Lawyers of Wisconsin's most infamous Brendan Dassey have filed a brief last Tuesday to keep his conviction overturned. This follows the prosecution's appeal to retry Dassey for the same crime and the request to keep him locked up in jail until the process finishes.
On Tuesday, Dec. 6, Atty. Laura Nirider and Atty. Steven Drizin filed papers to counter the prosecutors' appeal of keeping Dassey behind the bars of Columbia Correctional Institution until his retrial gets a decision. Initially, the accused had been granted his release effective 90 days after his conviction was overturned by the federal judge in August. Apparently, the 90-day wait of Dassey still has to be extended as he is still locked up when he should already be out.
Dassey's case is reportedly a proof that America's justice system is in need of reform. The accused was convicted when he was 17 as he confessed to the crime of raping and murdering a photographer, Teresa Halbach. Together with his uncle Steven Avery, both were given a life sentence only that Dassey was given a chance for a parole while Avery was not.
Dassey had given his statement to the authority on his own without the presence of any attorney, but later insisted that the investigators threatened him to admit the allegations. The Wisconsin prosecutors though consistently convinced the jury that the juvenile's confession was voluntary. He was then sentenced to a lifetime imprisonment with a chance for parole.
Years later, a stunning decision went down as the federal magistrate threw out his conviction. Attorneys are now arguing about his release and Dassey's camp already filed a brief to counter the prosecutor's request.
"No fair-minded jurist - much less any parent - can watch Brendan's interrogation video without seeing a naïve child whose already diminished ability to make rational choices is being grotesquely distorted by false promises," Nirider said in defense of Dassey.
Meanwhile, Avery is taking his chance at appealing his conviction for the murder. Since the trial on the duo started, Avery has been adamant that he was framed by the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Office. Previously, his lawyer Kathleen Zellner requested for several pieces of the evidence to be retested and was granted with their petition last month.
Netflix's "Making a Murderer" follows the progress of the Halbach case. The real-life crime series will return for season 2 whose premiere is yet to be confirmed by the TV network.
