Where the cases at the centre of Netflix’s Making a Murderer stand now.
WHERE DO THE CASES AT THE CENTRE OF NETFLIX’S MAKING A MURDERER STAND NOW
Netflix ’s engrossing true- crime documentary series Making a Murderer has gotten a lot of people interested in Steven Avery.
The Wisconsin man spent 18 years in prison for a sexual assault that DNA evidence later proved he did not commit. Avery was released from prison in 2003 after his conviction was overturned, but two years later he was charged in the horrifying murder of a young photographer named Teresa Halbach. At the time, Avery had filed a $ 36 million civil lawsuit against Manitowoc County for his wrongful conviction.
During Avery’s closely watched trial, the defence team asserted that Manitowoc County police officers had planted evidence to frame him for Halbach’s murder. In March 2007, a jury convicted Avery of first- degree intentional homicide and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
All 10 episodes of Making a Murderer were made available Dec. 18 on Netflix. The streaming service also posted the entire first episode to YouTube. Since then, websites and online petitions, including one on Change.org urging a presidential pardon for Avery — who has always maintained his innocence — have begun circulating. On Reddit, fans have dissected the series and its cases in exhaustive detail, proposing alternative suspects, critiquing the prosecution and defence teams, and sharing updates on key players.
With Making a Murderer, filmmakers Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos provide a fascinating, often devastating, look at the criminal justice system. By design, the documentary poses more questions than it answers. “The main question at the heart of the series is how do we as a society respond when injustice is exposed?” Ricciardi explained in an interview with Vulture.
Here are a few more lingering questions (spoiler alert for those who have yet to see the series):
What’s next for Steven Avery?
Avery is currently serving his sentence at Wisconsin’s Waupun Correctional Institution. In June 2007, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Making a Murderer documents Avery’s unsuccessful attempt to get a new trial, a decision that was upheld in 2011 by the Wisconsin Court of Appeals. That same year, the Wisconsin Supreme Court declined to review the case.
The documentary reports that Avery reached out to the Wisconsin Innocence Project, which was instrumental in getting the 1985 conviction overturned, but that the group declined to help. A Dec. 22 post on the Innocence Project website notes that “a member of the Innocence Network is currently looking into some aspects of (Avery’s) case.” The post also credits the filmmakers with “helping to shine a spotlight on some of the prob- lems that plague the criminal justice system, like false confessions and government misconduct.”
In the documentary, Robert Henak, who served as Avery’s post- conviction attorney in the 1990s, draws a parallel to the 1985 case. “What ultimately freed him was newly discovered evidence where the technology advanced to the stage where you could test the DNA,” Henak says. “In this case, we’re looking for technology to do the same kind of thing, to show that the evidence at the original trial really did not mean what the state was arguing that it meant and what the jury believed that it meant.”
What about Avery’s nephew, Brendan Dassey?
The case against Avery took a shocking turn when his 16- yearold nephew implicated himself in the murder and told police that Avery had instructed him to rape Halbach and to help him dispose of her body. The documentary describes Dassey as learning disabled. Throughout the series, Dassey’s story changes dramatically as he undergoes a series of questionable interrogations, some of which were encouraged by his court- appointed pretrial attorney, Len Kachinsky. Kachinsky was eventually removed from Dassey’s case after allowing his client to be interrogated by police without a lawyer present.
At his trial, Dassey’s attorneys argued that their client’s confession was false, and the teen repeat- edly said he fabricated his statements under pressure from law enforcement. In April 2007, Dassey was convicted of homicide, sexual assault and mutilation of a corpse.
Like his uncle, Dassey unsuccessfully appealed his conviction. The Wisconsin Supreme Court also declined to review his case. Last year, Dassey’s legal team filed a federal habeas petition in an effort to get his conviction vacated on the basis that his constitutional rights were violated. In “Making a Murderer,” Dassey’s post- conviction attorneys argue that his confession was coerced and that Kachinsky violated his duty of loyalty to Dassey.
Now 26, Dassey is serving a life sentence at Green Bay Correctional. He will be eligible for parole in 2048.
How have officials responded to the documentary?
Manitowoc County Sheriff Robert Hermann told the Herald Times Reporter that the filmmakers “have taken things out of context and taken them out of the order in which they occurred, which can lead people to a different opinion or conclusion.” Hermann told the Manitowoc-based newspaper that he had not yet seen the documentary but had discussed it with members of the police department.
Former Calumet County district attorney Ken Kratz was the special prosecutor in both the Avery and Dassey trials. Kratz, who resigned from office after a 2010 sexting scandal, told a Green Bay Fox station that he was not given an opportunity to respond to allegations made in the documentary — a claim the filmmakers have denied.
“I believe there to be 80 to 90 per cent of the physical evidence, the forensic evidence, that ties Steven Avery to this murder never to have been presented in this documentary,” Kratz told Fox 11 News.
In Making a Murderer, Avery gets the last word.
“They think I’ ll stop working on it and it’ ll be forgotten,” he says. “That’s what they think, but I want the truth. I want my life. But they keep on taking it. I’m gonna keep on working even if it’s wrong. I ain’t gonna give up. When you know you’re innocent, you will keep on going. The truth always comes out sooner or later.”