Steven Allan Avery (born July 9, 1962)
is an American convicted murderer from
Manitowoc County,
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
, who had previously been wrongfully convicted in 1985 of
sexual assault
Sexual assault is an act in which one intentionally sexually touches another person without that person's consent, or coerces or physically forces a person to engage in a sexual act against their will. It is a form of sexual violence, which ...
and
attempted murder
Attempted murder is a crime of attempt in various jurisdictions.
Canada
Section 239 of the ''Criminal Code'' makes attempted murder punishable by a maximum of life imprisonment. If a gun is used, the minimum sentence is four, five or seven ye ...
. After serving eighteen years of a thirty-two-year sentence (six of those years being concurrent with a
kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the unlawful confinement of a person against their will, often including transportation/asportation. The asportation and abduction element is typically but not necessarily conducted by means of force or fear: the p ...
sentence), Avery was
exonerated
Exoneration occurs when the conviction for a crime is reversed, either through demonstration of innocence, a flaw in the conviction, or otherwise. Attempts to exonerate convicts are particularly controversial in death penalty cases, especially w ...
by
DNA testing
Genetic testing, also known as DNA testing, is used to identify changes in DNA sequence or chromosome structure. Genetic testing can also include measuring the results of genetic changes, such as RNA analysis as an output of gene expression, or ...
and released in 2003, only to be charged with murder two years later.
Avery's 2003 exoneration prompted widespread discussion of Wisconsin's criminal justice system; the Criminal Justice Reform Bill, enacted into law in 2005, implemented reforms aimed at preventing future wrongful convictions. Following his release, Avery filed a $36 million lawsuit against Manitowoc County, its former
sheriff
A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland that is commonly transla ...
, and its former
district attorney
In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or state attorney is the chief prosecutor and/or chief law enforcement officer representing a U.S. state in a l ...
for wrongful conviction and imprisonment. In November 2005, with his
civil suit
-
A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the Civil law (common law), civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in re ...
still pending, he was arrested for the murder of Wisconsin photographer Teresa Halbach, and in 2007 was convicted and sentenced to
life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...
without possibility of
parole
Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...
. The conviction was upheld by higher courts.
Avery's 2007 murder trial and its associated issues are the focus of the 2015
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
original documentary series ''
Making a Murderer
''Making a Murderer'' is an American true crime documentary television series written and directed by Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos. The show tells the story of Steven Avery, a man from Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, who served 18 years in pris ...
'', which also covered the arrest and 2007 conviction of Avery's nephew,
Brendan Dassey.
In August 2016, a federal judge overturned Dassey's conviction on the grounds that his
confession
A confession is a statement – made by a person or by a group of persons – acknowledging some personal fact that the person (or the group) would ostensibly prefer to keep hidden. The term presumes that the speaker is providing information th ...
had been coerced.
In June 2017, Wisconsin
prosecutor
A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the Civil law (legal system), civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the ...
s appealed this decision. Eight months later, a panel of seven judges of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (in case citations, 7th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the courts in the following districts:
* Central District of Illinois
* Northern District of Il ...
ruled in favor of upholding the original conviction by a vote of 4 to 3, ruling that police had properly obtained Dassey's confession. On February 20, 2018, Dassey's legal team, including former
Solicitor General of the United States
The solicitor general of the United States is the fourth-highest-ranking official in the United States Department of Justice. Elizabeth Prelogar has been serving in the role since October 28, 2021.
The United States solicitor general represent ...
Seth Waxman
Seth Paul Waxman (born November 28, 1951) is an American lawyer who served as the 41st Solicitor General of the United States from 1997 to 2001. He then returned to private legal practice, and serves as the co-chairman of the appellate and Supr ...
, filed a petition for a writ of
certiorari
In law, ''certiorari'' is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. ''Certiorari'' comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of ...
to the
U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
. On June 25, 2018, certiorari was denied.
