Making a Murderer - Page 357 - OOTV -- Two Plus Two Poker Forums

Mr. Griesbach has asked us to include the following disclaimer: "I am not speaking on behalf of the prosecution in the Avery case or the Wisconsin Innocence Project, where I serve as a member on the board of advisors."

Q: Avery supporters have put great stock in their findings of deviations from "normal procedure", things ranging from minor typos to the lack of detailed photography or anthropological 'gridding' of the burn pit to memorialize where each bone fragment was recovered. They naturally ascribe these occurrences to evidence of LE foul play and cover-up. How do you assess the quality of the investigation, and how well prepared were CASO, MTSO, and the state agencies involved for an investigation of this scope?

Typos are sloppy, as are inaccurate dates, but they are rarely evidence of wrongdoing. I’m aware of these arguments and I think they are weak. Not photographing the condition of the fire pit before removing the bone fragments, on the other hand, was a major mistake unless there was a legitimate reason I’m not aware of. Evidence at a crime scene is ordinarily not disturbed until it’s photographed and carefully processed looking for clues. In retrospect, anthropological 'gridding' of the burn pit to show precisely where each bone fragment was positioned would have been a good idea too, but I think it’s too much to expect for them to have anticipated the evidence planting defense. At the time, the fact that bones were found in a fire pit just outside Avery’s trailer (what was it, 15 yards?) was seen as damning evidence in and of itself. And it is! They had no inkling that the exact positioning of the bones might be an indication of whether or not they were planted. Maybe they should have, but this is not the Scotland Yard.

The defense made much of the deviation from protocol by Sherry Culhane in reporting the results of the DNA testing of the biological material on the bullet found in Avery’s garage. I don’t blame them one bit. Not to challenge it aggressively would be terrible lawyering. Conspiracy theorists will never buy Culhane’s explanation that only the control was contaminated and it did not affect the accuracy of the results, but I think she was convincing and I don’t recall a defense expert claiming otherwise. She’s a qualified professional chemist whose integrity has not otherwise been challenged during her long career. Like many officials in this case who were accused of wrongdoing, she had no skin in the game. My experience with crime lab analysts is that they are careful to avoid bias in favor of the state. They are there to do science and to testify as to what they observed, and they make that very clear to the prosecutor handling the case.

Q:The decision not to photograph and grid the burnpit have been particular items that have come up as indications of wrongdoing on the part LE, were you aware of the time of the decision not to photograph the bones as they lay, and grid the pit? What kind of insights can you give into the decision not to do so?

I responded to the salvage yard shortly after the RAV4 was discovered there, but I left before the contents of the fire pit were disturbed. My only role that day was to obtain information for the application of the initial search warrant. I had nothing to do with the decisions about how the scene would be investigated and how the evidence would be processed.

Q Buting has, at the time of the trial, and continuing to this day, made claims that the defense was unable to pursue EDTA testing of the RAV4 blood evidence because "they couldn't find anyone who could do it" save the FBI. Judge Willis seemed not to accept this, implying this was a strategic decision being couched after the fact as a technical hurdle. Science-oriented Redditors have pointed out that the Ballard company in PA was doing the test as a catalog item in 2006, and that with LC/MS/MS being a very common lab test, pretty much any commercial lab and many university labs were capable, for a fee, of doing the same thing LeBeau did in applying the published protocol to modern equipment and quality systems. Who is right?

I don’t know if other labs were capable of EDTA testing. It sounded like it had fallen out of favor after the OJ Simpson case, and the issue had not come up in another trial. Having said that, if the defense had pursued EDTA testing soon after Buting found the vial rather than springing it on the state shortly before trial, I’d think they could have found a lab to develop a protocol and do the testing. Most likely, they were afraid of the results.

Q: People have characterized the jury as tainted (by the famous Ken Kratz press conference), as stacked against Avery (inclusion of a volunteer MTSO member and father of a deputy), and as being bullied in the deliberations room (Richard Mahler, the excused juror, claims the original count was in favor of acquittal). The voir dire would indicate this jury to well-represent Manitowoc County, and all to have believed in the presumption of innocence. Do you see any issues with the Avery jury that leaves the verdict vulnerable after the fact?

