While “Making A Murderer” fans rejoiced at the news that Brendan Dassey’s conviction has been overturned, Steven Avery’s former fiancee Jodi Stachowski is hoping the news doesn’t result in the same thing happening to him.
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U.S. Magistrate Judge William Duffin said “misconduct” by Dassey’s lawyer, Len Kachinsky, in defending Dassey was “indefensible”.
Friday, after years of appeals, a federal judge overturned Dassey’s conviction ruling investigators made false promises to him during his interview and his confession was coerced. These included Dassey’s age at the time, his lack of intellectual capacity and proper adult support, and the investigators’ “false promises” that the teen had “nothing to worry about” and that they were already aware of what happened on the day of the murder. The judge said that Dassey’s confession to police in 2006 was “so clearly involuntary” that a state appeals court ruling to the contrary was an unreasonable application of established federal law.
The cases of Dassey and Avery, who were convicted in separate trials, gained worldwide attention after the December 2015 release of the Netflix series “Making A Murderer”. Of course, the question now is whether or not this means anything for Steven Avery, who is currently serving a life sentence for Halbach’s murder.
Prosecutors have 90 days to appeal Duffin’s ruling and retry Dassey. The state Department of Justice, which handled the case, declined to comment Friday. Therefore, as the New York Times puts it in their report on Dassey’s case, “Mr. Avery was not affected by the court order on Friday”.
Jerry Buting defended Dassey’s uncle, Steven Avery, in his murder trial, along with co-counsel Dean Strang.
Judge Duffin was asked to weigh in on two issues surrounding Dassey’s case: his confession to the murder and whether he had ineffective lawyers.
“The court does not reach this conclusion lightly”, Duffin wrote.
January 29, 2007: A judge dismisses sexual assault and kidnapping charges against Avery because Dassey may not testify at his trial.
According to Slate, experts think a retrial is likely, but there are a lot of factors in the Dassey case and conviction – ones that Judge Duffin cited himself.
Dassey’s current attorney, Robert Dvorak, said he’s “relieved and grateful”.
“This is justice for that 16-year-old kid. who we all saw being bullied into giving a statement that was completely untrue”, she said.
Nirider says Dassey is in shock and wants badly to come home. If prosecutors decide to bring a new trial, the confession would not be usable, she said.
We know when an unbiased court reviews all of the new evidence we have, Steven will have his conviction overturned as well. There were also claims that the sheriff’s office planted evidence to frame Avery for the crime. The 10-part show followed Avery’s first conviction, which landed him in prison for 18 years until he was exonerated.
“Making a Murderer” is not unlike Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s three “Paradise Lost” documentaries, which explored the case of the West Memphis Three.
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Associated Press writers Amy Forliti and Doug Glass contributed from Minneapolis.