Early life
Steven Avery was born in 1962 in
Manitowoc County,
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
, to Allan and Dolores Avery. Since 1965, his family has operated a
salvage yard
A wrecking yard (Australian, New Zealand, and Canadian English), scrapyard (Irish, British and New Zealand English) or junkyard (American English) is the location of a business in dismantling where wrecked or decommissioned vehicles are brough ...
in rural
Gibson, Wisconsin
Gibson is a town in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 1,352 at the 2000 census. The unincorporated communities of Larrabee, Melnik, and Zander are located in the town. The unincorporated communities of Fisherville a ...
, on the 40-acre (16 ha) property where they lived outside town. Avery has three siblings: Chuck, Earl, and Barb. He attended public schools in nearby
Mishicot and
Manitowoc, where his mother said he went to an elementary school "for slower kids".
According to one of his lawyers in 1985, school records showed that his
intelligence quotient
An intelligence quotient (IQ) is a total score derived from a set of standardized tests or subtests designed to assess human intelligence. The abbreviation "IQ" was coined by the psychologist William Stern for the German term ''Intelligenzqu ...
was 70 and that he "barely functioned in school".
On July 24, 1982, Avery married Lori Mathiesen, who was a single mother. They have four children together: Rachel, Jenny, and twins Steven and Will.
Early convictions
In March 1981, at age 18, Avery was convicted of
burglarizing a bar with a friend. After serving ten months of a two-year sentence in the Manitowoc County Jail, he was released on probation and ordered to pay
restitution
The law of restitution is the law of gains-based recovery, in which a court orders the defendant to ''give up'' their gains to the claimant. It should be contrasted with the law of compensation, the law of loss-based recovery, in which a court o ...
.
In late 1982, two men admitted that, at Avery's suggestion, they threw his cat "in a bonfire and then watched it burn until it died" after Avery had poured gas and oil on it.
Avery was found guilty of
animal cruelty
Cruelty to animals, also called animal abuse, animal neglect or animal cruelty, is the infliction by omission (neglect) or by commission by humans of suffering or Injury, harm upon non-human animals. More narrowly, it can be the causing of harm ...
and was jailed until August 1983.
"I was young and stupid, and hanging out with the wrong people", Avery said later, of his first two incarcerations.
In January 1985, Avery ran his cousin's car off to the side of the road. After she pulled over, Avery pointed a gun at her. He was upset and alleged that she had been telling people he had been
masturbating
Masturbation is the sexual stimulation of one's own genitals for sexual arousal or other sexual pleasure, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation may involve hands, fingers, everyday objects, sex toys such as vibrators, or combinati ...
on the front lawn, which he stated was not true. Avery maintained that the gun was not loaded and that he was trying to stop her from spreading what he alleges are false rumors about him by threatening her with murder, and was not actually prepared to commit murder. He was sentenced to six years for "endangering safety while evincing a depraved mind" and
possession of a firearm
Gun laws and policies, collectively referred to as firearms regulation or gun control, regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification, and use of small arms by civilians. Laws of some countries may afford civilians a right to ...
.
Wrongful attempted sexual assault conviction
In July 1985, a woman was brutally attacked and
sexually assaulted
Sexual assault is an act in which one intentionally sexually touches another person without that person's consent, or coerces or physically forces a person to engage in a sexual act against their will. It is a form of sexual violence, which ...
while jogging on a
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...
beach. Avery was arrested after the victim picked him from a photo lineup, and later from a
live lineup.
Although Avery was forty miles away in
Green Bay shortly after the attack – an
alibi
An alibi (from the Latin, '' alibī'', meaning "somewhere else") is a statement by a person, who is a possible perpetrator of a crime, of where they were at the time a particular offence was committed, which is somewhere other than where the crim ...
supported by a time-stamped store receipt and sixteen eyewitnesses
– he was charged and ultimately convicted of
rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...
and
attempted murder
Attempted murder is a crime of attempt in various jurisdictions.
Canada
Section 239 of the ''Criminal Code'' makes attempted murder punishable by a maximum of life imprisonment. If a gun is used, the minimum sentence is four, five or seven ye ...
, then sentenced to thirty-two years in prison.
Appeal
In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...
s in 1987 and 1996 were denied by higher courts.
