Transcript
Anne Holsinger 0:01
Hello and welcome to 12:01 The Death Penalty in Context. I’m Anne Holsinger, Managing Director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Our guest today is Sabrina Butler-Smith, who was wrongfully convicted of causing the death of her nine month old son and sentenced to death at age 17. After two years and nine months on death row, Ms. Butler-Smith’s conviction was set aside. At a second trial, three years later, it was determined that her child died from a serious medical condition, and she was acquitted in her son’s death. Since her exoneration, Ms. Butler-Smith has become an advocate speaking out against wrongful convictions. She works as the Communications Specialist with Witness to Innocence, an organization of death row exonerees, for death row exonerees. Thank you so much for joining us today, Ms. Butler-Smith.
Sabrina Butler-Smith 0:45
Thank you so much for having me.
Anne Holsinger 0:47
To start, could you briefly tell our listeners about the circumstances of your case and what led to your eventual release?
Sabrina Butler-Smith 0:54
The circumstances of my case was that one night, where I lived, it was not really remote, but it was a place where no really, nobody really knew me over there in those apartments. And so when I moved over there in those times, I didn’t have car, I didn’t have a cell phone or anything like that. And so I, know, it was just me and my youngest son. My oldest son was at his grandparents’ house. My son stopped breathing, and I didn’t know how to help him at that age, and I was trying to get help in the community where I was, and it was late, so nobody really wanted to help me, but I finally got some help. And under the tutelage of someone else, they showed me how to do CPR. They showed me the wrong way. So I applied adult CPR to my son, all the way to the hospital.
Anne Holsinger 1:42
What was the evidence that eventually, initially convicted you and eventually led to your release?
Sabrina Butler-Smith 1:50
They convicted me of signing a statement saying that I committed a crime. I was coerced into doing that after four hours of being interrogated without my parents present, without any lawyer or any knowing, not really knowing my rights. So as a child at that age, I really didn’t understand. I understood you have the right to remain silent, but I thought it meant ‘be quiet until spoken to,’ because I had never been in any trouble before. So you know, that was what they used. And, you know, when you were interrogating a child, I think the approach should be totally different, but it wasn’t. And I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. I signed a document at the bottom, you know, not only any line, I just signed it on the bottom because I felt like somebody would see it. And that’s exactly, eventually that did help me. That helped me in the second trial, because that was a argument. You know, they wanted to know why there was so many minutes missing between each one of my statements. And they wanted to know why did I sign, you know, at the bottom, instead of what he told me to. Being interrogated as a child is a horrible thing, especially when you don’t, you know, you don’t understand, you know, exactly. And I didn’t. I really didn’t. They took a tragic—my son’s health condition and turned it into a murder. And it was never a murder to start with. It was never a murder, but they did that. I had all white jury. I had two court appointed attorneys—one was drunk during the whole trial, but he was a divorce attorney. And then I had the lead attorney just didn’t do the investigative work in the case. That’s why it turned out so horribly and went so wrong.
Anne Holsinger 3:30
Thank you so much for sharing that. Your case became historic, as you were the first woman in the United States to be exonerated from death row, and you were one of two women on Mississippi’s death row. Could you share what that experience was like being one of only two women on death row in your state?
Sabrina Butler-Smith 3:47
Well, it was, it was hard because, see, at the time, they didn’t know what to do with us. We were the only two women at the time, and they put us down a hall, um, with a piece of tape on the floor because they didn’t know what to do. I was the youngest woman and the other lady that was in there with me was named, Susan Balfour. She was, like, almost 30 at the time, and I was by the time I made it to death row, I was 19. So, it was, it was hard because, you know, at times it would be cold, I had to figure out how to stay warm. It would be hot. I had to figure out how to stay cool. It was, you know, horrible. I had bugs and ants and stuff on my trays of food. But the gripping part that was very scary for me was my death date. I was sentenced March the 13th of 1990, my death date was July the 2nd of 1990 and I wasn’t told about what state, that the state had to exhaust all state remedies before they could actually carry out a death sentence. So I was scared. I pasted floors, I listened for every chain, every sound, because I actually thought that I was going to die. You know, nobody talked to me. So when you’re going through this kind of thing, I think that attorneys and whoever else is handling your case, they should meet the client where they are, and they should be there for them to explain things to where they would know, especially when it’s a child involved. I lost my son. I never got to grieve, and I was never talked to in the first trial.
