"Making a Murderer": Justice Weeps
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.
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How man more children will be convicted and sentenced based upon a false confession before proper protections are put in place? |
Like thousands of others transfixed by the Netflix Documentary Making a Murderer, I was alternately struck by feelings of rage, shock, sadness, and dismay as I streamed through the ten episodes. But, watching the series as a lawyer who has spent most of her career fighting for the constitutional and legal rights of children, I was particularly incensed. The injustices exposed in Making a Murderer are not limited to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, but mirror systemic failures in jurisdictions across the country. And, as one of the lawyers who litigated the Pennsylvania "kids for cash" scandal, the scent of official corruption was all too familiar.
So, while Steven Avery's twisted and disheartening journey through the justice system is the primary focus of the series, it is Brendan Dassey's story that haunts me. Brendan is the intellectually challenged 16-year-old nephew of Avery who was convicted of the murder and sexual assault of Teresa Halbach, based largely on coerced statements plied from him by law enforcement and statements derived from his own lawyer's perplexing but dogged attempts to elicit a confession from him. Brendan is now serving a life sentence with no chance for parole before 2048.