Like most prosecutors in the state, I think Kratz’ press conference was over the top. He’s not the first public figure to thrive on media attention, but prosecutors in particular need to be careful to not let that happen because it can prejudice a potential jury. Who knows if Kratz’ account of Dassey’s confession played a role subconsciously in the juror’s deliberations, they probably don’t know themselves. But my impression is they took their oaths very seriously and decided the case without taking it into account. Remember, they were out three days before returning a verdict.

Q: When a prosecutor with a ton of evidence in a case is met with a defense of 'it's all planted', without any evidence of such, beyond suspicious circumstance and innuendo, does this put a burden on the prosecution to 'disprove a negative', or is the burden on the defense to construct a rational narrative of the planting with details of who/what/when and at least some evidence it happened?

It should be the latter, but given what I and many consider to be the egregious misconduct of the former sheriff and the DA in Avery’s 1985 wrongful conviction, accusations of a frame-up without actual evidence to back it up is all it took for the defense to raise serious doubt. The same holds true for Making a Murderer. That’s part of the tragedy here: that the misconduct of the authorities thirty years ago has been resurrected to maliciously destroy the reputations of cops who weren’t even here at the time.

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09-07-2016 , 07:53 AM

#8902

5ive

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Quote:

Originally Posted by lkasigh

Proudfoot areyou reading what i'm saying? I know that cops sometimes plant drugs on people. I'm sure there are cases where evidence has been planted against people the cops believe to be guilty. I know there are cases where police have tunnel vision and fixate on the wrong guy - like the 1985 rape that Avery was convicted of.

What you believe happenedin the Halbach murder is way beyond any of that. The fact that people are bringing up stuff like the Manhattan project just shows how ridiculous your claims are. Yes, the military has the capacity to conceal a secret weapons program from the enemy during a war. No, the Manitowoc sheriff's department does not have the capacity (nor any conceivable motivation) to do what you believe they did without leaving any trace of it.

But...

Wait for it...

THEY DID LEAVE A TRACE OF IT!

THAT'S THE ENTIRE ****ING POINT!!!

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09-07-2016 , 08:00 AM

#8903

5ive

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Quote:

Originally Posted by lkasigh

...

- it would have been unequivocally a malicious plot to frame someone the police knew to be innocent (as well as cover up the real circumstances of Halbach's death) - such plots are very rare - wrongful convictions happen, but almost always due to errors and tunnel vision, not malice;

...

you are a ridiculous human

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09-07-2016 , 08:15 AM

#8904

lkasigh

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Join Date: Jun 2013 Posts: 953

Quote:

Originally Posted by 5ive

But...

Wait for it...

THEY DID LEAVE A TRACE OF IT!

THAT'S THE ENTIRE ****ING POINT!!!

No they didn't. That's the point.

Avery's defense team went over everything looking for the smallest indicator of framing and found nothing. When the blood in the car was tested for EDTA, which would have been evidence of a frame-up, it was negative. So in fact what evidence there is contradicts Avery's claims.

The only "evidence" that anyone has come up with was the date on some form and a call made by one of the detectives that his defense team tried really hard to spin into something sinister. That's it.

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09-07-2016 , 08:19 AM

#8905

lkasigh

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Quote:

Originally Posted by 5ive

you are a ridiculous human

I don't think anyone really cares about your opinion of me, so let's not clutter the thread with this nonsense.

Do you have a specific objection to the post that you quoted?

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09-07-2016 , 11:03 AM

#8906

revots33

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Quote:

Originally Posted by markksman

There is no way to explain why they would place that date on the line item for the car other than laziness or incompetence.

This isn't true, if (as I believe) it was simply a listing of items involved in the case, along with their status. So the car was reported missing (along with the driver, which opened the case in the first place) on Nov. 3. Both the car and driver are listed on the report with a date of Nov. 3. The car has a status of "evidence/seized" - because that's it's status when the report is written.

There is nothing anywhere on that report that states that it is a record of when the police received physical evidence. You are reading into it because you *think* it should list the date they received it. But that is not the purpose of the report as it is not a physical evidence check-in log. I'd imagine the crime lab has their own record of when they physically received the car, which I'm sure is completely uninteresting.

I suppose you could argue the form should note the actual date of seizure next to the status notation, like this: "Evidence/Seized (seizure date Nov. 5)". But if that's not how they type these up routinely, then it is neither laziness nor incompetence.

