Dead Certainty: How “Making a Murderer” Goes Wrong
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
But what the documentary really showed me was how utterly corrupt, venal, incompetent and evil the entire system of justice can be, from the 'court appointed lawyers' all the way up to the sheriffs that clearly, unequivocally framed Avery.
And it's fundamental to the principles of the legal system that the police and the prosecution must not be permitted to do that; and that we, as a society, must find some way to make that impossible and to punish those who violate the trust. Even if one, or ten, or a hundred believed-murderers go free.
Even if you believe Avery to be guilty (as I lean towards), you can't help but to sit in awe as officials motivated to lock up their case almost cost themselves a verdict based on their own actions. It's a story with no heroes.
Which is an example of what the article was actually about. You've seen a documentary that by some accounts is very biased, and is presenting information to you in a specific way, and neglecting to mention other information that is not conducive to the opinion they are pointing the audience towards. Is it impossible to believe that the evidence presented to you might have lead you to believe something "clearly, unequivocally" which when all the facts are present may not seem nearly as cut and dry?
For that matter, Making a Murderer was not really the subject of the article, just the prime example with which to express its point; Courts of last resort have little oversight, and can be used to manipulate the public when not held accountable for biased presentation. If anything, your comment unwittingly bolsters the original point.
All the sworn testimony, or the testimony the documentary showed you, in the order they showed to you, with you primed by earlier scenes?
> Do you feel that the documentarians faked this testimony?
It's not about the documentary faking the testimony, it's about the documentary being able to manipulate the information presented to you, and then forming an opinion about whether the documentary was biased by using that same curated view of information to decide one party was in the wrong, and therefore the documentary as in the right. That's circular logic, unless you have some other source to counter the presentation from the documentary in question.
The point here is that you, as a watcher of the documentary, were not presented the same evidence as the jury. It's easy to assume you were given a superset of the evidence, but there are indications that what some people believe to be important parts of the prosecution and defense were left out. Without access to, at a minimum, all the information the jury saw, it's impossible to say what conclusion you would come to.
Now, my own opinion is that from the evidence I've seen so far, which the vast majority but not all was received from the documentary, that the trial should have ended in a mistrial at a minimum, or a not guilty due to reasonable doubt. That said, at this point I lean slightly towards thinking he did it. That doesn't matter though, because I don't know all the evidence, nor even all the evidence that was presented in the trial. That's the whole point.
> Please go watch it before you start blathering on and on to absolute strangers about their severe lack of imagination, kiddo.
Lack of imagination with regard to this. But hey, why bother to be civil when it's so much easier to look for suspected disrespect so you can respond in kind.
Watch the beginning of the 1983 Michael Douglas movie, "Star Chamber." The first scenes show two men getting away with the rape and murder of a young boy, because the damning piece of evidence (a bloody shoe), was found in their van pursuant to a search in violation of the 4th amendment. The audience is supposed to be outraged by this failure of justice.
Surely you've heard the consternation about criminals "getting off on a technicality." A lot of people view procedural protections as just that: technicalities. It's people with that mindset reacting so negatively to this documentary. To them, Avery's actual guilt or innocence is the important thing. The process is just technicalities.
The same mindset makes it easy to justify police misconduct, and I imagine it was strongly at work with Avery's jury. Once you admit the evidence excluded in the documentary, such as Avery's prior conduct, it becomes quite reasonable to conclude that Avery is actually guilty. At the same time, with the "planted blood" theory seemingly debunked by the FBI test, the only blatantly obvious police misconduct you're left with is the planted key. If you view outcome as being more important than process, it's very easy to think of finding Avery innocent based on the planted key as simply letting him off on a "technicality."
[1] Not to mention the pervasive logical and legal fallacies in Ken Kratz's statements, which left me yelling at the TV.
1. If EDTA is found in the blood, blood definitely came from vial. 2. If EDTA is not found in the blood, no conclusion can be made. It is possible that test is not capable of testing for EDTA.
Leaving aside the FBI test, the "hole in the vial" theory has some holes in it, namely that a nurse was apparently ready to testify that the hole was how she filled the vial, and doing so that way was not uncommon: http://www.businessinsider.com/steven-avery-blood-vial-test-....
