This is a good example of one of the systemic failures in our criminal justice system. Cops taking advantage of and manipulating confessions out of low iq minors seems to be a recurring theme in a lot of these wrongful conviction cases. There were coerced confessions from learning disabled kids in the cases of the West Memphis 3, the Central Park 5, and, in all likelihood here with Dassey.

Confessions like Dassey's should have been suppressed and never heard by a jury. It seems clear to me he didn't understand the gravity of his statements. Couple his cognitive limitations with the fact that his statements were NOT corroborated by any physical evidence and I can't for the life of me understand why his confession should ever be heard by a jury.

It's simply unconscionable that the state can railroad someone like that into admitting to a crime he in all likelihood had little to no involvement in. Hopefully he's successful with his writ of habeas corpus.

In this case, it even goes beyond warranting inadmissibility. It's so clearly evident that he has no clue what they are referring to that his initial answers seem very natural and in fact corroborate every single detail of SA's stories. Then the manipulation and coercion begins. It's so blatant that it would not have been a terrible idea if the defense fought to get the interviews admitted as evidence of Steven Avery's innocence.

I would like to further reiterate my point and expand on your point regarding there being no physical evidence to back up the coerced confession. When physical evidence and eye witness testimony clearly debunked BDs first confession, the scumbags re-interview him and coerce a second false confession with completely different details so it matches evidence likely planted by the police.

Strang was right, they got a two-fer. They turned the only eye witness on earth who could corroborate Steven Avery's story into the star witness for the prosecution.

This is how I felt when starting it a couple of days ago. I'd have finished the whole damn thing in one go but my damn wife has to work and I have to wait for her. Through 5 episodes so far and this is the best thing I've ever watched.

edit: 28 minutes after my post I get spoiled by ****ing trending facebook tags. ****

LOL yep, had to stretch it out over 3 days for this exact same reason. Wound up finishing last 3 on Christmas day. It was kind of weird.

Just to see how it easy it was for a kid of Brandon's Intelligence to be coerced and guided into saying things that were complete lies should watch the Central Park 5 , if you already haven't.

Not saying these kids were academically high fliers , but I'm guessing had a lot more going on upstairs than Brandon.

These kids got interviewed separately about a gang rape in Central Park and got coerced into incriminating each other. One kid even got coached into saying he himself touched the victims t!ts.



The interviews with Brandon are a complete joke, poor kids mental age is 10 at best and is that terrified he just wants to GTFO and for them to leave him alone and will say exactly what they want to hear. I don't even think he realises the serious nature of what he has said with his comments of wanting to leave so he can hand in some work at school.

Man this has to be hard on a lot of people right now on the Halbach side. The internet is basically sure that . If that's not the case, man they've gotta be tortured. Then again, that's a fraction of the pain that the Avery's have faced. Still it sucks that all there is left to come on all sides now is pain.

It's funny that a lot of the same people who scream "where is the blood, where is the evidence" are the first ones to point a finger at the brother because he "acted strange"

The brother seems weird, but brother killing sister outside of Shakespeare tragedies and French royalty in the 16th Century has got to be incredibly rare.

If the ex, any current BFs, and male roommate, were not thoroughly investigated though, that's a massive wtf.

After the first case against SA, are you shocked that others weren't thoroughly investigated? I would like to know how in depth the investigations of others in the county are. I wouldn't be shocked if similar poor investigation always happen in the county. I will definitely never set my foot in the county even though I've never been ticketed for anything beyond a parking/traffic ticket.

It's hilarious that SA had what 30+ people testify on his behalf on his location during the first case and it was basically ignored but the two people they interviewed during the case alibied themselves and that was that.

Well, it's not as big a wtf as the planting of evidence, so not really a surprise here. Just a wtf for what should have happened.

Yeah the idea that literally nobody else was investigated is mind blowing. The being the #1 pointer to the real killer. Also not nearly enough was done about Lenk phoning in the plate. I mean COME ON.

