If you agree with the defence, Philip Butler meant only to put his brother George in a chokehold as an act of self-defence to allow him a second to escape.
If you agree with the Crown, Butler killed his brother unlawfully and then came up with a convenient story in an effort to hide the truth.
It’s now up to a 12-member jury to decide what’s the truth and what’s not reasonable when it comes to how George Butler died.
After a three-week trial in Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court in St. John’s, Justice Valerie Marshall spent most of Thursday instructing the jurors in Philip Butler’s murder trial on how to apply the law, before sequestering them to begin deliberating on a verdict Friday morning.
The jurors should return with one of three possible verdicts. If they accept that Butler killed his brother in self-defence, they will find him not guilty. If they reject the self-defence argument and accept Butler intentionally killed George, they will find him guilty of second-degree murder. If the jurors accept that Butler didn’t intend to kill George but would have known the chokehold was likely to cause his death, they can declare Butler guilty of manslaughter.
“There is ample evidence that George used force against Philip,” defence lawyer Karen Rehner, who is representing Butler alongside co-counsel Tim O’Brien, told the jury in her closing submissions Thursday morning. “Philip Butler said that he tried to get away once and George dragged him back into the home. After that, as soon as he was able to, Philip got up and he put his arm around George’s neck. He was trying to subdue George, just trying to knock George out so that he could get away. It was Philip’s testimony that his sole purpose was to protect himself and ending it.”
George, 43, died sometime in the early morning hours of May 21, 2018, after a drug-fuelled night at Philip’s home.
The court heard during the trial that George had been estranged from most of his family for years and had recently returned to the province.
After regaining contact a month previously, the brothers had spent a lot of time together, drinking and doing crack cocaine at Philip’s Conception Bay South home. Butler's feelings toward his brother were a mix of "admiration and trepidation," Rehner said.
An autopsy revealed George died of strangulation by a broad force, consistent with a chokehold. He also had blunt force injuries to his face and his knuckles.
Butler, 38, took the stand as the last witness to testify at his trial, telling the court George was “a scary guy” who claimed he had connections with the Hells Angels and had been involved in serious crimes around the St. John’s area. He supplied the crack and the two of them consumed it, Butler said; he smoked it while George injected.
The night of May 20, Butler said, he had fallen asleep on the couch after having taken George to buy more cocaine and awoke to the sound of his brother trashing his bedroom. After calling a friend for help and getting no answer, he said, he went into the bedroom and found George rummaging through dresser drawers and smashing them, talking to himself and looking for a document belonging to Philip that he thought might contain the home address of their other brother, Jonathan.
George had it out for Jonathan, Butler testified, and Jonathan said the same when he took the stand.
George was an angry man with no conscience, Jonathan told the court.
Butler said George threw two broken drawers at him before pushing him into another bedroom and beating him in the head. Butler said he soiled himself during the beating.
Butler testified he watched George go into the bathroom and use a syringe to inject crack into a vein in his neck before heading toward the living room. Butler went into the bathroom and changed into pyjamas, then decided to make a run for the front door. Butler told the court his brother caught him, grabbing him by the head with one hand and pulling him up two stairs into the living room, he said.
“We’re both kind of yelling at each other. I wouldn’t be able to tell you the exact words. At that time he takes a needle and jabs it into my arm and injects me with something,” Butler testified. “I jump up. I put George in a headlock. There was a bit of a struggle, we hit the floor and we both pass out.”
Butler said he didn’t realize his brother was dead until he woke up the next afternoon.
“Looking at it from the outside, it’s easy to say Philip Butler should have called the police,” Rehner told the jurors Thursday. “Don’t ask yourself whether Philip’s actions were perfect, ask yourself whether they were reasonable.”
There were at least three weapons in the room that Butler could have used had he intended to kill George, Rehner said, including a pair of scissors, a knife and a metal pipe.
She noted forensic pathologist Dr. Simon Avis had not given any evidence regarding how long and how much force it would take to strangle someone.
Testimony challenged
Prosecutor Scott Hurley delivered a lengthier closing argument, picking apart what he said were aspects of Butler’s testimony that didn’t make sense.
If Butler had been beaten in the head, why were there no photos by police of those injuries, like there were of injuries to Butler’s arms and hands, he asked. Why would Butler have bothered to change his clothes before trying to escape if his life was in danger?
Hurley asked the jurors to consider whether it seemed reasonable that George would have been able to use one hand to grab Philip by his short hair and pull him upstairs, then pick him up unwillingly and throw him on the couch. He questioned how, if Butler had passed out as he hit the floor with George in a chokehold, he was able to maintain the pressure to strangle his brother.
“Ask yourself, can you strangle someone in your sleep? Ask yourself if that makes any sense.”
Pointing to testimony from witnesses, Hurley, who is prosecuting Butler with fellow Crown Alana Dwyer, proposed a theory about what had happened.
“Something happens in the (second bedroom) which causes Philip Butler to soil himself. We don’t know what it is. I’m not accepting his evidence of George punching him in the head,” Hurley said.
After watching George use a needle to inject drugs in the bathroom, Philip changed his clothes as he testified, Hurley proposed.
“At this point, I would suggest he becomes extremely angry at whatever happened in that bedroom. He finds George in the living room and attacks George, causing injuries to George’s face and then applies a chokehold on George. George struggles to free himself, stabs Philip in the forearm with a needle, the needle falls from his hand and lands on the table where police find it. Eventually both parties hit the floor and George dies of manual asphyxiation.”
Philip Butler then realized what had happened, Hurley hypothesized, and screamed at his brother’s body, “I told you I f---ing loved you, man!” as overheard by a neighbour who testified.
At some point, Butler grabbed a blanket, rested his head on his dead brother’s back and went to sleep, the way he was found by a friend who visited his home the next morning, Hurley said.
George’s facial lacerations and Butler’s injuries – which included a puncture wound to the left forearm and abrasions to his left elbow – support the theory, Hurley said, as does the finding of a needle on the coffee table near George’s body.
Hurley pointed to testimony of three witnesses – Butler’s brother, Jonathan, his stepbrother and his friend – who said Butler had told them he had killed George without any mention of self-defence.
“I would suggest to you that my theory makes the most sense,” Hurley said to the jurors. “The most vest party here is Philip Butler. He’s going to say whatever he has to say to help his case.”
The jury will be sequestered until they reach a verdict in the case.
