The victim was 65-year old Mary Ann Stephens, a tourist who was shot at a Ramada Inn with her husband standing next to her. Mr. Stephens positively ID'd Brenton as the assailant and that's all JSO needed to detain the young boy and obtain the confession they needed.

However, as the movie shows, public defender Patrick MacGuiness finds it strange detectives didn't check out Brenton's alibi, or even question his parents as to where he may have obtained the murder weapon. In addition, detectives didn't even get a search warrant to search Brenton's home to FIND the murder weapon.

Instead, as the movie infers, but did not come out in court, the sheriff's office took the young man to a wooded area across from the murder site at dusk and beat the crap out of him until he signed their fabricated confession.

Detectives testified to taking the boy out there looking for the murder weapon, but why at night when nothing could be seen? And why for a half-hour under those unvisible conditions?

Of course, MacGuiness went after the ineptness of the detectives and the issue as racism. Here was a young African American male who in know way matched the eye witnesses original description on his way to fill out a job application at Blockbuster Video. They picked him up, and the "white" eyewitness said it was the man. Why? Probably because the eyewitness was one of THOSE people whom African American neighbors all look alike to him.

The case to defend Brenton was very meticulous and the movie intercuts actually courtroom footage with interviews with MacGuiness, describing why his going after certain issues.

As a documentary, this picture couldn't have been made better. It showed every detail of the case; however, it was a little one sided. On screen interviews only came from the defense team and Brenton's family, and NOT the prosecutor or the sheriff's office. I imagine the sheriff's office would have denied being interviewed for the project, but it still would have given us a little balance.

As for the movie's entertainment quality, the ongoing condensed courtroom footage tends to get old. If you've ever witnessed an actual criminal proceeding, you know they are long and drawn out. So was this.

Director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade did a good job to edit in interviews when the courtroom stuff started to get old, but not quite enough. However, I have no problems with this picture winning Best Documentary at the Academy Awards® that year. It was well deserving.

If you like true-life crime drama, this one should be enjoyable for you. I loved the denouement, where we find out MacGuiness located the ACTUAL assailant himself, four months after the verdict of Brenton Butler. Still, sheriff's office detectives did nothing to successfully find the man; it was the public defender's office to find the truth once again. Very cool.