‘Making a Murderer’ Left Out Crucial Facts, Prosecutor Says
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
https://twitter.com/TODAYshow/status/684373410038718464
(In the video attached to the tweet, one of the creators of the documentary claims they have since been contacted by one of the jurors from Steven Avery's trial, who stated they felt he was innocent however voted guilty as they feared for their personal safety.)
Wow, that's not a statement to take lightly. Arguably, if a juror comes forward with something like that, it's time to empanel a Federal grand jury to investigate the judge and prosecutor.
The whole thing reeks of media manipulation on the one side, and botched police work on the other, with everybody in it for themselves. Looks like a dystopian novel's version of justice.
So I'm disinclined to believe Mr. Kratz when it comes to the Avery case...
His IQ is around 70. That's borderline learning disabled. Of course his performance isn't convincing - he's traumatised by the process, doesn't understand what's happening, and is easily manipulable.
Based on that I don't think he's guilty, there is really nothing to tie him to the crime and to believe he would be able to clean up any traces is just ridiculous.
An IQ at that level is considered intellectually disabled. Nothing borderline about it.
But, that's completely different than learning disabled - you can have a very high IQ and have disabilities like dyslexia.
I do tend to agree perhaps that there are more likely explanations for their actions than stupidity or corruption (as the GP suggested), but we should be wary when it comes to looking for signs of the latter, as a skilled corrupt civil servant / politician will always hide their malfeasance under the guise of slowness, stupidity, miscommunication, etc.
To me the fact that the police had the gun for more than 5 months before the bullet was found only reinforces the theory that the bullet may have been discharged and planted by the police.
This is reinforced by lack of a bullet hole, or blood splatter in the garage where the prosecution claims he shot her.
- Colburn calling in the plates/make/model/year for the victim's car 2 days before it was found
- Victim's voice mail was checked at 8am the day after she was supposedly killed
The most frustrating bit to me was the EDTA business, and how the lack of proof that it came out of the vial somehow made irrelevant the tampered evidence package that the syringe-sized hole in the tube.
To be fair, that wasn't the only scene where I felt that way ...
Hard to find good pictures, but you can see here: http://i.imgur.com/mhdkpui.jpg some vacutainers (newer, but they work the same) that have been filled, complete with puncture holes. That's just how you fill them.
It's a lot more compelling that the evidence box has been tampered with, in my opinion. You can find a few phlebotomists confirming this in the makingamurderer subreddit, if you look around.
"Victim's voice mail was checked at 8am the day after she was supposedly killed". By who? The family? The murder?
The series did not show the past of Avery before this affaire. Specially when he burns alive a cat while laughing. Maybe there would be less watchers to believe in his innocence! I am currently writing on this affaire and read of lot of documents, and I have no doubt he is guilty. For the other idiot, Dassey, it is less sure.
It's strange that they don't considered the possibility of Bobby Dassey and Scott Tadych being the murderers or the "German" man: http://www.convolutedbrian.com/an-alternative.html
Covered in episode the first episode. Maybe you weren't paying attention!
If so, Colburn could have wrote these down and was simply calling in to ensure he got it right.
Indeed, there's even evidence against them. Why on earth was so much of her blood in the back of her vehicle if it wasn't used at all during the crime?
The show was so frustrating to watch.
the case as presented truly defies any credibility or logical sense.
The omitted evidence he raised seem to me to fall under 2 categories:
1. Evidence that was very ambiguous (eg. the accused calling the victim's cellphone... suspicious until you remember he was doing business with her)
2. Physical evidence closely related to physical evidence that was included. My problem here is that if you think some of the physical evidence was tampered with or planted, then there's no reason to believe the other evidence is authentic. And if you don't believe it was planted, then you don't need any other evidence.
"I am the prize"... Yeah, some prize, right.
It strikes me as relevant, but it is rarely mentioned that Steven Avery's civil case for his first wrongful prosecution against the police and town was denied coverage by the insurance companies. This means the individuals involved in his first wrongful conviction (and who were implicated by the documentary for wrongdoing in the second conviction) could have been found personally financially liable. That would be a powerful incentive for most people.
The documentary makes a new case that the criminal convictions are maliciously incorrect and relied on misconduct by police and prosecutors.
Some of that interrogation is clearly designed to get him to confess to a crime, and doesn't seem to care whether the confession is true or false.
Some of that interrogation appears to be better designed, and seems to want to get truth rather than a confession, but after several hours they get frustrated that they're not getting a confession so they change tactics. (And I think their frustration is because he'd confessed the day before, so why isn't he confessing now, and the thought that maybe he's innocent doesn't seem to occur to them.)
When there's a miscarriage of justice people often say "but why did he confess?"
This documentary is now my example of why people confess to crimes they did not commit.
