Some dummy sent the judge flowers(!!!), so she's seizing the opportunity to feign moral superiority and outrage (MaM2 will spend 20 minutes on this).

I give it two weeks until she's back to the old Zellner.

Yeah & the term "SAIG admirers" makes me suspect it was one of those Tick-Tock loons as murderer groupies tend to be weird & obsessive like that from what I've seen of them before.

Nah, they usually send bomb/death threats, not flowers.

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/...reat/79795410/

http://www.htrnews.com/story/news/lo...eats/78685228/

https://onmilwaukee.com/movies/artic...ththreats.html

http://www.maciverinstitute.com/2017...ison-time-for/

I'm fully aware of that.

I'm just contrasting Brendanm's freely given statements against the coerced statements used by the prosecution.

As the freely given statements are 100% consistent with the evidence and the coerced statements would seem to require some sort of forensic support which is lacking, Occam's Razor suggests the so-called 'confession' statements are less likely to be true.

Yep.

I heard about the flowers and immediately thought of corpus vile.

Thanks for the links, highlights all too clearly the type of cranks and outright nut-jobs high profile murderers like Avery & Dassey attract as fanboys. (among other high profile murderers and criminals)

What's all this harping on coerced vs. freely given statements? People don't always freely confess to committing crimes. The whole point of police interviews is to coerce, i.e. persuade, them to reveal information. The question we are talking about is whether Dassey's statement is true or false and the question of freely given vs. coerced is not directly relevant to that (freely given statements are not always true and coerced statements not always false).

Okay, let's apply Occam's razor to the case as a whole.

Known: Halbach was at Avery's residence on the day she disappeared. Avery was seen having a fire some time after she was known to be at his residence. No one else saw her after the time she was known to be at Avery's and her phone records don't show her leaving the area. Her bones and personal items were later found burned in Avery's burn pit and burn barrels, her car keys in his house, her car on his property with drops of his blood inside it.

Hypothesis 1: Avery killed her. [Under this assumption, Dassey, who freely admitted to spending time with Avery that day, including at the bonfire, would be implicated as an accessory.]

Hypothesis 2: She left his property, someone else killed her, burnt her body and personal items, transferred them to Avery's property, transferred her car and car keys to Avery's property. The killer or someone else later planted Avery's blood in her car, planted her DNA on a bullet in Avery's garage.

I'll let you work out which hypothesis contains a greater number of unsupported assumptions.

Apparently, the courts frown on coercing statements from witnesses.

You can read all about it in Duffin's decision.

Sure. But as we know sometimes police get 'confessions' from people who are completely innocent.

I'd argue that legally and morally, coercion and persuasion are different things (hence the different names).

I could, for example, persuade someone to give me money from their wallet - let's say in exchange for something they want to buy.

On the other hand, if I 'persuade' them by holding them at gunpoint that is rather a different thing.

True enough. However it would appear that in the United States coercion is not a legitimate way to force a witness to incriminate himself.

OK

So far, so good.

These assertions are less secure. We have a sworn statement that indicate Bobby Dassey saw Teresa leave ASY. We have a witness who saw a vehicle that fits the description of Teresa's RAV4 leaving ASY at the time she would have left.

Teresa's phone pinged a cellular tower many miles away from ASY after witnesses saw her leave.

So these claims are not 'known facts' they are disputed claims.

OK

You leave out the unsupported assumption that witnesses who saw Teresa leave (or her vehicle leave) must be lying or mistaken. Or if true, then assume she came back to ASY for some reason.

You would have to make the unsupported assumption that the pings from Teresa's phone on distant cellular towers must have somehow worked out that way by coincidence. Or she really did leave but returned for some unknown reason.

You forgot to include the unsupported assumptions that Steven and Brendan could erase all evidence of a violent gang rape, bloody murder, impromptu haircut, etc to such an extent that there was no evidence of any such cleanup at all.

You forget the unsupported assumption that somehow Teresa's key would not have any evidence she ever handled the key she supposedly had in her possession.

You left out the unsupported assumption that Earl Avery must be lying or mistaken when he reports that after Teresa's disappearance the RAV4 was not at the location where it was later 'found'. If Earl's report is true, then you must assume without evidence Steven hide the vehicle somewhere else and then later moved it there.

This is one of the problems with trying to use Occam's Razor as the be-all and end-all argument - people forget that all the evidence must be accounted for. You can't simply ignore evidence that doesn't fit your 'theory'.

As we can see, your preferred 'Avery somehow did it theory' is chock full of unsupported assumptions.

Much like the 1985 Beerntsen case - police made it 'simple' by ignoring witnesses to Steven's alibi then persuading the traumatized victim to identify the wrong guy.

Another problem with using Occam's Razor is that unlike unthinking matter, human behavior can be complex and deceptive.

Framing someone (like cops have been caught on tape doing) is a complex behavior which can deceive people who think simply.

Um, you can just stop right there.

As an example: If you torture someone, it is not okay if the information turns put to be true.

