Brendan Dassey Of ‘Making A Murderer’ Won’t Be Heard By Supreme Court
Despite the popularity of the hit Netflix show, Making a Murderer, the Supreme Court has decided not to hear the appeal of Brendan Dassey.
In August of 2016, U.S. Magistrate Judge William E. Duffin ruled that Dassey’s confession had been coerced and he overturned his murder conviction. Next, Duffin’s decision was appealed by the Wisconsin Justice Department to Chicago’s 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Chicago Court of Appeals then blocked Dassey from being able to be released from prison and ended up upholding his original conviction. After that, the Huffington Post shares that Brendan’s legal team filed a request for the U.S. Supreme Court review his case this past February, but the Supreme Court will not hear the appeal.
“We will continue to fight to free Brendan Dassey. Brendan was a 16-year old with intellectual and social disabilities when he confessed to a crime he did not commit. The video of Brendan’s interrogation shows a confused boy who was manipulated by experienced police officers into accepting their story of how the murder of Teresa Halbach happened,” Brendan’s lawyer, Laura Nirider, said in a statement today.
As many will recall, Dassey confessed to helping his uncle, Steven Avery, kill photographer Teresa Halbach in 2005. At the time, Dassey was just 16-years-old and many believed that Dassey was just telling the police what they wanted to hear when he was taken in for questioning. The teen offered a few different stories about what happened the day of Halbach’s death and his legal team claims that Dassey confessed to the murder as a result of his low IQ. Additionally, Dassey legal team argued that there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime.
Supreme Court declines to take up a case concerning Brendan Dassey, a central figure in the documentary series "Making a Murderer" https://t.co/z7vNO2RFGA pic.twitter.com/SkEHFvfCrC
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) June 25, 2018
After the case went to trial in 2007, Dassey was found guilty of a number of charges including first-degree intentional homicide, rape, and mutilation of a corpse. He is not eligible for parole until the year 2048, which is 41 years after his conviction.
Earlier this month, WBay reported that Brendan’s uncle, Steven Avery, is also appealing his 2007 1st Degree Intentional Homicide conviction. The case is going back to the circuit court after a Wisconsin Appeals Court denied Avery’s motion to “present a CD of previously undisclosed evidence before the court.” But the Appeals Court sent the case back to the circuit court, which will allow them to present the new evidence there.
“We knew the Appellate Court would not let this undisclosed evidence be dismissed w/o a full examination of it. Back to circuit court. The Wisconsin Appellate Court is letting us supplement our post-conviction motion with new Brady evidence: the CD,” Avery’s lawyer tweeted.
Making a Murderer can be streamed on Netflix.
