The Attorney General’s move to appeal Judge Duffin’s decision lacks common sense.
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Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel’s office appealed the ruling to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday.
Dassey, along with his uncle, Steven Avery, was convicted of first-degree homicide mutilation of a corpse and second-degree sexual assault in the killing of Teresa Halbach in 2005.
With just weeks to go until he’s set free, prosecutors have now made a decision to appeal against his overturned conviction aiming to keep the 26-year-old in jail.
In August, a federal magistrate ordered Dassey to be freed within 90 days unless prosecutors chose to try him for the murder again. The 10-part show followed him and his uncle Avery’s first conviction, which landed him in prison for 18 years until he was exonerated.
The tactics investigators used were “not constitutionally impermissible acts”, Schimel contends in a statement released at the time of his appeal. We look forward to continuing to defend his rights in court. In this case, we are clearly seeing an Attorney General’s outright refusal to admit that the State got it wrong. At the time he was convicted, Dassey was the teenage nephew of Steven Avery, the Manitowoc County man who was the subject of the Netflix docuseries that achieved worldwide acclaim. Judge Duffin cites “false promises” along with “Dassey’s age, intellectual deficits, and the absence of a supportive adult” for reasoning behind why he believed that Dassey’s conviction was “involuntary” and should be overturned.
Avery was convicted in 1985 in the rape of jogger Penny Beerntsen on a beach near her home in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. “Like Brendan, we remain grateful to his many supporters for their continued loyalty and strength”. The appeal was ultimately denied by a state appellate court and the Wisconsin Supreme Court refused to hear the case. Soon enough into a public civil case for justice reform however, Steven found himself accused of the murder of young photographer Teresa Halbach, and subsequently railroaded through a lengthy trial under especially dubious circumstances, and apparent corruption at every turn.
Netflix will be releasing more “Making a Murderer” episodes chronicling the post-conviction process.
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The case gained national attention after it was the subject of the hit Netflix series “Making a Murderer”, released in 2015.