Anne Holsinger 5:24
Yeah, you just raised an interesting point that I wanted to ask about. There have been two possible innocence cases that have gained a lot of national attention recently that also involve parents accused of killing their young children. Those cases are Melissa Lucio and Robert Roberson, who are both on death row in Texas. Like you, they faced this simultaneous challenge of mourning the death of a child and struggling to prove their innocence in the legal system. Could you share your perspective on the particular difficulty of bringing innocence claims under those circumstances?
Sabrina Butler-Smith 5:58
It’s so hard because first of all, I know it’s a child, but people go-it’s like they have carpal, carpal tunnel vision. They see the child and that’s it. And no matter what is going on, and not listening to the person that you call the perpetrator, it becomes a problem. Because, you know, if you didn’t do it, like we didn’t do it, I feel Robert, Robert Roberson and Melissa Lucio—I don’t believe they did that. I really, truly don’t by looking at their cases just like me, and it’s hard to say, look, you know, I didn’t commit this crime. Please look at my case. I mean, I was begging the whole time. So it’s hard. But I think that as, living in the United States or anywhere, I think that you should put yourcarpal tunnel aside and look at the facts and pursue the case as it stands, give that person the opportunity to prove their innocence before you make an assumption. When they say you’re innocent till proven guilty, that’s that’s backwards. You’re guilty, and then you got to prove yourself innocent. That don’t make sense to me. I mean, I just don’t understand the legality of what they say when it comes to the rules of the United States. I just don’t, I don’t understand when it comes to the death penalty, I don’t I really don’t. And my my concern is that, you know, we’re just killing our citizens. And yes, I’m not saying that you should get a pass for doing wrong. I’m not saying that at all. What I’m saying is, when did we become God, though? When did we decide to say who live and who dies? And how can you take a prison staff and have them to kill the person, but you, but they’re the caretakers at the same time? That don’t make sense. It don’t make sense. I, you know by being on death row and seeing you know my caretaker, my caretaker is subsequently going to be the one that put me to death. It don’t make sense. It just don’t, it don’t make sense, and I think in this country, we need to change this. We need to stop this death penalty as it’s going because it’s not correct at all. It’s not.
Anne Holsinger 8:13
There is research that suggests juries judge mothers more harshly than fathers in cases involving harm to children. Based on your experience, how do you think gender bias affected the jury deliberations in your case? And I’m also curious, since you were so young, do you think there was also potentially any age bias at play?
Sabrina Butler-Smith 8:35
I think that being a young African American with an all white jury, nobody looked like me, is the reason why they were so easy to judge. And the district attorney, the judge, everybody was white. So, you know, you got an African American child standing in the presence of these people, you know. The outcome was going to be just as a woman, I had never been any trouble before, but when I saw that, I knew my life was over, because they had already made their decision when, when my lawyer was talking, they were looking at the floor. They were looking at the ceiling. They weren’t concerned at all about what he was saying. But the district attorney, they they like, they hung on every word he had to say. So I knew that this was, it was like a kangaroo court. It was already set up before I, they even saw me. They just knew I was an African American. They knew that. And so, I mean, you know, I, I know the gender bias and race plays a huge role in a lot of these sentences and the victim, I know it does.
Anne Holsinger 9:39
Yeah, I’d like to talk a little bit more about that. We’re releasing this podcast during women’s history month in March. Are there other things you think people should understand about the intersection of gender, race and the death penalty in the United States?