Around 1995, a
Brown County police detective contacted the Manitowoc County Jail, saying that an inmate "had admitted committing an assault years ago in Manitowoc County and that someone else was in jail for it". The jail officer transferred the call to the Manitowoc County detective bureau. Deputies recalled Sheriff Thomas Kocourek telling them, "We already have the right guy. Don't concern yourself with it."
Avery continued to maintain his innocence in the Beerntsen case. In 2002, after serving eighteen years (the first six concurrently on the prior endangerment and weapons convictions), the Wisconsin
Innocence Project
Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal organization that is committed to exonerating individuals who have been wrongly convicted, through the use of DNA testing and working to reform the criminal justice system to prevent futur ...
used
DNA testing
Genetic testing, also known as DNA testing, is used to identify changes in DNA sequence or chromosome structure. Genetic testing can also include measuring the results of genetic changes, such as RNA analysis as an output of gene expression, or ...
– not available at the time of Avery's original trial – to
exonerate
Exoneration occurs when the conviction for a crime is reversed, either through demonstration of innocence, a flaw in the conviction, or otherwise. Attempts to exonerate convicts are particularly controversial in death penalty cases, especially w ...
him and to demonstrate that a different suspect, Gregory Allen, had in fact committed the crime.
Allen, who bore a striking physical resemblance to Avery,
had committed an assault in 1983 at the same beach where Beerntsen was later attacked in 1985,
and was under police surveillance during the period of Beerntsen's assault due to his history of criminal behavior against women. However, Allen was never a suspect in the Beerntsen case, and he was not included in the photo or live lineups presented to Beerntsen.
Avery was released on September 11, 2003.
By that time, his wife had divorced him, and he was
estranged from his family.
Avery's
wrongful conviction
A miscarriage of justice occurs when a grossly unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Inno ...
case attracted widespread attention. Rep.
Mark Gundrum
Mark Gundrum (born March 20, 1970) is an American lawyer and politician serving as a judge of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals for District II. He previously served as a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly from 1999 to 2010.
Early life and educ ...
, the
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
chairman of the Wisconsin Assembly Judiciary Committee, impaneled a bipartisan task force to recommend improvements to the state's criminal justice system aimed at decreasing the likelihood of future wrongful convictions. Recommendations included a revamped eyewitness identification protocol
[ and new guidelines for interrogations of suspects and witnesses, and the collection and storage of material evidence.] The recommendations were ultimately drafted into legislation that became known as the Avery Bill, which was passed and signed in October 2005, then renamed the Criminal Justice Reform Bill a month later after Avery was charged in the Halbach case.
Avery filed a civil lawsuit
-
A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...
against Manitowoc County; its former sheriff
A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland that is commonly transla ...
, Thomas Kocourek; and its former district attorney
In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or state attorney is the chief prosecutor and/or chief law enforcement officer representing a U.S. state in a l ...
, Denis Vogel, seeking to recover $36 million in damages
At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at ...
stemming from his wrongful conviction. The suit was settled
A settler is a person who has migrated to an area and established a permanent residence there, often to colonize the area.
A settler who migrates to an area previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited may be described as a pioneer.
Settle ...
in February 2006 for $400,000 following his murder indictment
An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a legal person, person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felony, felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concep ...
.
Teresa Halbach murder
Photographer Teresa Halbach disappeared on October 31, 2005; her last alleged appointment was a meeting with Avery, at his home near the grounds of Avery's Auto Salvage, to photograph his sister's minivan that he was offering for sale on Autotrader.com. Halbach's vehicle was found partially concealed in the salvage yard, and bloodstains recovered from its interior matched Avery's DNA. Investigators later identified charred bone fragments found in a burn pit near Avery's home.
Avery was arrested and charged with Halbach's murder, kidnapping, sexual assault, and mutilation of a corpse on November 11, 2005. He had already been charged with a weapons violation as a convicted felon. Avery maintained that the murder charge was a frameup
__NOTOC__
In the United States criminal law, a frame-up (frameup) or setup is the act of framing someone, that is, providing false evidence or false testimony in order to falsely prove someone guilty of a crime. While incriminating those who a ...
