my brother is John E Butler & he is not a killer! (522 hits)
Category: NewsRating: -1.17 on 6 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Magnus (View user info) at 2005-01-10 20:12:23 EST
The Nevada Supreme Court upheld the murder conviction but called for a new penalty hearing for a skinhead leader sentenced in 2001 to die for killing two men who opposed his racist beliefs.
John Edward Butler will get a new hearing as a result of several problems in the penalty phase of his Clark County District Court trial, the court ruled Monday.
The court cited an erroneous jury instruction and inflammatory comments made by prosecutors to the jury about the tactics Butler's defense attorneys used to argue for a sentence less than death.
"Butler not only has a legal right, but his counsel have an ethical duty, to present all evidence in mitigation of a death sentence," the court said.
Two of the five justices who agreed a new penalty hearing was warranted disagreed that prosecutors engaged in misconduct in their comments to the jury.
Justices Deborah Agosti and Bill Maupin said calling an expert defense witness "high falootin" - did not rise to the level of misconduct, but said other factors cited by Chief Justice Miriam Shearing in the majority opinion warranted the penalty hearing.
Las Vegas -- After his son was murdered on July 4, 1998, Lionel Newborn thought this year would be a time for peace and remembrance. He was wrong. (because he was a fuck)
Outside the Vacation Village casino on the Las Vegas Strip on Saturday, on the eve of the anniversary of his son's death in what he calls a hate crime, Lionel Newborn watched in disbelief as a carload of skinheads screeched to a stop.
One young man with ''Intimidation One'' tattooed across his chest jumped out and started shinnying up a flagpole in an attempt to destroy first the Mexican, then the Israeli, flag.
Later that night, according to Las Vegas police, white power bands planned to stage a rock concert to celebrate the slaying of Lin Newborn, a 24-year-old African-American who had spent much of his adult life campaigning against racism.
''They have their rights, that's what makes this country great. You can hate whoever you want to hate, you can even demonstrate your hate, but you are not supposed to bring harm to other people.''
The white power groups, who were interrogated by police, postponed their concert, citing a heavy police presence.
While hate crimes such as the torture of a gay man in Wyoming and the dragging death of an African-American man in Texas have received national attention, the deaths of Lin Newborn and his friend Dan Shersty are chronicled more by friends and activists than the national press.
In Las Vegas, police Officer Harry Fagel has written poetry in memory of Lin Newborn, whom he described as a role model for the neighborhood. During the morning briefings given to the Las Vegas Police Department, Fagel reads his poetry to try to keep Newborn's memory alive.
John Toddy, 19, described his friend Newborn as a ''father figure to the Las Vegas underground antiracist scene.''
Toddy, a member of the Las Vegas chapter of Anti Racist Action, said Newborn ''did everything he could to stop racism and was so outspoken. That is what led to his murder. He tried to keep us thinking it's not so much the person as the disease of ignorance.
''Our main fight wasn't against the neo-Nazis, but against their beliefs.''
Nicknamed ''Spit,'' Lin Newborn was a civil rights activist with the groups Unity Skins and Anti Racist Action.
Lionel Newborn described his son as an idealist who could never understand racism. ''Our home would look like the United Nations. Racial prejudice didn't exist. Spit couldn't deal with racism. It really hurt him that this hatred and ignorance existed. He couldn't understand why people couldn't get along.''
The circumstances surrounding the deaths of Newborn and Shersty will be fully aired in a trial this year. What is now known, according to police and press reports, is that July 3, 1998, two women entered Tribal Body Piercing, where Newborn worked. After getting a belly ring clipped in, the women invited Newborn to a party.
Newborn invited his friend Shersty, a white serviceman who fixed F-16 engines at Nellis Air Force Base. The two left home at midnight.
Tourists riding in the desert the next morning discovered Shersty's badly beaten body. It was covered with boot prints. Shersty had received a shotgun blast to the chest. Two days later, police found Newborn's body. He had been shot repeatedly.
In September, John Edward Butler, 26, a local man with a lengthy criminal record, was charged with the murders.
Police in Las Vegas were unwilling to give details of the investigation, but hinted that further arrests could be imminent.
Civil rights activists with the national group Anti Racist Action are using the deaths of Shersty and Newborn to raise consciousness at rock and punk concerts nationwide.
At a ''Warped Tour'' concert Friday in San Bernardino, Calif., hundreds of newsletters describing the deaths were handed out.
Mo Acosta, 24, a hospital worker who attended the show, said he encounters youth with Nazi beliefs every day. ''If you go to a punk ... show, you can tell by their boot laces, the brotherhood tattoos, and the swastikas, they'll be talking about white power,'' and giving you the Nazi salute.
Justice Mark Gibbons was the lone dissenter, saying he would have upheld the death sentence.
Joseph Sciscento, one of two attorneys who represented Butler at trial, called the ruling a partial victory.
He cited comments from the state high court that both defense attorneys should have been allowed to present arguments in the penalty phase. Sciscento was not allowed to make an argument.
Butler was a leader of the Independent Nazi Skins when Lin Newborn, 25, and Daniel Shersty, 21, were slain. Shersty was white. Newborn was black. Prosecutors said they were members of a skinhead group that worked against racism.
Prosecutors told jurors that several people participated in the Independence Day 1998 ambush near Powerline Road and Centennial Parkway.
Butler was the only person charged in the case. Jurors found him guilty in December 2000, and recommended in January 2001 that he die by lethal injection.
Two men who sought to excise racial hatred from the local skinhead movement were gunned down in a desert ambush orchestrated by those opposed to their work, prosecutors said Thursday.
"Daniel Shersty and Lin Newborn lived, and ultimately died, for a cause," Deputy District Attorney Robert Daskas told jurors during opening statements in the capital murder trial of John Butler.
