Jerome F. Buting

Jerome F. Buting is a partner in the Brookfield, Wisconsin law firm of Buting, Williams & Stilling, S.C. He received his undergraduate degree in Forensic Studies from Indiana University and his law degree from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. He is a past board director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the recipient of the 2017 NACDL Champion of Justice Legal Award, and a past president of the Wisconsin Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He is a past chair of the Criminal Law Section of the State Bar of Wisconsin. He has always had a particular interest in forensic science and he has long been concerned that much of the forensic evidence allowed in courts lacks scientific validation.

Mr. Buting was a trial public defender for 9 years in Milwaukee. His present private practice is entirely criminal defense, both trials and appeals. He has defended the citizen accused in many serious high profile cases, including the Steven Avery case featured in the Netflix documentary Making a Murderer, and he obtained the reversal of convictions in State of Wisconsin v. Ted Oswald and State of Wisconsin v. Ralph Armstrong (reversing a 29 year old murder conviction). He lectures worldwide and is frequently sought after for his knowledge in the use of expert witnesses, DNA and other forensic evidence. His first book is ILLUSION OF JUSTICE: INSIDE MAKING A MURDERER AND AMERICA’S BROKEN SYSTEM (Harper 2017).