, intended to discredit his pending civil case. Manitowoc County claimed to and did cede control of the murder investigation to the neighboring Calumet County
Calumet County is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 52,442. The county seat is Chilton, Wisconsin, Chilton. The county was created in 18 ...
Sheriff's Department because of Avery's suit against Manitowoc County. As part of the agreement for Calumet to use resources from Manitowoc County including personnel, Manitowoc sheriff's deputies participated in repeated searches of Avery's trailer, garage, and property, supervised by Calumet County officers. A Manitowoc deputy found the key to Halbach's vehicle in Avery's bedroom. His attorneys said there was a conflict of interest
A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations i ...
in their participation and suggested evidence tampering
Tampering with evidence, or evidence tampering, is an act in which a person alters, conceals, falsifies, or destroys evidence with the intent to interfere with an investigation (usually) by a law-enforcement, governmental, or regulatory authority. ...
.
Avery's attorneys also discovered that an evidence box containing a vial of Avery's blood, collected in 1996 during his appeals efforts in the Beerntsen case, had been unsealed and contained what they believed to be a new puncture hole visible in the stopper. They speculated that the blood found in Halbach's car could have been drawn from the stored vial and planted in the vehicle to incriminate Avery. To combat this claim, the prosecution presented testimony by FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
technicians who—using a novel test developed for the Avery trial—had tested the blood recovered from Halbach's car for ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid
Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) is an aminopolycarboxylic acid with the formula H2N(CH2CO2H)2sub>2. This white, water-soluble solid is widely used to bind to iron (Fe2+/Fe3+) and calcium ions (Ca2+), forming water-soluble complexes ev ...
(EDTA), a preservative used in blood vials but not present in the human body, and found none. Avery's defense
Defense or defence may refer to:
Tactical, martial, and political acts or groups
* Defense (military), forces primarily intended for warfare
* Civil defense, the organizing of civilians to deal with emergencies or enemy attacks
* Defense industr ...
team presented expert witness
An expert witness, particularly in common law countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, is a person whose opinion by virtue of education, training, certification, skills or experience, is accepted by the judge as ...
testimony stating that it was not possible to tell if the negative result meant that EDTA was not present, or if the newly developed test itself was inconclusive.
Prosecution
, Avery was the only one of the Innocence Project's 174 exonerees to have been charged with a violent crime after release.
In March 2006, Avery's nephew, Brendan Dassey, was charged as an accessory after he confessed under interrogation to having helped Avery kill Halbach and dispose of the body. He later recanted his confession, claiming that it had been coerced
Coercion () is compelling a party to act in an involuntary manner by the use of threats, including threats to use force against a party. It involves a set of forceful actions which violate the free will of an individual in order to induce a desi ...
, and refused to testify to his involvement at Avery's trial. He testified at his own trial and never mentioned coercion. Dassey was convicted of murder, rape, and mutilation of the corpse in a separate trial.
In pretrial hearings in January 2007, charges of kidnapping and sexual assault were dropped. Avery stood trial in Calumet County in March 2007, with Calumet District Attorney Ken Kratz
Kenneth "Ken" R. Kratz (born 1960/61) is an American former lawyer who served as district attorney of Calumet County, Wisconsin. He gained attention for trying a highly publicized homicide case, ''State of Wisconsin v. Steven Avery'' (2007), in ...
leading the prosecution, and Manitowoc County Circuit Court judge Patrick Willis
Patrick L. Willis (born January 25, 1985) is an American former football middle linebacker who played his entire eight-year career with the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL). He was drafted by the 49ers in the first rou ...
presiding. On March 18, Avery was found guilty of first-degree murder
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the c ...
and illegal possession of a firearm, and was acquitted
In common law jurisdictions, an acquittal certifies that the accused is free from the charge of an offense, as far as criminal law is concerned. The finality of an acquittal is dependent on the jurisdiction. In some countries, such as the ...
on the corpse-mutilation charge. He was sentenced to life in prison
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...
without possibility of parole
Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...
on the murder conviction, plus five years on the weapons charge, to run concurrently.