In his opening statement, Deputy Special Public Defender Joseph Sciscento made little mention of the racial views of his client, whom police say was a leader of the Independent Nazi Skins.
Rather, he cast the case as a traditional whodunnit, with the answer being someone other than his client.
Sciscento said alibi witnesses will testify that Butler was elsewhere at the time of the slaying. His only crime was that he later tried to help friends cover up the killing, the attorney said.
"He is guilty of being stupid," Sciscento said. "But he is not guilty of murder."
On Thursday, six anti-racist skinheads attended the trial, which participants expect will last about one month.
"I am here to show support for Spit (Newborn) and Daniel. I don't want him to get away with it," said 18-year-old Andrea Hopf, who traveled from Southern California to attend the trial.
The defense has sought to limit evidence of Butler's skinhead activity, saying it would inflame the jury. "They are going to hate Mr. Butler," Sciscento told District Judge Michael Douglas.
Prosecutors countered that the case can only be understood in the context of the running feud between racist and nonracist skinhead groups.
"This case is all about racism. That is the motive for the killing," Daskas said.
Douglas ruled prosecutors may present evidence of Butler's skinhead affiliation, but said he will restrict such testimony to that which is necessary and relevant.
Las Vegas police officer Greg Damarin, formerly assigned to a gang detail, said he encountered Butler on about 30 occasions and considered him a leader of the Independent Nazi Skins.
"He was very respected and someone high-ranking within that organization," he said outside the jury's presence.
Butler was born Christmas Day 1971 in Orange County, Calif. In an unrelated criminal case, his family told authorities his racial views began to take shape in the mid-1980s.
"(His mother) stated that his fear and hatred of people of color is the result of being 'raped' by a black male for 'many months' at the age of 14," an officer wrote in a report.
Prosecutors said racial hatred led him to orchestrate the killings of Newborn and Shersty in a desert area near Powerline Road and Centennial Parkway in northwest Las Vegas.
Shortly after midnight on July 4, 1998, the two victims told friends they were going to meet two girls Newborn had just met. Prosecutors contend one of the women was Melissa Hack, Butler's girlfriend.
A store receipt showed the two men purchased six-packs of Newcastle and Beck's shortly after 12:30 a.m.
Between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m., Newborn called a friend and left a recorded message saying he would talk to her later.
About 3:15 a.m., another friend repeatedly paged Newborn, who never responded.
Prosecutors say the two friends and their dates had driven to the desert area, where the men were ambushed and shot to death. Shersty was killed directly in front of his car, while Newborn died about 400 feet away. Prosecutors say his wounds suggest he was trying to flee his attackers.
At about 8 a.m., three men driving all-terrain vehicles discovered the body of Shersty. Butler and two others emerged from a nearby desert area where officers later found Newborn's body.
The drivers gave police the license plate of the Toyota Camry that Butler was driving, and it was traced to the parents of Hack.
Officers determined Hack, who has never been charged in the case, was a skinhead and the girlfriend of Butler.
Ten days after the slayings, officers spotted Butler on Harmon Avenue and he unsuccessfully tried to flee. A handgun found along the path of his flight was later identified as one of the weapons used to kill Shersty.
In his statement to detectives, Butler said he did not participate in the killings and said he believed they might be the work of Ross Hack, his girlfriend's brother, who also has not been charged.
Butler said he and Melissa Hack were sleeping at her parents' home when her brother knocked on the bedroom door. He said the siblings spoke briefly, then Melissa Hack returned and said they had to retrieve some items from a crime scene.
Butler said he, Melissa Hack and Joseph Justin were at the scene for about three minutes when the ATV riders arrived.
Sciscento told jurors the evidence will show that Butler, a longtime drug abuser with a lengthy criminal history composed primarily of misdemeanors, merely tried to help his friends conceal a crime in which he did not participate.
"John Butler is an idiot," he said.
Prosecutors countered that witnesses, including Justin, will testify that Butler spoke freely of his involvement in the slayings.
Justin, who agreed to testify in exchange for favorable treatment on unrelated cases, told police Butler asked him to help retrieve some shells and a Beck's beer bottle.
Justin said Butler told him that Melissa Hack and another woman Butler did not identify made a date to meet Newborn and Shersty. The group drove to the desert and parked, with the two men expecting to party, Justin said he was told.
He said Butler told him that Butler and Ross Hack approached from the desert and shot the two men to death.
my brother is not a killer he was a leader of men & they hate him for it!
fuck the police & the courts if I had my way today we would over run them all!!
Fuck all you SHARPS & nigger lovers to I hate you all for taking my brother away from me & if you want to say something come say it to my face! I will kill you all!
magnus247420.at.yahoo.com
User Reviews
Submitted by precision (user info) at 2005-01-11 00:09:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
so what you are saying is that your brother is in prison, and you are going to prison...You got any other family in jail?
Submitted by Creepy_guy (user info) at 2005-01-10 23:42:53 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
I don't believe this post is real. If I'm wrong though (that happens a lot), then you're a sad, sad man. Threats over the internet? Get a life.
Submitted by Stin (user info) at 2005-01-10 20:21:58 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
Y'know, I thought "this makes a change, a nice, legible post from Magnus". And then I realised that you couldn't possibly have written it because you have no concept of the English language.
And you're still a wankstain.
Submitted by AlkalineSolo (user info) at 2005-01-10 20:21:08 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by zakalwe (user info) at 2005-01-10 20:17:17 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
Given your behaviour just in the last 30 mins I don't believe this.
The final sentences are very reminiscent of KoolMang.
Submitted by keebler (user info) at 2005-01-10 20:14:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
did he do it or not?