I am not saying it was a perfectly executed investigation. I am saying that there is no evidence that Avery got an unfair trial or that any evidence was planted by anyone. And this date, which has been treated like a smoking gun by Zellner and on reddit, is just another example of people fishing for a conspiracy where there is none.

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09-07-2016 , 06:14 PM

#8907

proudfootz

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Join Date: Aug 2016 Posts: 1,923

From Griesbach's remarks:

Quote:

Not photographing the condition of the fire pit before removing the bone fragments, on the other hand, was a major mistake unless there was a legitimate reason I’m not aware of. Evidence at a crime scene is ordinarily not disturbed until it’s photographed and carefully processed looking for clues. In retrospect, anthropological 'gridding' of the burn pit to show precisely where each bone fragment was positioned would have been a good idea too, but I think it’s too much to expect for them to have anticipated the evidence planting defense.

Griesbach is correct that in any normal above board and honest investigation a forensic analysis of the fire pit would have been made. Instead, the police in charge of this investigation expressly denied access to the alleged crime scene to the County Coroner to make any kind of forensic documentation. There is no innocent reason for the police to forbid the coroner from carrying out her duties.

As for the absurd statement that police could not anticipate the appearance of planting evidence, that is simply in complete conflict with the facts. In Sheriff Pagel's testimony he lays out why Manitowoc police were not supposed to be involved:

"So as to not look like there was any type of tampering, we felt it was important that we do the investigation properly from the beginning (Nov 5)... Because of the litigation, it was felt that, let's insure that there's no thing in the future that's going to be construed as being a cover up, or anything like that."

How Griesbach can be unaware of this is difficult to parse.

Quote:

...this is not the Scotland Yard.

No, not by a long shot. It's not even proper police work for Mayberry, RFD.

Quote:

The defense made much of the deviation from protocol by Sherry Culhane in reporting the results of the DNA testing of the biological material on the bullet found in Avery’s garage. I don’t blame them one bit. Not to challenge it aggressively would be terrible lawyering. Conspiracy theorists will never buy Culhane’s explanation that only the control was contaminated and it did not affect the accuracy of the results, but I think she was convincing and I don’t recall a defense expert claiming otherwise. She’s a qualified professional chemist whose integrity has not otherwise been challenged during her long career. Like many officials in this case who were accused of wrongdoing, she had no skin in the game.

Culhane cannot 'explain' that the evidence was not contaminated. She cannot even explain how the control sample came to be contaminated. This has nothing to do with being a 'conspiracy theorist' - it has to do with common sense.

Another bit of misinformation from Griesbach. Culahane does have 'skin in the game' as work from her contamination prone lab helped put Steven away for a rape committed by another man, whose MO was a better match for the crime. Yes, Culhane was one of the people involved in the wrongful conviction which lead to the multi-million dollar lawsuit against the Mantiowoc police.

She's also unlikely to admit her sloppy labwork has compromised the case of the century. If Culhane can contaminate a control sample, she can contaminate the evidence.

Based on a number of disciplinary letters, it would appear Culhane's lab was rife with problems - including drunkenness on the job:

Quote:

* An analyst in 2002 falsely claimed to have done a fingerprint match, then submitted falsified documentation to support it. The person drew a written reprimand.

* An analyst in an unnamed portion of the lab was fired in 2004 after supervisors documented "an extremely high error rate (and) a pattern in inattentiveness" over three years.

* A DNA analyst was suspended for two days for being drunk on the job in 2006. The misconduct occurred around the same time and in the same laboratory where evidence in the Avery case was analyzed, Buting said.

* An analyst received a two-day suspension in 2004 for incorrectly eliminating a suspect in a fingerprint match. The same analyst had "false positive" fingerprint matches in two previous instances.

* In another instance in 2004, an analyst received a letter of reprimand for erroneously identifying a fingerprint for a background check.

* A fingerprint technician was suspended for three days in 2005 for a series of incidents, including taking fingerprint cards home and making two erroneous identifications on background checks.

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/pro...6c0cce9e3.html

Quote:

My experience with crime lab analysts is that they are careful to avoid bias in favor of the state. They are there to do science and to testify as to what they observed, and they make that very clear to the prosecutor handling the case.