Sabrina Butler-Smith 9:54
I think, to be honest with you, when there’s a crime committed, if they would not show the victim or the person that is accused of it, and just put the facts out there—you know, the facts are the case—I think we would have a better way the trial works, because you can’t see the victim and you can’t see the perpetrator. You know what I’m saying? That that leaves people open to think, that, that leaves people open to, okay, well, here’s the facts in front of us. This is what we have. Because once they see the race of the victim, the race of the perpetrator, then that creates a problem. You see what I’m saying. I mean, that’s just my thought, my opinion. I feel like we should not have that at all. We should not say, okay, so Joe Blow or so and so committed this crime, and then you post them all over the news. Everybody see them, or she or he, or whatever, you know what I’m saying, inflaming everybody already. And then when you have trials, you put you blast them all over the, you know, all over the monitors or whatever you have before the jury. I don’t think that should be a plan of a plan. I think it should be just the facts, what you have in the case, and you should keep those identities off the table and let people make a decision like that based on that, not just on what somebody looks like or what you see, because that’s basically what it is. Juries will, they will fold with whoever else is talking because, and that’s why I don’t think you should death qualify a jury. You shouldn’t do that. These are regular people on the street, and you’re asking them to say, Okay, let’s put this guy to death. I mean, I don’t think those things that you should take out. I don’t think you should have one.
Anne Holsinger 11:39
Thank you for sharing that perspective. I also want to talk about the false confession. You mentioned that early on. You have previously described that when you signed your false confession, you used tiny letters in the margin as sort of a small act of resistance, and you touched on that earlier. Could you share how investigators were able to obtain that confession, and what would you like people to understand about why someone like you might confess to something they didn’t do?
Sabrina Butler-Smith 12:07
Well how I ended up confessing when they took me into the interrogation room, before I could sit down, it was two men. Here I am a young kid, and there’s two men standing over me, and they are in my face, yelling, screaming, like they want to push me, beat me up or anything. I’m scared. I don’t know what to do, and at that time, I wanted that to stop. I would sign anything. When you’re interrogated and being scared of somebody that you don’t know what they gonna do to you, you would do it too. A lot of people say, well, how could you sign something you know, you know you didn’t commit the crime? Okay. You would have to be interrogated, the game that they play, what they do, in order to get the confession. You have, to that brings me back to the case of the little boy. What was his name?
Anne Holsinger 12:55
Is it George Stinney? Perhaps, in South Carolina?
Sabrina Butler-Smith 12:58
They bribed him with food because he was hungry, they bribed him with food. Why would you, I mean, you know, you took a child and you killed this child. He was so little he couldn’t even sit up on the- they had to put books under ‘em just to kill him. C’mon, why you do that? That is ridiculous. So I’m a kid. I’m not really knowing my rights. My mom wasn’t there. My dad wasn’t there. Nobody was there to help me to say, you know, let’s get a lawyer. Don’t, you know, you ain’t got to talk to them. You know, I didn’t know any of that. They didn’t record nothing, none of that. So they was able to do whatever they wanted to do, just to get a conviction, just to get not a conviction, but for me to close their case, put it like that. So that’s why I signed it. But I signed at the bottom, you know, thinking that somebody was seeing and he didn’t say, the investigator didn’t say anything when I signed. They just wanted, you know, to close that case, because he was saying things like, ‘oh, you just a hood. You live in the hood with, with all this, I knew was gonna be another murder come out of that, that, uh, apartment complex, you ain’t no good. You this, that in the third.’ I mean, he was saying all kinds of stuff to me as a child. So, I mean, I being scared, I didn’t have, a I felt like I didn’t have a choice. I just wanted it to stop. I wanted them to leave me alone.
Anne Holsinger 14:22
Yeah, I can’t imagine being in that situation as such a young person, and particularly having just gone through the trauma of losing your child. That’s, once again, it reminds me of some of the parallels to Melissa Lucio’s case, because I know she was also coerced into confessing to the death of her daughter.