After serving five years at the Wisconsin Secure Program Facility
The Wisconsin Secure Program Facility (WSPF), originally the Supermax Correctional Institution, is a Wisconsin Department of Corrections prison for men, located in Boscobel, Wisconsin, US. The facility is located east of central Boscobel, off ...
in Boscobel, Avery was transferred in 2012 to the Waupun Correctional Institution
The Waupun Correctional Institution is a maximum security penitentiary in Waupun, Wisconsin. The prison is under the command of Warden Randall Hepp.
History
On July 4, 1851, Governor Nelson Dewey selected the Waupun area to be the site of the W ...
in Waupun
Waupun is a city in Dodge County, Wisconsin, Dodge and Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, Fond du Lac counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The population was 11,344 at the 2020 census. Of this, 7,795 were in Dodge County, and 3,549 were in Fond du ...
.
In January 2016, after ''Making a Murderer'' had been released, ''People'' magazine reported that one of the Avery trial jurors was the father of a Manitowoc County sheriff's deputy, and another juror's wife was a clerk with Manitowoc County. Juror Richard Mahler, who was excused from the trial after the jury had begun deliberations because of a family emergency, later commented that early on, seven of the jurors had voted not guilty; he was mystified that the jury eventually agreed on a conviction.[ Mahler's account has been disputed by other jury members, who claim that no early vote had taken place and that an informal vote was taken with only three jury members voting Avery not guilty. Another juror allegedly told the ''Making a Murderer'' filmmakers of feeling intimidated into returning a guilty verdict, fearing for personal safety. The filmmakers' claims have also been disputed.
In 2022, Avery was transferred to Fox Lake Correctional Institution, a medium-security prison.
]
Appeals
In August 2011, a state appeals court denied Avery's petition for a new trial, and in 2013, the Wisconsin Supreme Court
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is the highest appellate court in Wisconsin. The Supreme Court has jurisdiction over original actions, appeals from lower courts, and regulation or administration of the practice of law in Wisconsin.
Location
The Wi ...
denied a motion to review the ruling. In January 2016, Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
attorney Kathleen Zellner
Kathleen Zellner is an American attorney who has worked extensively in wrongful conviction advocacy. Notable clients Zellner has represented include Steven Avery (who was the subject of the 2015 and 2018 Netflix series ''Making a Murderer''), Ke ...
, in collaboration with the Midwest Innocence Project, filed a new appeal, citing violations of Avery's due process
Due process of law is application by state of all legal rules and principles pertaining to the case so all legal rights that are owed to the person are respected. Due process balances the power of law of the land and protects the individual pers ...
rights and accusing officials of gathering evidence from properties beyond the scope of their search warrant.
In December 2015, Dassey's attorneys filed a writ of ''habeas corpus
''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...
'' in federal district court for release or retrial, citing constitutional rights violations resulting from ineffective assistance of counsel
In United States law, ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC) is a claim raised by a convicted criminal defendant asserting that the defendant's legal counsel performed so ineffectively that it deprived the defendant of the constitutional right gua ...
and the coerced confession. In August 2016, Dassey's conviction was overturned by federal magistrate judge William E. Duffin, who ruled that Dassey's confession was involuntary. Duffin granted a defense petition for Dassey's release on November 14, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (in case citations, 7th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the courts in the following districts:
* Central District of Illinois
* Northern District of Ill ...
overturned his ruling on November 17, ordering that Dassey remain incarcerated pending resolution of the state's appeal of the ''habeas'' decision. He last filed for parole in 2021 but was denied. He is still currently trying to file for parole to this day.
In June 2017, the Seventh Circuit upheld the magistrate's decision to overturn Dassey's conviction, leaving the state with the options of appealing Duffin's ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
, dismissing the charges, or retrying him. The state then petitioned the appellate court to hear the case ''en banc
In law, an en banc session (; French for "in bench"; also known as ''in banc'', ''in banco'' or ''in bank'') is a session in which a case is heard before all the judges of a court (before the entire bench) rather than by one judge or a smaller ...