While Griesbach may have convinced himself with such anecdotal evidence, it's pretty clear to objective observers that these state run labs are going to be unavoidably biased - especially if their pay depends on securing convictions. According to this article, Wisconsin crime labs collect fees from defendants upon conviction:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3837471.html

Quote:

Q: People have characterized the jury as tainted (by the famous Ken Kratz press conference), as stacked against Avery (inclusion of a volunteer MTSO member and father of a deputy), and as being bullied in the deliberations room (Richard Mahler, the excused juror, claims the original count was in favor of acquittal). The voir dire would indicate this jury to well-represent Manitowoc County, and all to have believed in the presumption of innocence. Do you see any issues with the Avery jury that leaves the verdict vulnerable after the fact?

Like most prosecutors in the state, I think Kratz’ press conference was over the top. He’s not the first public figure to thrive on media attention, but prosecutors in particular need to be careful to not let that happen because it can prejudice a potential jury. Who knows if Kratz’ account of Dassey’s confession played a role subconsciously in the juror’s deliberations, they probably don’t know themselves. But my impression is they took their oaths very seriously and decided the case without taking it into account. Remember, they were out three days before returning a verdict.

Curiously, the best evidence the state had was for mutilation of a corpse, and that is the charge the jury found Steven to be not guilty of.

Quote:

Q: When a prosecutor with a ton of evidence in a case is met with a defense of 'it's all planted', without any evidence of such, beyond suspicious circumstance and innuendo, does this put a burden on the prosecution to 'disprove a negative', or is the burden on the defense to construct a rational narrative of the planting with details of who/what/when and at least some evidence it happened?

It should be the latter, but given what I and many consider to be the egregious misconduct of the former sheriff and the DA in Avery’s 1985 wrongful conviction, accusations of a frame-up without actual evidence to back it up is all it took for the defense to raise serious doubt.

There is serious doubt about the hypothesis that Steven killed Teresa, and there is serious doubt about the 'evidence' presented by the prosecution. I agree with Griesbach that the 'egregious misconduct' of the police against Steven is a factor in the considerations of many critics of this trial.

The coercion of Steven's alibi witness is another example of malfeasance.

Broadcasting those involuntary and unsubstantiated statements to potential jurors and their families was another example of creating bias against the accused.

All in all, Griesbach's defense of the prosecution is weak and riddled with errors.

Last edited by proudfootz; 09-07-2016 at 06:20 PM.

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09-07-2016 , 08:15 PM

#8908

kdub72

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From Griesbach Q & A...

Quote:

Like many officials in this case who were accused of wrongdoing, she had no skin in the game. My experience with crime lab analysts is that they are careful to avoid bias in favor of the state. They are there to do science and to testify as to what they observed, and they make that very clear to the prosecutor handling the case.

From Newsweek and verified in Culhane's testimony...

Quote:

“Try to put [Halbach] in his house or his garage” —Note written by investigator Tom Fassbender to DNA technician Sherry Culhane

On November 11, six days after Halbach’s vehicle is found and six days into an eight-day search of the Avery compound, investigator Tom Fassbender sends a note to the Calumet County DNA technician. Fassbender’s note informs Culhane of potential DNA evidence being sent to the lab, with a suggestion as to the specific locations to which that DNA should be connected—Avery’s house or garage.

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09-07-2016 , 08:37 PM

#8909

revots33

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Quote:

Originally Posted by kdub72

From Griesbach Q & A...

From Newsweek and verified in Culhane's testimony...

Culhane also testified that it had no impact on the testing or the results.

You are making an assumption - that Culhane would not only falsify DNA test results, but also lie under oath about it, just because of some note she received from a detective. Why do you make this assumption?

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09-07-2016 , 08:39 PM

#8910

proudfootz

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Here's the note - looks like a 'to do' list!

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09-07-2016 , 08:39 PM

#8911

smacc25

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Quote:

Originally Posted by kdub72

From Griesbach Q & A...

From Newsweek and verified in Culhane's testimony...

But the bullet( dna ) was found in the garage, so that note is meaningless.

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09-07-2016 , 08:43 PM

#8912

proudfootz

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Always good to see cops who are willing to coerce a teenager to 'confess' are also willing to instruct the forensic lab what their results should be.

Nothing to see here, folks! Just standard operating procedure...

... in The Manitowoc Zone.

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09-07-2016 , 08:44 PM

#8913

smacc25

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Quote:

Originally Posted by revots33

Maybe because Sherry( Burrp!! excuse me ) Culhane did not inform the correct authority that a Detective was trying to influence her?

