 Speaker 2: I work with the Outlet is a mentor program. I get paid to mentor other age boys, fatherless, other age boys from the age of eight to twenty two. You know. I work with the parole officers.

00:36:15 Speaker 1: You know.

00:36:15 Speaker 2: I going to the schools and speak teaching positive things about Gods, stuff like that. And then after I leave that job, I go to another job with maintenance supply and I claim buildings and stuff, you know, like janitorial work. So that's what I'm doing now.

00:36:35 Speaker 1: And there's been another significant change in Selma's life since he got out of prison.

00:36:40 Speaker 2: A friend of mine told me about a Dayton site. So I got on the Dayton site and we had changed dumbas and we started speaking at things of that nature.

00:36:48 Speaker 3: So, and what's her name?

00:36:50 Speaker 2: That Na. She's intelligent, you know, she's startful, she's beautiful. The nonprofit organization that I actual to work for, which is the Outlet, She the intake coordinator there, so she's responsible for all the boys that come into the program, just to see someone that give back and thoughtful and things of that nature. You know, he like what I like, so I like you.

00:37:17 Speaker 1: Selma and Jamila got married in twenty twenty two. But even though he served his full sentence, Selma is still not fully exonerated in the eyes of the law.

00:37:30 Speaker 5: He's trying to make a life for himself. He's trying to live and he can't because you know, he has this looming over him. You know, a lot of people would be like, oh, you're out anyway, what's the big deal. You know, he's working two jobs, he's doing everything that he needs to. But it's not about that for him. He's innocent. He was wrongly convicted, and it is a complete travesty of justice and even justice. Lavin said. The entire case is justice delayed, and it really is. That's what it is.

00:38:05 Speaker 2: I have to just be hopeful and just lean on God, you know, and just get out and do the best I can. You know, give back, give more to humanity than then they then gave to me. You know, for more for the world than the world, if not for me.

00:38:22 Speaker 1: And Soma says he's not the only one who is mistreated by the justice system. He still thinks about Angela Young and her two daughters, Shamikha and Nicole.

00:38:34 Speaker 2: They didn't propably investigate on mother's death. I wasn't only wrong, Miss Young was wrong because they didn't properly investigate her death. They didn't care about her death. They didn't care about my wrong for rest, you know what I mean. So at some point, black deaths don't matter. Black lives don't matter. We don't matter, you know. We everybody was, everybody that was a part of this was mistreated. So gods will do right by life.

00:39:19 Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the links in our bio to see how you can help. I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flamm, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wortis, as well as senior producer Annie Chelsea, producer Kathleen Fink, story editor Hannah.

00:39:38 Speaker 3: Bial and researcher Shelby Sorels.

00:39:41 Speaker 1: The show is engineered by Jackie Pauley, with additional production by Jeff Cliburn and Connor Hall. The music in this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one