Making A Murderer’s Steven Avery Has Been Denied A New Trial

Convicted killer Steven Avery, whose guilt was called into question by the Netflix documentary series Making a Murderer, has had his request for a new trial denied by a Wisconsin judge, citing a lack of sufficient new evidence.

Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey were sentenced to life in prison for the 2005 murder of photographer Teresa Halbach. Both men maintain their innocence, with Avery claiming to have been set up by local authorities after suing them over a previous false conviction. Their case came to international attention following the release of Making a Murderer in late 2015, with a petition calling on then-President Obama to pardon the pair garnering more than half a million signatures. However prosecutors claim that the filmmakers behind the series left out key pieces of evidence in order to present a biased view of the investigation.

In 2016, a Wisconsin judge overturned Dassey’s conviction on the grounds that police took advantage of his cognitive disability to coerce a confession. Dassey remains in custody while the state appeals the ruling.

In Avery’s case, his lawyer claimed that “additional test results and witness affidavits” threw further doubt on her client’s guilt. But on Tuesday judge Angela Sutkiewicz ruled that the new evidence presented was not enough to suggest that a new trial would result in a different outcome.

Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel praised the decision, saying that it brought the state “one step closer to providing justice to Teresa Halbach’s family”.

Netflix is currently working on a second season of Making a Murderer that will follow the aftermath of Dassey’s conviction as well as the ongoing appeals of both men.

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h/t Associated Press