Sabrina Butler-Smith 14:40
Yeah because right, when I lost my son, I was I thought they were lying to me. I felt like everybody was lying to me I felt like this couldn’t be true. I have a two year old. I had a two year old too. So if I wanted to do anything wrong, why would I go for help? I mean, why would I ask, look somebody help me. You know, I had a two year old son too. And, I mean, it was just, it was just, I don’t know, they just took what they wanted and did what they wanted, because I was in a small town. Everybody knew everybody, and it was a racist town, and they just used me, to make this district attorney to make a name for himself. He was 25 and he was overzealous, and it was four death penalty cases to come out of that area, and all four of them was overturned because he used wrong tactics to get convictions. I mean, he just messed up people’s lives.
Anne Holsinger 15:31
Wow.
Sabrina Butler-Smith 15:32
And I mean, I don’t see how a person can walk around like that, because he stole my life from me, and then when I got out, it took me two years to find my son where he was even buried at. I didn’t, ain’t nobody told me that, either. It was my research that found my baby.
Anne Holsinger 15:49
Wow.
Sabrina Butler-Smith 15:50
And, they, he’s in a place now that I can’t even go to where he is, because it’s so bad. They buried him in the woods, under a tree on a hill and the woods, it’s like it done took back, and you look like it used to be an old cemetery. It embarrasses me so bad because I wanted to move it. I really did, and now I can’t, because you can’t get in there. There’s no way. I mean, it just the earth done took the stones are cobbled all over the place, and it’s horrible. And I, that hurts me, because I, you know, my son was born July the fourth, 1988. I just wish that I could, you know, go to his gravesite and stuff like that. But I, because I was, you know, that was taken from me, so that’s why I fight so hard. In this, in this case, in every case, if there’s people talking about, I’m innocent, I need help—I’m there, because it’s wrong what they doing. I mean, since this night before last they they did, uh, in South Carolina, they shot the guy. I mean, I understand that’s probably what he opted for, but wow, come on. I just can’t, I mean, I don’t know it definitely is harsh, it’s harsh.
Anne Holsinger 17:14
Just to clarify for our listeners, the case you’re referring to, South Carolina carried out the first firing squad execution in about 15 years on Friday. We’re recording this on Monday, March 10, and that execution just took place on Friday. So that was what you were referencing there.
Sabrina Butler-Smith 17:33
Yes.
Anne Holsinger 17:33
So you’ve, you’ve talked about wanting to, you know, work with other people who are raising innocence claims, and I know that with Witness to Innocence, you connect with a lot of other death row exonerees. Have you connected with other exonerated women, and are there specific commonalities that you’ve found in those experiences?
Sabrina Butler-Smith 17:53
Yes, I have connected. I have one in particular, Kristine Bunch. I don’t know if you know her case, but she was also accused of, it was a house fire. She lost her son in the house fire. I’ve connected with her. It’s the trauma that you’re dealing with losing your child. Debra Milke, she lost her son. I’ve connected with her. Um, she was on death row as well. And you just look at, I understand, I’m not saying that guys don’t feel when something happens to their children or whatever, or they’re accused of hurting their child and didn’t do it, but I think it’s more deeper wit a woman, because you’re carrying that child for nine months, and then you lose your baby, and then you subsequently convicted of killing your own child. I mean, it just cuts deeper. It cuts deeper, and it’s unimaginable to know that I’m sitting there in front of a jury and these people are saying, hey, you know you are a horrible person. You are monster, you, you know killed your son, your child, you know, your child suffered this, that, and the third and, and I, you know, I just, I couldn’t, I couldn’t. I don’t know, how anyone could, you know, even think like that. I just don’t, I don’t see it. I just was lost in myself, because I just, and then, you know, my oldest son, I didn’t get a chance to raise him. And you know, it’s just, it’s hard. It’s really hard.
Anne Holsinger 19:20
Have there been particular challenges related to reentry and, you know, reestablishing your life that you think are unique to women exonerees?
