EDITOR’S NOTE: This article contains descriptions of sexual abuse and domestic violence that some readers may find distressing.

Public anger over the case of Jesse Mack Butler intensified this week as the teen returned to court for a routine hearing—which drew protesters, national media attention, and renewed questions about whether the justice system failed his victims.

Butler, now 18 and from Stillwater, Oklahoma, pleaded no contest in August to 10 rape-related charges stemming from assaults on two high school girls in 2024. Police affidavits describe repeated sexual assaults, coercion, and strangulation so severe that one victim, according to a doctor, might have died had the pressure continued "seconds longer."

Investigators also recovered a video showing Butler choking a victim u

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