''. The state's petition was granted and the appellate court reversed the magistrate's ruling, finding that Dassey's confession did not violate the Constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When ...
. Dassey's attorneys filed a petition to have the Supreme Court hear his case, but the request was denied. Dassey remains in prison.
On August 26, 2016, Zellner filed a motion with the Manitowoc County circuit court for post-conviction scientific testing. Judge Angela Sutkiewicz signed a stipulation and order for the scientific testing to proceed on November 23, 2016.
On June 7, 2017, Zellner filed a 1,272-page post-conviction motion citing ineffective assistance of counsel, Brady violations, and affidavits by experts allegedly debunking the manner in which Halbach was killed, including alleged new evidence and ethical violations by Kratz. Zellner said that Avery's conviction was based on planted evidence and false testimony, and was requesting a new trial "in the interests of justice." On October 3, 2017, Avery's motion for a new trial was summarily denied without the court holding an evidentiary hearing
Within some criminal justice systems, a preliminary hearing, preliminary examination, preliminary inquiry, evidentiary hearing or probable cause hearing is a proceeding, after a criminal complaint has been filed by the prosecutor, to determine wh ...
.
On February 26, 2019, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals granted Avery's petition requesting that his case be remanded back to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing on his motion for a new trial. Zellner posted the news to her Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
page several hours before, tweeting:“Avery Update: We Won!!!!!! Back to the circuit court. #TruthWins @llifeafterten @ZellnerLaw @TManitowoc @michellemalkin #MakingaMurderer.”
Based on the bone fragments found in the county gravel pit, Zellner proffered a new theory, based on new evidence, to support Avery's upcoming case. This began in 2018 when she filed a motion to have "suspected human" bones that were being held by the Wisconsin Department of Justice
The Wisconsin Department of Justice is a state law enforcement agency with jurisdiction throughout the state of Wisconsin. Its headquarters are in Madison, the state capital, with main offices in the Risser Justice Center in downtown Madison. The ...
be tested for DNA. The bones came from three different burn piles within the Manitowoc County-owned quarry, and among them was a pelvic-bone fragment. New technology used to identify victims in the California wildfires would allow Zellner, if she had won the appeal, to test the bones for Teresa Halbach's DNA. However, when the motion was filed, Zellner soon discovered that the state had returned the bones to Halbach's family. "By giving them o the Halbach family…" Zellner stated to Rolling Stone, "they have just confirmed they believe those bones are human."
Zellner went on to file another motion, saying that the return of the bones to the Halbach family constituted an '' Arizona v. Youngblood'' violation, which meant that this potentially crucial exculpatory evidence could not be tested."It's a very sneaky way to get evidence destroyed. It seems very deliberate that the thinking was, ‘We need to get rid of those bones, but we can't just go in and cremate them ourselves."
Zellner's second motion was supported by a "never-before disclosed ledger sheet" indicating that the presence of the bones was not disclosed to Avery's defense team before they were returned to the Halbach family. Zellner had fourteen days to file any "supplemental post conviction motions" before Avery's new court date would be set.
On July 28, 2021, the Court of Appeals for the State of Wisconsin affirmed the Circuit Court's denial of Steven Avery's big brief filed by Zellner, pointing out many misrepresentations contained in that brief.
On August 16, 2022, Zellner filed a 149-page motion and third motion for post-conviction relief for the Halbach murder. In the motion, Zellner claims to have "new witnesses" that would "provide new and undisputed evidence that directly links Bobby Dassey to the murder of Teresa Halbach." Zellner also alleges the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence from Avery at trial in violation of his constitutional rights
A constitutional right can be a prerogative or a duty, a power or a restraint of power, recognized and established by a sovereign state or union of states. Constitutional rights may be expressly stipulated in a national constitution, or they may ...
.
Petitions
On December 20, 2015, a petition was created at a White House petitioning site titled "Investigate and pardon
A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the ju ...
the Averys in Wisconsin and punish the corrupt officials who railroaded these innocent men." In a January 2016 response to the petition, a White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
spokesperson said that since Avery and Dassey "are both state prisoners, the President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
cannot pardon them. A pardon in this case would need to be issued at the state level by the appropriate authorities." A spokesman for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker stated that Walker would not pardon Avery.