The question of how the information was obtained is ALWAYS relevant: in fact, in our system that question is more important than the information itself.

I can't believe you actually typed that post. It shows you lack knowledge of the basic rights and protections built into the justice system.

Nobody itt has been able to cite any inarguable clear cut specific examples of coercion re Dassey. Or inarguable clear cut specific examples of false promises of leniency.
Nor have the judges been able to.

^^^

Another set of dubious and disputed claims stated as if they were facts.

The decision by US Magistrate Judge William Duffin explained in great detail examples of coercion as defined by the law (not some made-up standard from internet trolls) from the interrogation sessions conducted against Brendan Dassey, a witness in the case.

Many of these threats and promises are the exact same examples argued by persons who have read the transcripts and listened to the tapes.

The investigators repeatedly claimed to already know what happened on October 31 and assured Dassey that he had nothing to worry about. 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 under
the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

http://www.law.northwestern.edu/lega...nd%20Order.pdf

Lol.

As if that is the standard. I appreciate that simpletons need things to be either black or white, but that is not how it works here. There is no "bright line" rule to apply universally.

There are many factors to consider and weigh.

There is a standard definition of coercion. Something is either a false promise of leniency or it isn't. Nobody has provided any examples of either.

Yes as I said:
Regardless of whatever spin you wish to put on this be it about brights lights or whatever other term you wish to use to justify this glaring fact.

Not really. Again there is a standard definition of coercion & a false promise of leniency. Again nobody itt has been able to provide any examples.
Despite the truth being easy to defend.

Says it all about how how untenable such a position is.

Ironically, corpus vile tries to set the bar higher for evidence that indicates the statements cobbled together by police as a 'confession' were coerced than the courts do.

I agree. Occam's razor is just a heuristic to evaluate competing hypotheses. Of course sometimes the more complex hypothesis is correct.

But you're the one who brought it up, and it clearly doesn't favour your side of the debate.

My wording was imprecise. What I am saying is that we are debating "true" vs. "false", which is not the same as "coerced" vs. "not coerced". People rarely confess to crimes completely voluntarily, ergo all confessions are "coerced" to some degree. That's the whole point of police interviews. Obviously the nature of the coercion involved has a bearing on the reliability of the information.

The question of rights and protections is actually separate. Information obtained by torture is inadmissible in court because society has an interest in protecting suspects against torture, not because information obtained by torture is necessarily unreliable. Police have to provide access to counsel because of society's interest in ensuring suspects are aware of their rights, not because people who don't have access to counsel give less reliable statements.

That is correct - which is one reason why I think people who criticize a hypothesis because they characterize it as 'too complex' to be true are mistaken.

I disagree.

Generally it seems people bring up Occam's Razor when they think it favors their own preferred position.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/famed-con...230505545.html

Well actually, the police planting evidence to frame SA and BD is the simplest solution to explain the never ending list of complexities and conflicting data that is the prosecution's case.

Friendly reminder that Colborn's decision to use his cell phone rather than the radio to call dispatch is perfectly normal and not suspicious:

https://np.reddit.com/r/AskLEO/comme...with_dispatch/

Misses the question entirely. That you think this means anything is beyond me.

The question is whether it was unusual for Colborn under these circumstances.

Just finding some anonymous LEO posting about their choices to use cellphones v. Radio is not relevant to what Colborn does.

So, we would want to know Colborn's habits in similar situations.

It may also be helpful to know how others in the department used cell phones v. Radio and/or whether the department had a protocol or at least observed a customary practice.

Agreed completely- nice to see you don't see a "coerced" confession as equating to a "false" one though like your fellow "clear thinker" Eddy btw.

Dassey wasn't tortured or coerce though or given a false promise of leniency, hence the reason nobody can provide any explicit examples so it's all good.

Your theory is that there was then a conspiracy involving dozens of cops to frame Avery and Dassey and cover up the real killer.

The state's theory is that the victim was killed in the last place she was known to have visited, by the last person known to have been with her, who is also the owner of the property where all her possessions and remains were found.

You'd pretty much have to be off your rocker to think that Occam's razor favours your position here.

Right, except for the fact that the state's theory involves these complexities (and many, many more), and therefore is far from the simplest solution.

Here's what I wrote with regard to 'Occam's Razor':

I'm just contrasting Brendan's freely given statements against the coerced statements used by the prosecution.

As the freely given statements are 100% consistent with the evidence and the coerced statements would seem to require some sort of forensic support which is lacking, Occam's Razor suggests the so-called 'confession' statements are less likely to be true.

This has nothing to do with any possible framing. It's just that Brendan's freely given statements fully accounts for the evidence (or better yet, lack of evidence) wrt any connection between Brendan and Teresa.

Steven could still have committed some crimes against Teresa and Brendan could be completely innocent.

I hope this helps you realize it's better for you to leave it to me what I'm saying.

I know what the state's narrative is.

As you should be able to recognize now that I have pointed it out, Brendan's innocence of any crimes against Teresa requires fewer unsupported assumptions than the state's theory.