How about his testimony? Even though nothing about 'police integrity' was mentioned in the EDTA test request, he talks about it in his testimony. And he assures that the blood didn't come from the vial for the samples he DID NOT even test. If that is not a proof of bias, I don't know what is.
[I never mentioned the hole in the vial in my comment. I looked in to it and found that it is absolutely possible that the vial has a hole in it. ]
Due to the rushed nature of the test and the fact that it has only been used once before, there are definitely questions about the exact procedure used and if that could invalidate the results. There is also the question of the detection limits of the test. Neither of these things were made available at the time of the trial.
Additionally, there were multiple tests performed on blood from the vial. One of the tests came up negative. I do not believe that this was brought up at trial, and I think it should have served to prevent the tests from being presented.
In addition to the tests itself there are two huge problems with the blood.
1) The evidence seal is broken. This is a huge procedural mistake. Maybe the hole in the top is supposed to be there, maybe it isn't. Maybe it was re-used to extract blood from the vial.
2) The FBI tech that testified has been found to have misconstrued evidence in other cases. His statement of certainty that the untested vials did not contain EDTA is either an outright lie or complete incompetence.
No, it's a _detection_ test. Suppose it can detect EDTA above a certain threshold only. So it would be able say if EDTA is present _above_ that threshold; but its inability to detect would not implay that there is no EDTA, but just that there's insufficient EDTA to be detected. Which could be for a variety of reasons: evaporation? Exposure to UV light?
It's trivial to find examples of this, but I don't know enough about the EDTA test to know how well they, or this reasoning, applies.
I agree the FBI slide was shockingly dishonest, I was stunned at how blatant their false logic was.
That being said, criminal trials are inherently statistical and that admits some level of inconsistency. If the standard of conviction is say 95% certainty, the evidence might prove a 95% probability of guilt, while still leaving a range of facts undefined (e.g. where exactly was Halbach killed?) In fact, it's possible for the evidence to establish a 95% probability of guilt for two different people, even when only one could be guilty.
Thus, the focus of courts reviewing these sorts of cases seems to be not on whether the theories are inconsistent, but on the prosecutor's ethical duty to submit only evidence they believe to be true. In the Stumpf case, the prosecutor presented in Wesley's trial a statement from a jail-house informant that Wesley admitted to being the one to pull the trigger. He did not present that evidence at Stumpf's plea hearing, and in a subsequent proceeding with Stumpf, argued that the jail-house witness was not credible. The problem was not that the two theories were inconsistent, but that in either the trial or the later hearing, the prosecutor must have advanced evidence he thought to be false.
[1] In that case, there were two defendants accused of participating in the murder, but it was unclear who actually "pulled the trigger." One, Stumpf, pled guilty to aggravated murder, and in his plea hearing the state argued he was the primary shooter. He was sentenced to death. In the trial of the other, Wesley, the state argued that he was the primary shooter. He was sentenced to life. Stumpf filed a habeas petition in federal court. The Supreme Court held that the inconsistent theories did not require vacating Stumpf's guilty plea, because under Ohio law an accomplice who did not actually pull the trigger could be guilty of aggravated murder. However, it remanded to the Sixth Circuit to determine whether the inconsistent theories necessitated re-sentencing. On remand, the Sixth Circuit held that the inconsistent theories did violate Stumpf's due process rights and granted his habeas petition, unless Ohio granted him a re-sentencing.
What is your opinion on Ken? The way he organized press conference before Avery's trial? The way he proposed two wildly different theories in two trials? Do you think it was right on Ken's part to do that?
What is your opinion on Dean Strang/Jerry Buting? Do you think they could have done more to establish reasonable doubt?
Chief Judge McKee's concurrence in this case summarizes how I feel about such tactics: http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?...:
> Bribery has thus undergone a metamorphosis that has transformed it from a prosecutorial theory that “just doesn’t have any place in this,” to the lynchpin of the Government’s argument on appeal. I understand why the Government adopted this adversarial bait and switch after Skilling. However, the argument could have – and should have – been made in a less disingenuous and more candid manner.