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09-07-2016 , 08:44 PM

#8914

proudfootz

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Quote:

Originally Posted by smacc25

But the bullet( dna ) was found in the garage, so that note is meaningless.

How is 'house or garage' not inclusive of the garage?

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09-07-2016 , 08:55 PM

#8915

kdub72

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Quote:

Originally Posted by revots33

I posted two quotes without any original commentary from myself. You are the one making assumptions. I am going to assume that Fassbender had submitted something to Culhane in the past. Does it sound like she has made it very clear to him that she needs to be careful to avoid bias in favor of the state?

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09-07-2016 , 08:55 PM

#8916

smacc25

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Quote:

Originally Posted by proudfootz

Perp-1 "FFs he was going to bankrupt the whole ****ing town son. So You wanna get a pension, shut the **** up & do you job, OK we good". perp-2 Nods.
Was said by how many different people in Manti?

Spoiler:

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09-07-2016 , 09:05 PM

#8917

proudfootz

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The lawsuit was the biggest thing to happen in Manitowoc ever. I'm sure at least a couple of people were talking about it.

Ken Petersen: "If we wanted to uh eliminate Steve, it would have been a whole lot easier to eliminate Steve than it would be to frame Steve. Hell."

Interviewer: "What do you mean by eliminate?"

Ken Petersen: "If if we wanted him out of the picture, LIKE IN PRISON, or if we wanted him killed. You know, it would be much easier just to kill him."

I wonder if they voted on whether killing or framing was the better choice?

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09-07-2016 , 09:12 PM

#8918

smacc25

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Quote:

Originally Posted by proudfootz

How is 'house or garage' not inclusive of the garage?

/s I'm scottish, forgive my sarcasm.

Sometimes its what you don't find or look for that causes Q's l8tr, like a bullet in S.A. garage would have a decent chance of picking up his own DNA, why did all the drain pipes not get ripped apart, or the BED not getting tested or Crivitz not being raided for a missing 25yr old oh & photo everything apart from a fire pit, we could prob go on Bu yeah its sad to say greeseback was correct, it was no Scotland yard.

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09-07-2016 , 09:20 PM

#8919

smacc25

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[QUOTE=proudfootz;50743141]

Aye "FRAME THE BASTARD WON"

"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK6CFVaA9og

So K.P. is telling us here in this video that he personally has experience in both "killing" & "framing"- GG Ken. wp.

Last edited by smacc25; 09-07-2016 at 09:25 PM. Reason: opps sorry/ proudfootz.

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09-07-2016 , 09:26 PM

#8920

smacc25

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I was writing like A.C. there lOl.

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09-07-2016 , 09:52 PM

#8921

kdub72

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Quote:

Originally Posted by proudfootz

Here's the note - looks like a 'to do' list!

I encourage everyone to go back and watch her testimony - Episode 6 at around the 21:00 mark. That is not a note from Fassbender -- she actually jotted that down herself and wrote "try to put her in his house or garage". She absolutely couldn't have let this influence her results.

To be clear, I am stating that I think she broke protocol to give Fassbender what she wrote down that he wanted.

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09-07-2016 , 11:09 PM

#8922

smacc25

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Quote:

Originally Posted by kdub72

To be clear, I am stating that I think she broke protocol to give Fassbender what she wrote down that he wanted.

& not the 1st time either, A few pages back is the report on the WI crime Lab & has been posted a few time's, it was J.B that got the ball rolling on that 1, She also bypassed any & all checks on the bullet-contamination & result's until it was already in the hands off KK.

When you contaminate the Control it's toast. End of.

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09-07-2016 , 11:37 PM

#8923

smacc25

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Quote:

Originally Posted by kdub72

To be clear, I am stating that I think she broke protocol to give Fassbender what she wrote down that he wanted.

http://www.stevenaverycase.org/wp-co...l_redacted.pdf

http://www.stevenaverycase.org/

Indeed it seems that the WI Crime lab, sherry culhane has a lot to answer too.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TickTockMan...mitochondrial/

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09-08-2016 , 02:46 AM

#8924

5ive

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Yeti

well given you want to supply those i assume they're pretty good, but sure, let's take a look

let me guess, 800 math, 800 verbal, with results dated the 3rd november?