During the whole thing I kept asking my wife how many people this could involve. The defense was being awfully humble/reserved/safe saying it was 1 or 2 people. The whole series made me think it went up way higher. Not so much people planting evidence, but people saying "do whatever it takes to put this guy away" and then the trickle down of that. Feels like 2 generations of bureaucrats covering for each other. Kind of felt like True Detective at times in that sense. I think a lot of election promises and jobs were promised to various people for help, and it just kept growing and growing. I mean hell, even the FBI gets sucked in (to the shadyness) somehow. That had to be from pressures way up.

I know a lot had to be edited, so maybe it was there, but I don't see how the lawyers couldn't have hammered on that license plate call.
Unless I'm missing something, that call makes the State's theory of her being killed in the garage, yet her bloody body having been in the RAV4 virtually impossible.

this didn't happen

? Seemed like it did.

Yeah I find they butchered that, and the public defenders butchered Dassey's trial with regards to his interrogation. You need to get Dassey to say on the stand that he was guessing what they wanted to hear to go home, because he thought he could go home. How do you not get him saying exactly that, even if he's not a smart guy. They left way too much meat on the bone for my liking there. Zero DNA evidence at all to convince him and all you have to do is destroy the forced confession of a minor. Try harder, grrr

Granted once again, we know the jury probably was never going to give an innocent verdict. I just felt they could have done a bit more. Results oriented perhaps. Or maybe as you say, editting of the film.

colborn

Sorry yeah name wrong. Colborn phoning in the plate. I got my trash confused. The same point applies however. Not enough done on that area that they showed in the movie.

just finished ep 7

lol at the dude prosecuting with kratz saying its embarassing for the defense not to give another suspect when they werent allowed to bring in third party liability

Whole thing was a great watch. After reading outside stuff that wasn't included in the doc, I think it's more likely than not SA is guilty, but def reasonable doubt there. I would not have voted to convict him. BD being convicted of any kind of serious crime on absolutely zero hard evidence is just sad.

I didn't know the story prior to watching, and one angle I thought the doc might take, given the title "Making a Murderer", was - let's assume for a moment that SA committed the TH murder. What responsibility does the state have for how dramatically it failed him in the earlier case, costing him 18 years of his life, and untold stress/trauma? Did they "make him" a real murderer in the second case based on how they railroaded him in the first case? I was expecting that subject might be explored somehow - obviously didn't get that.

Dassey's first lawyer was just unforgivable. He had run and lost for judge and I think he wanted a good relationship with the police and DA's office in hopes for a future run at judge.

As far as SA's attorneys go, they were smart so I'm not going to rush to say they mishandled the license plate call. Maybe it was edited out. Maybe the judge disallowed something. Maybe something else.

There is a lesson I'm taking from the BD interviews. It's an extreme case of authority figures manipulating a virtually defenseless guy. Because it's so extreme they get something extreme done; getting a guy to confess to a rape and murder he didn't commit. But, it's not entirely dissimilar from the way salespeople or pushy/sociopathic people in general manipulate everyone. Sure, it's usually for something small and people usually are just like **** it, it's not worth arguing about. And sometimes it's not worth arguing about, but it's interesting to note when someone is using those techniques even if it's just to try to get you to pay for something extra at jiffy lube.

It would've been weird to even go there because the whole documentary they were telling us that he didn't kill anyone.

Outside stuff? such as?

One of the most incriminating things not in the doc is the calls from SA to the victim from different phone numbers. Those could have been just him checking on when she will get arriving or w/e, but could have been him stalking her.

Also, Dean Strang obviously doesn't think it was a fair investigation and he's clearly not sure SA is guilty, but in the doc and in some interviews linked itt, I don't know, he really seems to lean a little toward guilty.

I think this is what Michael Griesbach's book The Innocent Killer: A True Story of a Wrongful Conviction and its Astonishing Aftermath is about.

Griesbach was one of the DA's who helped free Steven Avery in the original rape case.