> Although I agree with, and fully join the analysis in the Per Curiam opinion of my colleagues, I feel compelled to write separately to ensure that the “now you see it, now you don’t” approach to advocacy adopted by the Government in this case does not pass without comment.
If you've listened to Serial too, the comparison is pretty stark. In every episode, Koenig nurtures doubts about Syed's innocence, and continually returns to the most difficult challenges to the case for his innocence.
Koenig does this for reasons beyond integrity: it's also the reason Serial is a more effective true crime story (you really want to hear the next episode because you have no idea where the story might go, which is just not the case for the Avery case).
For me, the facts that Ricciardi and Demos left out are damning in pretty much the same way as the facts they reveal about misconduct in the Avery case:
* Avery is forensically tied to Halbach's car in ways that do withstand scrutiny
* Avery had repeatedly contacted Halbach, sometimes with caller ID blocked, and, despite Halbach's discomfort with him, had specifically requested that she come out to his place the day of the murder
* There is physical evidence that corroborates specific, idiosyncratic details of the story Dassey told investigators
Could you expand on this? The prosecution made this claim, but I've not found anything to back it up.
The closest I've found is an interchange that went roughly Q: where in the car did he put the body, A: in the back.
Which I think is more a case of that being the only place anyone would ever put a body in a car. If he'd said "on the roof" or "dragged behind in a trailer" then that might actually be unexpected info.
Extremely strong recommend!
* Avery is forensically tied to Halbach's car in ways that do withstand scrutiny
Which ways are this? From the documentary, they messed up the DNA testing and the EDTA test is a bunk (Not being able to test for EDTA does not mean that the blood did not come from vial)
* There is physical evidence that corroborates specific, idiosyncratic details of the story Dassey told investigators
Which are these details? I think even with the slant in the documentary, it is clear that evidence has been tempered with. Combine it with the fact that Brendon has low IQ and didn't know what he was doing, it is entirely possible that they made him say things which matches up with the physical evidence they may have planted.
If there's been evidence tampering and fraud at multiple levels in a case, it's really very very hard to meet the bar of "beyond reasonable doubt".
If the police and DA can be proven (beyond a reasonable doubt) to have committed fraud in pursuit of the case, the door is opened to a lot of doubts that would normally be considered to be unreasonable.
If the story is about the execution of the case and circumstances surrounding it, I feel like talking about bias in it's presentation of the outcome is a side-show.
But I have my own biases so that's just my 2c.
I have zero confidence in any of the Dassey testimony. It's entirely possible and IMO quite likely that the details you're referring to were fed to Dassey by the investigators. There is nothing defensible about the investigators' handling of Dassey.
The physical evidence on the car itself is suspicious: (1) there were no fingerprints, yet there were blood; (2) at least one smudge looks _exactly_ like a bloodstain would look if you applied with a Q-tip [1]; (3) from the armchair perspective of someone who has only seen the not-terribly-high-resolution photos, Halbach's blood looks rusty, whereas Avery's blood looks bright red, almost a week after supposedly dropped there (EDTA-preserved blood does not fade like normal blood); (4) the dashboard blood is unlikely given the position of the cut on Avery's hand [2].
What Kratz claimed was "sweat DNA" (there's really no such thing) on the hood latch was only speculated as such, and was never entered as evidence in the trial because it was considered contaminated; the technician did not switch gloves after examining the inside of the car and then touching the hood. It's worth adding that it's evident from transcripts that the investigators certainly imprinted Brendan Dassey with the idea that Avery had opened the hood; this is also the case with the other details that Dassey comes up with that match the investigator's evidence. Don't forget that Dassey also said a ton of things which could not possibly be true, such as Avery cutting Halbach's throat in the bedroom. (The investigators also tried to get Dassey to confess that Avery had molested him; they quickly give up when Dassey describes Avery playfully trying to grab his genitals during play wrestling. Yet the molestation part has been repeated by the press.)
The key found in Avery's trailer is also highly suspicious. (1) It was supposedly found after numerous searches, and the investigators claimed to find it only after violently rattling the bookcase they claimed it must have fallen out of, despite the photo evidence showing that it could not possibly have happened that way (notice the coins on top of the bookcase). (2) The key was a spare; at least one photo shows that Halbach had a larger keychain, never recovered. (3) Only Avery's DNA was recovered from the keychain, but no other DNA, not even Halbach's.
