At the official White House site for petitions, the call to action reads: “Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey should be given a full pardon by President Obama for their wrongful conviction in the connection to the murder of Teresa Halbach”.
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Although Avery was found not guilty on the charge of mutilating a corpse, the jury still decided the man who previously spent 18 years behind bars for a rape he didn’t commit was guilty of murdering Halbach, as well as illegally possessing a firearm.
Avery is now serving a life sentence for killing Halbach.
Fans of a popular Netflix show have signed a pair of petitions calling on President Obama to pardon the two men at the center of the murder mystery series.
“(The juror) told us that they believe Steven Avery was not proven guilty”, said Laura Ricciardi, who filmed the series with Moira Demos.
Reacting to the news, some users on Twitter were stunned at a perceived lack of justice surrounding the controversial case. “And if he receives a new trial, in their opinion, it should take place far away from Wisconsin”.
GUTHRIE: And this is a juror who obviously voted to convict initially?
Also Tuesday, the prosecutor who brought the Avery case to trial, Ken Kratz, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that “Making a Murderer” leaves out key evidence that supported Avery’s conviction.
The unidentified juror thought Avery had been framed but backed a guilty verdict over personal safety concerns, the filmmakers said.
“I won’t call it a documentary, because a documentary puts things in chronological order and tells the story as it is”, said Sheriff Robert Hermann in a December interview with the Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter, noting that he hadn’t watched the show but had discussed it with his department and “heard things are skewed …”
Corroboration, however, is not verification, and neither Demos nor Ricciardi have spoken to any other jurors.
The documentary is not without controversy.
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Demos and Ricciardi have been unable to independently verify the juror’s claims, but their revelation will only add to the fervent discussion about Avery’s trial sparked by the documentary, which was first released on Netflix two weeks ago.