There are some frustrating bits about it. The other person was wrongly convicted of a violent crime, was cleared by very good, solid, DNA evidence. We hear a few times from law enforcement who doubt the exoneration and the DNA evidence, and there's a lack of challenge of those attitudes. It's a bit like watching a slow motion train wreck - "what the fuck is that lawyer doing?!?" (the lawyer for the young person makes a comment to the media that pretty much torpedoes his client's case). There's some stuff around plea bargains that isn't explored as much as it could be. A bunch of people accept plea bargains not because they're guilty but because they don't want the extra penalties from a risky court case. And it's a bit long - 10 programmes could have been edited down to 5 without losing any information.
Worth watching though.
The US/State attorney might step in if there is enough proof for misconduct especially if the DA cannot be trusted to handle the case impartially.
Other than that the normal appeal process is still accessible they can appeal to Courts of Appeals which is split to 12 regional circuits so this would technically allow you to get judged "out of state" not sure how far it is, or if you can appeal to be judged in another circuit.
Normally there isn't a way for people to be judged out of state mostly because they are judged according to state and local laws which can't be upheld by a different court unless the case is federal and then they go through the federal court system. And there isn't really another way for this process to work the defendant can't be expected to be able to choose where they'll be tried because it basically allows them to choose how they will be sentenced or even if they have committed a crime in the first place.
That said apparently the DA did act appropriately as there was a clear case of conflict of interest they've delegated the case to the adjacent district which handled the prosecution and most of the investigation. From what I've read about the case this isn't just a clear cut case the documentary did present quite a bit of evidence but it was very cherry picked I'm not entirely sold what actually happened.
My biggest grief with this documentary isn't that it drives and agenda is that it does it on an "active case" this is a sad story indeed but this should've been done on a different case perhaps I would assume that there are plenty of miscarriage of justice cases that are over which could've been used. I hope there will be an investigation in this manner but even the most biased news coverage of any criminal case doesn't formulate and opinion of the matter as much as this docu did, and this can poison any potential future investigation or trial for better or for worse.
If anything should be taken from this and from many other public cases is that we really need much more stricter ethical guidelines about how criminal and civil cases are handled by the media. When the media can be used as a tool to affect public opinion it can be used to affect potential outcome of trials and that's very bad place to be.
Heck even pre-trial coverage can change the outcome of many cases then the media reports that they caught a guy and builds a case that they are guilty people would put less effort into doing due diligence the police might not chase up on additional leads, people who might have had details are not less likely to come forward because they caught the guy so why should they bother and some of the witnesses that already came forward will start rehashing what they've seen on the news even if only unconsciously.
Heck at this point you might be able to actually get out of guilty verdict by getting some PR company to spam as much misinformation about the incident as possible poisoning all the witnesses it only takes a handful of inaccuracies between the initial statement and the trail deposition for the defense to rip the witnesses apart.
Investors should really start considering the consequence those events have on their companies’ ability to attract talent.
If you guess less than a dozen, you are far below: TSA abuse, Police escalation, legal problems related to a health-related debt… I’m happy for you that you apparently haven’t. I cannot exclude it myself.
I would like to be cherry-picking, but a large minority of friends who have lived in the US have similarly frightening story of abuse of power, or excessive force.
One thing that also makes me less likely to come to the US is to be physically confronted to people as curt, visibly aggressive and lacking self-criticism as you. I do believe that that prosecutor’s attitude and your response share something, visibly more common in the US: something that is often described as having a “cow-boy attitude”.
What I cherry-picked was how my brother left the US after an arrest in the nearby house involved law-enforcement firing 12,000 rounds at a single crouching suspect, and they had to leave because his wife and two kids couldn’t sleep after that; how the CEO of the start-up I was working for was mugged; how my closest friend was victim of an extreme-rendition at the border after he showed a hand-written letter by the Dean of Harvard inviting him to teach; how my manager had his passport confiscated… I know work with a team that is partially in Chicago: do I need to say more?
The twelve people the closest to me who went to the US all had beyond traumatic experiences. Imagining anything involving a prosecutor like the one portrayed there just sends shivers through my spine.
Free hat!
But what do I know.
ad hominems have no place in rational debate.
I know this may shock you, but there's a world beyond high school debating.
Please don't make acerbic swipes in HN comments. Your comment would be a fine one without that second sentence.
i know this may shock you, but denigrating people who you do not agree with is something only people in high school typically do.
If you take away the main case (admittedly murkier), there is nothing more cringe-inducing that the details about the nephew’s case. It is just painful to listen to; everything about it talks about how a mentally handicapped relative, who had nothing to do with the case, was (on camera) abused by authority figures, and then wronged at every step of the judicial process. This is the least entertaining thing that I have seen all week (and I watched videos on how to set-up Docker), by far. It seems to me that this part is a highly relevant documentary on key failings of the process for younger or uneducated people. That kind of description cannot be satisfied by fiction. That kind of description is necessary to set up and improve the judicial process.