A.B. Butler

The Crime

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 had forced her to drive her car to a rural area, where he raped her twice. Both then walked away.

The Investigation

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. Mr. Butler was charged with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated rape.

The Trial

In December 1983, Mr. Butler went to trial in Smith County Criminal District Court. The victim testified and identified him as her attacker.

Mr. Butler testified and denied committing the crime. He said that he had been with a woman friend at the time. Other witnesses supported his account.

On Dec. 16, 1983, the jury convicted Mr. Butler of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated rape. He was sentenced to 99 years in prison.

Mr. Butler appealed, repeatedly asking that the evidence collected from the victim and the scene of the crime be tested. His appeals were denied. 

The Exoneration

Centurion Ministries, a New Jersey-based organization dedicated to overturning wrongful convictions, began working on Mr. Butler’s case in 1995. Biological evidence was located, and Centurion arranged for a local attorney, Randy Schaffer, to represent Mr. 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 1998.

On Jan. 5, 1999, Cellmark Diagnostics reported that it had performed testing on the slide in the rape kit, but the results did not yield sufficient data to eliminate Mr. Butler as 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 Feb. 26, 1999, a report was issued stating that the results of this testing excluded Mr. Butler as the source of the semen from the rape kit.

These findings were sent to the DNA testing laboratory at Bio-Synthesis, Inc., in Lewisville, Texas. On Aug. 26, 1999, the lab confirmed that the findings in New York were accurate.

On Nov. 12, 1999, the Texas Department of Public Safety crime laboratory reported, after further testing, that Mr. Butler was not the source of the semen stains on the victim’s skirt, nor the source of the hairs found in the victim’s car.

Based on these results, the prosecution joined with Mr. Butler’s attorney to file for clemency. Mr. Butler was released on Jan. 7, 2000. On May 31 of the same year, Texas Governor George W. Bush pardoned Mr. Butler on grounds of actual innocence. 

In 2001, Mr. Butler was awarded $27,854 in state compensation, plus a monthly annuity of $7,100. Mr. Butler filed a federal civil rights lawsuit, but the lawsuit was dismissed.