Court Rules Against Brendan Dassey, Subject of ‘Making a Murderer’
December 9, 2017 by admin
Filed under Latest Lingerie News
“Today’s ruling contravenes a fundamental and time-honored position of the United States Supreme Court: Interrogation tactics that may not be coercive when applied to adults are coercive when applied to children and the mentally impaired,” they said. “Indeed, when such tactics are applied to vulnerable populations, the risk of false confession grows intolerably.”
Friday’s decision was the latest sharp turn in a legal battle that has attracted national attention after the 2015 release of the Netflix series.
Mr. Dassey, now 28, was 16 when Ms. Halbach was killed. His lawyers have argued that he was mentally unfit, that his confession was involuntary and that he had inadequate legal representation.
Newsletter Sign Up
Continue reading the main story
Thank you for subscribing.
An error has occurred. Please try again later.
You are already subscribed to this email.
In August 2016, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Wisconsin overturned Mr. Dassey’s convictions and ordered that he be released within 90 days. But prosecutors appealed the decision, and the United States Court of Appeals, which blocked his release one day before he was set to be free, ordered him to remain in Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wis., until his case was settled.
In June, Mr. Dassey then won a major victory when a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court ruled 2 to 1 that his confession was coerced. But the state appealed that decision to the full seven-judge court, which reversed the panel’s decision on Friday.
Brad Schimel, Wisconsin’s attorney general, said in a statement that he was gratified by the decision.
“Today’s decision is a testament to the talent of the attorneys at the Wisconsin Department of Justice who have worked tirelessly to deliver justice for the family and friends of Teresa Halbach over the last decade,” he said.
In a dissenting opinion, Judge Ilana Rovner said that Mr. Dassey was “subjected to myriad psychologically coercive techniques but the state court did not review his interrogation with the special care required by Supreme Court precedent.”
“His confession was not voluntary and his conviction should not stand, and yet an impaired teenager has been sentenced to life in prison,” she wrote. “I view this as a profound miscarriage of justice.”
Correction: December 8, 2017
An earlier version of this article misidentified the judge who wrote the majority opinion in the latest ruling involving the case of Brendan Dassey. It was David Hamilton, not Diane Wood.
Continue reading the main story
