Brendan Dassey, the nephew of Steven Avery who was convicted of intentional homicide in the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach, had his conviction overturned by a Milwaukee judge this afternoon.
Advertisement
Dassey and uncle Steven Avery are the subjects of Netflix’s documentary series “Making A Murderer”, which tracks the trails of the two men convicted of the October 31, 2005 killing of Halbach on their property in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin.
Federal court granted the writ. Brendan Dassey must be released or be brought to trial within 90 days. The 10-part show followed Avery’s first conviction, which landed him in prison for 18 years until he was exonerated.
According to court documents a federal judge said investigators made false promises to Dassey and claimed to “already know what happened” when they interrogated him.
A federal judge in Milwaukee has overturned Brendan Dassey’s murder conviction. The filmmakers cast doubt on the legal process used to convict Dassey and his uncle Steven Avery in the death of Teresa Halbach, and their work sparked national interest and conjecture.
He told the Huffington Post: “Brendan’s statements were involuntary – by the standards of common sense and decency that most Americans apply in their own lives, as well as under binding law that the Wisconsin courts repeatedly failed to apply”.
Halbach went to the Avery family auto salvage yard to take pictures of some vehicles.
Kathleen Zellner says she was visiting Avery on Friday and he was “so happy” for Brendan Dassey.
Lawyers for the teen, who has a below average IQ of around 70 and was alone during the interrogation, later denied the confession and said that Dassey, now 26, had been manipulated into giving it.
Last year, Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi’s Netflix documentary “Making a Murderer” was an enormous and instant hit.
Advertisement
Associated Press writers Amy Forliti and Doug Glass contributed from Minneapolis.
