Wisconsin AG appeals ruling on ‘Making a Murderer’ nephew
MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin’s attorney general on Friday appealed the overturned conviction of a man accused of helping his uncle kill a woman in a case profiled in the popular Netflix series “Making a Murderer.”
A federal magistrate judge ruled in August that investigators tricked Brendan Dassey into confessing that he helped his uncle, Steven Avery, rape and kill photographer Teresa Halbach in 2005. The judge ordered that Dassey, who was 16 at the time of the killing, be freed within 90 days unless prosecutors appealed or decided to retry him.
Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel’s office filed a notice of appeal with the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, keeping the 26-year-old Dassey behind bars. Schimel didn’t include any formal arguments for upholding Dassey’s conviction; those will come later. Schimel issued a news release noting that two state courts have upheld Dassey’s confession and Halbach’s family supports the appeal.
“We believe the magistrate judge’s decision that Brendan Dassey’s confession was coerced by investigators, and that no reasonable court could have concluded otherwise, is wrong on the facts and wrong on the law,” Schimel said in the release. He did not elaborate.