Supreme Court asked to review 'Making a Murderer' confession
Court News
Lawyers for a Wisconsin inmate featured in the "Making a Murderer" series on Netflix asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to review a federal appeals court decision that held his confession was voluntary.
Brendan Dassey's legal team told the high court in their petition that the case raises crucial issues that extend far beyond Dassey's case alone and that long have divided state and federal courts.
Dassey's lawyers claim investigators took advantage of his youth and intellectual and social disabilities to coerce him into falsely confessing that he helped his uncle, Steven Avery, rape and kill photographer Teresa Halbach in 2005 in the Avery family's junk yard in Manitowoc County. Dassey was 16 at the time. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2007.
"Too many courts around the country, for many years, have been misapplying or even ignoring the Supreme Court's instructions that confessions from mentally impaired kids like Brendan Dassey must be examined with the greatest care — and that interrogation tactics which may not be coercive when applied to an adult can overwhelm children and the mentally impaired," his attorney, Steven Drizin, said in a statement.
A federal court in Wisconsin overturned Dassey's conviction in 2016, and a three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision last June. While the full 7th Circuit voted 4-3 to reverse the panel's decision to grant him a new trial, one dissenting judge called the case "a profound miscarriage of justice."
The legal odds remain high against Dassey. The U.S. Supreme Court grants only a tiny fraction of the petitions for review that it receives.
Related listings
-
Court: Teen accused in school shooting plot deserves bail
Court News 04/12/2018The Vermont Supreme Court has ruled that a teenager accused of planning a shooting at his former high school should not be kept in jail pending his trial.The state's top court ruled on Wednesday that there's not enough evidence to show 18-year-old Ja...
-
Ohio court to decide if ex-player can sue over concussions
Court News 04/07/2018The Ohio Supreme Court will decide whether the widow of a former University of Notre Dame football player can sue the school and the NCAA over allegations her husband was disabled by concussions from his college career in the 1970s.Steve Schmitz was ...
-
Court to decide if drug use while pregnant is child abuse
Court News 04/02/2018Pennsylvania's highest court will decide whether a woman's use of illegal drugs while pregnant qualifies as child abuse under state law.The Supreme Court recently took up the case of a woman who tested positive for suboxone and marijuana at the time ...
New Rochelle, New York Personal Injury Lawyers
If you or a loved one has been injured in an accident, contact Kommer, Bave & Ollman, LLP, in New Rochelle, New York, immediately. We can answer all your questions and work with you to determine if you have the grounds for a personal injury lawsuit. The attorneys at our firm are determined to resolve even the most difficult of cases. We will work closely with you to determine the best course of action to get your claim or case resolved in the most efficient way possible. We will fight for your right to compensation! No one should have to suffer a financial burden from the result of another person’s carelessness. The attorneys at Kommer, Bave & Ollman, LLP will aggressively fight to ensure that justice is served on your behalf.