Murder on a Sunday morning is about a young 15 year old boy called Brenton Butler who is jailed for armed robbery murder case that he did not commit. He happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, he was simply going to fill in a job application.
The style of the film is presented to show you the story step by step of what happened to not give the story away all at once. The court room scenes are shown. To add suspense, shots of helicopters hover above the court room to show where it was based. The film takes you in steps of the whole case without giving you an idea of what actually happens. For example, at one point in the documentary the Lawyer interrogates the victims husband and it gives the audience the impression that is could have been him that committed the murder and was trying to cover it up by blaming any young black male as he couldn’t identify the t-shirt he was wearing when the logo on Butlers t-shirt was pretty recognisable as it was big and bold. We later find out that that wasn’t the case, but this gives the movie a twist.
I think Jean Xavier de Lestrade (aged 50) and Denis Doncet had good reason to film this film. They both developed a production company called Maha Productions and have made a few other documentaries based on the aspects of the International judicial system. This shows that they weren’t just interested on this one story and had already taken an interest into the american justice system and done other movies based on this. This is why I think they had good reason to film it.
When watching this documentary, you begin to find out that is actually in fact a corrupt case with signs of racism. There was one witness who gave evidence for the identification of the person who committed the murder. Throughout you come to find that the police officers who went out to find the apparent murderer don’t look properly and pick the first black male that they see not according to the identification, simply by the colour of the man. There was evidence that they went looking for black people.
You also find out that the police officers got lazy on duty when they were trying to find the evidence of the purse and weapon in the woods and to try and save time beat Brenton Butler in the dark woods by hitting the 15 year. There was evidence of bruising on the eye, body and chest. Large swelling on the eye. The police officers were forceful with him and beat him to sign a piece of paper to confess into a crime he did not commit. A police officer said to young Butler “its niggers like you who make me sick” which is another sign of racism. When he cried for them to stop, they called him pathetic and showed no sympathy, when they did not even know for certain if it was actually him.
In each court room scene, music is played to set the mood. You also get to see the Butler family and how they live, you see that they are a genuine religious family who have morals and a clear aspect of life. They prey for their sons innocence everyday as they know that he did not commit the crime. The mother said that he was doing his laundry then went out to go apply for job in block busters, then was going to come home and feed his dog.
Towards the ending of the documentary we find out that another young black man called Wan Curtis, was actually the murderer all along and that during a robbery she threw a coffee over him so he shot her. They also found one of his finger prints on the purse which hadn’t been examined before that allegation came up.
Brent Butler was jailed for a year and a half for a crime he did not commit, due to laziness and racism from the police. He got abused and forced into confessing and signing a form to something he did not do.
Perrie Kurban 