Justice for Brendan Dassey at Last?

Deputy Director and Chief Counsel, Marsha Levick for the Huffington Post Blog,

The following is an excerpt from the Huffington Post blog post by Deputy Director and Chief Counsel, Marsha Levick. Click the link below to read the full post.

If you watched “Making a Murderer,” the ten-episode Netflix documentary about the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, you were probably both transfixed and horrified by the scenes chronicling the police interrogation of 16-year-old Brendan Dassey. Dassey is the nephew of Steven Avery, whose arrest, prosecution and conviction for Halbach’s murder were the central focus of the documentary. Dassey ultimately provided the confession the police demanded, repeating the suggestion that he assisted Avery in Halbach’s murder. He was convicted and, under the current terms of his sentence, would not be eligible for parole until 2048.

Brendan might finally receive some justicealbeit after years of unnecessary incarceration— but every single day, children and teens in this country are subjected to these same coercive interrogations, without the benefit of counsel.

Despite the apparent flaws in the interrogation and investigation, the Wisconsin appellate courts rejected his appeals and affirmed his conviction in 2013. With a new legal team, Dassey then sought habeas corpus relief in the federal district court in Wisconsin. On August 12, a federal magistrate judge granted his petition and ordered Dassey released from prison -- unless the state of Wisconsin, within 90 days of the court order, decides to retry Brendan for his role in that murder.  

Brendan’s potential release is welcome news, as our justice system continues to struggle with how to assess the legal “voluntariness” of children’s confessions. Based on public sentiment and other contemporaneous commentary on “Making a Murderer,” we know that much of the Netflix audience was shocked and appalled as they witnessed two Manitowoc County detectives – as well as the private detective hired by Brendan’s own attorney  repeatedly cajoling, manipulating and spoon-feeding Brendan the necessary words and facts to finally extract a confession to Ms. Halbach’s murder. Importantly, without Brendan’s “confession,” there was no other evidence actually linking him to the crime. Viewers watching these scenes unfold, from the average lay person to legal scholars, believed the interrogation repeatedly crossed the line from dogged police investigation in pursuit of the truth to intimidation and manipulation in pursuit of a false confession, regardless of the cost.

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