Damion Butterfield enters Cumberland County Superior Court in Portland in April. Butterfield, who was charged with the murder of Derald Coffin in 2022, was back in court last month for a motion filed by his lawyers to withdraw the guilty plea he entered last year. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
A judge has denied a Portland man’s request to withdraw his plea and order a new trial after he took a deal at the last minute and admitted that he killed a man on Woodford Street two years ago.
Damion Butterfield, 24, pleaded guilty in Cumberland County Superior Court in December to killing Derald Coffin and shooting and injuring Annabelle Hartnett.
It was a dramatic last-minute agreement Butterfield made with prosecutors – despite his attorney’s objections – with the jury set to read its verdict at the end of a two-week trial.
Butterfield agreed to serve a 35-year sentence and waived his right to appeal the verdict. But his attorneys quickly filed motions to withdraw the plea and ask for a new trial.
Butterfield’s lawyers had publicly advised him against accepting the deal because they said the jury instructions – which advised jurors that they could find Butterfield guilty of murder either as the shooter or as an accomplice – were confusing. By pleading guilty, his attorneys said Butterfield also was waiving his rights to complain about these instructions in an appeal.
In a ruling issued this month, Superior Court Justice MaryGay Kennedy denied Butterfield’s attempt to withdraw the plea, writing, “Mr. Butterfield had multiple opportunities over the course of several hours to discuss his options with counsel and an additional opportunity to reconsider and discuss with counsel after the jury reported that it had reached a verdict.”
“The Court acknowledges that Mr. Butterfield is young and has a substantial history of trauma,” Kennedy wrote. “Nevertheless, Mr. Butterfield made an informed and considered decision to plead guilty instead of hearing the jury’s verdict after receiving a fair trial.”
And because she could not undo the plea, the justice said, she could not grant a new trial. Kennedy’s order defended her decision to give jurors the option to find Butterfield guilty through the accomplice liability theory.
“The initial instructions, considered as a whole, were complete, accurate and not irredeemably confusing,” Kennedy wrote in the May 6 order.
Butterfield is now scheduled for sentencing on June 13.
His attorneys have argued that they were “blindsided” by the accomplice instruction, which they said only came up at the end of the trial.
But Kennedy said that the defense attorneys were aware that prosecutors wanted to use the accomplice instruction much earlier and had plenty of time to prepare before closing arguments.
During Butterfield’s hearing for a new trial in April, Assistant Attorney General Lisa Bogue said Butterfield had been treated fairly in court. She called the fact that Kennedy even allowed Butterfield to plead so late was an “extraordinary event.”
Bogue and Assistant Attorney General Leanne Robbin have accused Butterfield and his lawyers of trying to “game the system” at the expense of Coffin’s family members, who had been in court for the whole trial. They were also there during Butterfield’s hearing for a new trial, which was held on the two-year anniversary of Coffin’s death.
Coffin was 43 when he died. He was a son, a brother and the father of a 13-year-old daughter and a 5-year-old son. His family told the Portland Press Herald in 2022 that he had been planning to return home to the Midcoast area before he was killed.
ONE OF FOUR CHARGED
Butterfield was one of four men charged in connection with the shooting. Members of the group had conspired to rob Coffin and Hartnett early in the morning of April 26, 2022, while Coffin was inside Hartnett’s car, which was parked on Woodford Street.
Prosecutors argued that Butterfield then surprised the group by shooting Coffin and Hartnett in front of several eyewitnesses. He later made several jokes and apparent admissions of guilt in recorded jail calls and texts afterward, they said.
But Butterfield’s attorneys say they continue to believe very strongly in their client’s innocence and that he’s taking the fall for the other men, one of whom testified against him at trial and identified Butterfield as the shooter to police.
“Damion was not the shooter, and was only present to do some drugs and attend a party,” his lawyer, James Howaniec wrote in an email. “This mentally ill young man was taken advantage of by three older criminals and has taken the fall for them. The state’s entire theory was that Damion was the principal shooter, and to raise accomplice liability at the eleventh hour is completely disingenuous. It is dispiriting being part of a criminal court system that systematically trods on the basic due process rights of defendants.”
Butterfield is the only one to go to trial. Jonathan Geisinger, 46, is still facing a felony murder charge. He had no court dates scheduled as of Wednesday, according to a clerk, but is listed for a tentative trial in August 2025 in a monthly list of homicide cases managed by the Office of the Maine Attorney General.
Anthony Osborne, 47, pleaded guilty to one count of robbery and was sentenced in February to serve eight years in prison. Prosecutors have said Osborne orchestrated the attack.
Thomas MacDonald, 45, pleaded guilty to one count of hindering apprehension in April 2023 and is still waiting to be sentenced. He has denied having any physical role in the attack or planning of it, testifying last year he was only present.
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