One Angry Man

By Patricia Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 30, 1997; Page B01

Paul Butler says he lost just one trial as an assistant U.S.
attorney.

It was a classic "dropsy": the dealer catches sight of the cops,
drops the bag of dope and runs. This time, the kid claimed the
police set him up and then beat him.

"I destroyed his case," Butler says matteroffactly. Butler is
proud of his conviction rate during a six month assignment as a
prosecutor in 1990. At a trials start, he would unfold his
6 foot 3 frame from the chair, turn his brown oval face toward
the jury box and announce, "My name is Paul Butler and I
represent the United States of America," nudging the syllables of
the last few words for emphasis.

"The African American jurors, the older women in particular,
would just beam," Butler says in his rich bass, as if they were
thinking, "You go, boy, you represent the United States of
America."

So when the foreman in the dropsy case stood and pronounced the
black defendant "not guilty," Butler was shocked. All 10 black
jurors refused to speak to him after the verdict, but one white
juror finally admitted that the others talked her into letting
the kid off.

Butler had often heard colleagues complain of black jurors
refusing to send black defendants to prison despite indisputable
guilt; it was a staple of a prosecutors training. But when it
happened to him, he was indignant. "I was angry . . . I win all
my cases."

Now, from his fourth-floor office at George Washington University
Law School, Paul Butler, 36, has become the leading spokesman for
"jury nullification," urging African American jurors to ignore
rocksolid evidence of guilt and set nonviolent black defendants
free.

In the backwash of O.J. Simpson's acquittal, Butler's calls to
put loyalty to race above loyalty to law have fueled anxieties
about the nations trial system. While fear of renegade jurors has
prodded some state legislatures to consider abandoning unanimous
jury verdicts, a federal appeals court last week declared that
judges have a duty to prevent nullification. In the District,
some judges have started issuing what's become known as an
"anti-Butler" warning to jurors; a New York Times editorial this
week chided Butler, and angry GW alumni have demanded
unsuccessfully that he be fired.

"I do want to subvert the criminal justice system," Butler
declares unapologetically. A system that treats black crack
smokers more harshly than whites who snort powdered cocaine
doesn't deserve respect, he says.

What seems remarkable, however, is not simply that someone is
advocating nullification, but that this former prosecutor, this
Justice Department veteran, this product of the establishment, is
its preeminent champion.

How did Paul Butler move from there to here?