A second petition, titled "Initiate a Federal Investigation of the Sheriff's Offices of Manitowoc County and Calumet County, Wisconsin," was submitted to the White House petitioning site on January 7, 2016. The petition was archived because it did not meet the minimum signature requirements.
Media coverage
On March 26, 2013, the public radio program ''Radiolab
''Radiolab'' is a radio program produced by WNYC, a public radio station in New York City, and broadcast on public radio stations in the United States. The show is nationally syndicated and is available as a podcast. Live shows were first off ...
'' aired an episode titled "Are You Sure?" that featured a 24-minute segment titled "Reasonable Doubt." It explored Avery's story from the perspective of Penny Beerntsen, the woman of whom he was wrongfully convicted of sexually assaulting in 1985.
On December 18, 2015, Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
released ''Making a Murderer
''Making a Murderer'' is an American true crime documentary television series written and directed by Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos. The show tells the story of Steven Avery, a man from Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, who served 18 years in pris ...
'', a ten-episode original documentary series that explores Avery's and Dassey's investigations and trials. The documentary "examines allegations of police
The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and t ...
and prosecutorial misconduct
In jurisprudence, prosecutorial misconduct or prosecutorial overreach is "an illegal act or failing to act, on the part of a prosecutor, especially an attempt to sway the jury to wrongly convict a defendant or to impose a harsher than appropri ...
, evidence tampering
Tampering with evidence, or evidence tampering, is an act in which a person alters, conceals, falsifies, or destroys evidence with the intent to interfere with an investigation (usually) by a law-enforcement, governmental, or regulatory authority. ...
and witness coercion." The series was widely reviewed and discussed in the media, and generated numerous follow-up interviews and articles with parties shown in the documentary, including family members and some reporters who covered the trials. A second season of the documentary was released via Netflix on October 19, 2018. In December 2018, Netflix and series producers were sued for defamation
Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...
by Andrew Colborn, a former Manitowoc County police officer who had testified at Avery's murder trial. The suit alleges that the series omitted and distorted material in order to portray Colborn as a corrupt officer who had planted evidence.
The second episode of Season 18 of the series '' Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'', titled "Making a Rapist", is inspired by the Avery case. Sean Roberts, who was found guilty of rape in 2000, is exonerated by new DNA evidence but soon becomes the suspect in a rape and murder case.
Rescinded support and allegations by Jodi Stachowski
Jodi Stachowski, an ex-fiancee of Steven Avery, reported in 2016 in an interview with Nancy Grace
Nancy Ann Grace (born October 23, 1959) is an American legal commentator and television journalist. She hosted ''Nancy Grace'', a nightly celebrity news and current affairs show on HLN, from 2005 to 2016, and Court TV's ''Closing Arguments' ...
on HLN that her support for Avery in the documentary was "all an act". She further reported that she personally believes he is "not innocent" because "he threatened to kill erand erfamily and a friend of ers in the past. The allegations she makes about his death threats against her and her family can be considered separately from her belief this indicates his guilt in the murder of Teresa Halbach. She also alleges that Avery had written her threatening letters from prison. She also alleged: "He told me once, excuse my language, all bitches owe him, because the one that sent him to prison the first time. ..We all owed him and he could do whatever he wanted. Steven's the one person I can't trust … he's a monster."
See also
* List of homicides in Wisconsin
This is a list of homicides in Wisconsin. This list includes notable homicides committed in the U.S. state of Wisconsin that have a Wikipedia article on the killing, the killer, or the victim. It is divided into three subject areas as follow ...
References
Further reading
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Avery, Steven
1962 births
Living people
American people convicted of murder
Criminals from Wisconsin
Overturned convictions in the United States
People convicted of murder by Wisconsin
People from Manitowoc County, Wisconsin
People wrongfully convicted of rape
Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Wisconsin
20th-century American criminals
21st-century American criminals