Sabrina Butler - introduction

SABRINA BUTLER – AN INTRODUCTION

By Clive Stafford Smith

Lawyers tend to think they can lecture the world on most things. In point of fact, if we have any sense, we come to understand that we learn much more from those we represent than vice-versa. So it has been for me when it comes to Sabrina Butler. If you read her book, I hope you will benefit from both her experience and her wisdom as I have.

Sabrina writes about being young when she went through the tor- ment of a death penalty prosecution. I was not much older when I took on her case. I was probably an averagely self-assured British youth. I knew a bit about the law, and getting her conviction and sentence reversed did not seem like much of a challenge, as the prosecution had vastly overreached in her first trial. The learning began mostly when it came to retrying her case, which I did with my good friend and brilliant lawyer, Rob McDuff.