Making A Murderer’s Brendan Dassey Has Had His Conviction Overturned
The judge has ruled that Dassey's confession was involuntary.
One of the two men featured in the ten-part Netflix documentary series Making a Murderer has had his conviction overturned by a US Federal Judge.
26-year-old Brendan Dassey was serving a life sentence after being convicted in 2007 along with his uncle Steven Avery for the murder of Teresa Halbach. But on Friday Judge William Duffin found that Dassey’s confession to police had been involuntary, giving the state of Wisconsin 90 days to retry Dassey or set him free.
Dassey and Avery’s case received international attention with the release of the Netflix true-crime series, which made a strong case that the pair had been unfairly convicted. Particularly troubling was footage of police seemingly coercing a confession out of the then 16-year-old Dassey, who was questioned without legal representation and found to have an IQ in the low 70s. Dassey later recanted his confession, which nevertheless played a key part in shaping the prosecution’s case.
In his ruling, Duffin stated that investigators had made false promises to Dassey, and that “these repeated false promises, when considered in conjunction with all relevant factors, most especially Dassey’s age, intellectual deficits, and the absence of a supportive adult, rendered Dassey’s confession involuntary.”
Dassey’s lawyer, Steven Drizin, spoke of the impact the Netflix series may have had on the decision, telling US media that “I don’t think that the Netflix movie is going to influence a federal judge, but at the same time, judges are human beings and the Netflix film has created a context for Brendan’s case that didn’t exist at the time of his trial or his appeals.”
It's TRUE. Federal court granted the writ. Brendan Dassey must be released or be brought to trial within 90 days.
— Steven A Drizin (@SDrizin) August 12, 2016
Court rules confession was not voluntary due to promises of leniency made by officers to Brendan. Judge also concerned abt. reliability.
— Steven A Drizin (@SDrizin) August 12, 2016
The release of the series led to widespread public support for Dassey and Avery. A petition on the White House website calling for President Obama to grant the pair a full pardon received more than 120,000 signatures.
Steven Avery’s conviction is also currently the subject of an appeal.