Sabrina Butler-Smith 19:31
It is because, first of all, you know you are, you know when you’re incarcerated, you’re dealing with mostly men that are, that have been incarcerated and locked up and stuff. You have women, you know, in a women’s prison or whatever, but you, I, it took me 10 years to get where I’m at today, to be able to talk about what happened to me and my case and all of that stuff. And yes, it’s particularly hard because you trying to fit back into a world that—it’s the same word that throwed you away to begin with. And so now you trying to fit back into this situation and, and you’re you’re trying to pick up the pieces of whatever little life you have. Finding jobs is just remotely horrible. I mean, if it hadn’t been for Witness to Innocence giving me a job like I have now, I don’t know where I would be because even though I was exonerated, when you get ready to fill out that application, you got to tell the truth. I mean, and most employers don’t want to hear the drama that came with you, they rather hire somebody else. That was the problem that I faced for a long time trying to figure out how to get, you know, to take care of myself. And I know I’m not the only exoneree that faces that, a lot of us face that because a lot of us didn’t get compensation. I got a little compensation, what they, what they thought it was, what they wanted me to have. But the bad part about that was that my daughter was born and she has the same problem that my son died from. So most of the money they gave me, I put it into my daughter, medical care. So, so, I mean, what, what did that, what did that help me? That didn’t help nothing. You know, so I left Mississippi. I left Mississippi, and I moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and that’s where I’ve been so far. And I went, came here to find help for my daughter so she would be okay, and she’s doing good. She’s, she’s 22 now, and the name of this disease is polycystic kidney disease. Uh, little Walter had more than what she had. He had heart, kidney, and lung problems and bowel so he had most of his, most of his problem was harder than hers. And I think it all, it all stemmed from where we stayed. That’s where I think it came from, because we lived next to a plant that was putting toxins in the water. And all my children were born with something, something wrong. All of ‘em. Now I have three living children, and all four living children, and every last one was born was something wrong.
Anne Holsinger 22:08
Wow. Your case really emphasizes how many intersecting systems really affect people’s lives. You have, you know, environmental justice, and you have the criminal legal system and race and gender and age. It’s, it’s really remarkable.
Sabrina Butler-Smith 22:24
That’s why I’m working on my book now.
Anne Holsinger 22:26
Oh, really?
Sabrina Butler-Smith 22:27
Yeah, before this year ends, where I had, I got a college up here to help me to do the cover, and we’re working on it. We got all, it’s all written. I just had to have it edited. It took me four years to edit that book because of all the hurt that I had to pour out into it. So now I’m just waiting on to, you know, to bring it to life.
Anne Holsinger 22:49
Wow. Well, we will definitely look forward to hearing about the release of your book. Is there anything else that you would like to share with our listeners?
Sabrina Butler-Smith 22:58
Only thing I want to share with our listeners is, I have had the opportunity to go to the capitol, you know, places to talk to our legislators in different towns. And the only thing I want to say is, know who you’re putting in office. Screen them. Start asking them questions. Don’t let these people get in office from the police all the way up, get in office and not find out what type of person they are. Find out if they’re fair, if they do the right thing, that’s important, because that if they’re crooked and not correct, then we’re going to continue doing harm to people. We’re going to continue putting innocent people in prison. 200 death row exonerees, and over 3,000 innocent people of, of other crime, that’s, that’s too many. That is too many that that are that you’re causing harm to, not, not, not, uh, counting the family members. Because the family members go to prison with you. You don’t go by yourself. They go with you. That’s, the only take I have to say.
Anne Holsinger 24:02
Thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us, and you know it’s obviously still very emotional for you, so I am grateful that you were willing to bring up all of these emotions and educate our listeners on your case.
Sabrina Butler-Smith 24:16
Well, I thank you guys for having me, and I hope that it does something for someone, and brings, brings a thought in your mind to know that, you know, we ain’t God. We playing God here with these people. I’m very you know, I believe in God, and I just know that he’s the one who helped me through this situation. And I know that he’s not happy, he’s not happy with what we’re doing down here.
Anne Holsinger 24:42
If our listeners would like to learn more about Witness to Innocence’s work, you can visit their website at witnesstoinnocence.org and if you’d like to learn more about the death penalty in general, you can visit DPI ‘s website at deathpenaltyinfo.org. To support the 12:01 podcast and all of DPI ‘s work, please visit deathpenaltyinfo.org/donate. And to make sure you never miss an episode, please subscribe to 12:01, in your podcast app of choice.