Harold Francis Butler IIIAttorneys for four co-defendants asked a Criminal Court judge to dismiss murder charges against their clients Monday, saying a police lieutenant’s order not to collect a cellphone would result in an unfair trial.
During a two-hour hearing before Judge Don Poole, attorneys Jonathan Turner, Jay Perry, Todd Hastey and Garth Best argued that because the phone was not collected during a Chattanooga police investigation into the June 29, 2010, death of Bernard Hughes, 46, their clients won’t know if there was evidence that could have ruled them out as suspects in the home invasion shooting.
But prosecutors Neal Pinkston and Cameron Williams argued that nothing presented by the defense attorneys showed there was anything on the phone that gave police a reason to hold it.
On July 13, 2010, Chattanooga police investigator Michael Wenger got a call that officers had found a phone, believed to be Harold Butler’s, at the home of Antonio Watkins.
When Wenger arrived, then-Lt. Edwin McPherson told him that U.S. marshals might want the phone and for him not to take it into evidence, Wenger testified Monday.