As for the calls, prosecution tried to frame the narrative to make it seem Halbach was extremely uncomfortable with Avery. However, she had visited his home many times, which easily also explains why he specifically requested her. She would have known that the seller of the car, "B. Janda", was Barbara Janda, Steve Avery's sister and immediate neighbor. The only evidence of Halbach's "discomfort" was that she had once told a colleague about how Avery had once opened the door wearing only a towel, which she found distasteful. Apparently Avery frequently hid his caller ID; he also called her with caller ID. This isn't even circumstantial.
There are a bunch of other points, not touched upon in the documentary, worth adding: For example, the prosecution clearly were not able to determine where the crime scene was — the lack of blood evidence shows the garage could not possibly have been the place of the murder. There are several clear signs that she was murdered elsewhere, and also that she was not burned next to Avery's house. The sheriff ignored an anonymous letter, received early in the investigation, stating that the smelter had been used to burn a body the night following Halbach's disappearance. The woman who found Halbach's car specifically requested (and was the only one to do so) to be permitted to search the Avery property, and she found the car after just a few minutes of walking among hundreds (or thousands) of cars, which seems too absurd to be a coincidence. And so on.
A lot of good discussion is happening on Reddit [3] these days, most of it pleasingly level-headed.
[1] https://i.imgur.com/4VXXzvB.jpg
On another note, I honestly can't believe that there's isn't some sort of law that would've prevented the sheriff's dept. from any sort of involvement in the case; there was such an obvious conflict of interests. I felt a little sick to my stomach when I heard about all the evidence they'd managed to procure, seemingly out of nowhere.
The quote in question: "The point of being scrupulous about your means is to help insure accurate ends, whether you are trying to convict a man or exonerate him. Ricciardi and Demos instead stack the deck to support their case for Avery, and, as a result, wind up mirroring the entity that they are trying to discredit."
This equivocation is morally repugnant.
The article also gets their facts wrong. They claim: "Investigators subsequently found DNA from Avery’s perspiration on the hood latch—evidence that would be nearly impossible to plant.". This is a fabrication. There is no distinction between blood DNA, sweat DNA, skin DNA. DNA was found under the hood latch, but no blood was seen. Hence a logical conjecture is that the source is perspiration, but it could have been any other source. As for it being hard to plant, that's laughable. Simply swipe a t-shirt or dirty sock on any surface and it will leave DNA behind. None of Avery's finger prints were found on the car, and finger prints ARE hard to plant. In contrast to DNA, which IS trivial to plant if you have access to somebody's apartment.
The charge that the documentary is bad because doesn't display a clear timeline of the events doesn't make sense, because it's the responsibility of the prosecution to explain what happened, and they didn't have a single narrative that was consistent with all the evidence. Which is why the prosecution's story of what happened was completely different in Avery's and Dassy's trials.
Juries don't believe police officers would ever lie during testimony. They believe the police are the good guys who just want to catch the bad guys. The public has to let go of this naive view of the world, and look at all evidence presented during a trial with healthy skepticism. The 'Making a Murderer' documentary teaches people to be skeptical about claims by the police, which is a great public service.
The article closes by reiterating the terrible equivocation they made earlier. That exposing prosecutorial misconduct is somehow only permissible in a completely unopinionated format. The New Yorker should be ashamed for publishing this trash.
You might not be able to distinguish "blood DNA" from "skin DNA", but forensic testing can identify the presence or absence of blood.
Meanwhile, the reason the "skin DNA" evidence is so compelling is that the source of DNA the sheriff's department is alleged to have tampered with is blood. It's not clear how they could use that blood to place DNA under the hood of the car without it testing positive for blood.
The key to the car was found in Avery's room in clear sight (after it had been searched 7 times already). The key was scrubbed clean, and only Avery's DNA was present, but not blood. No fingerprints. At any point a piece of his clothing could have been used (or a toothbrush) to rub some DNA on it. Same for the car hood. Trivial to plant when you have access to somebody's DNA. At any point during the search somebody could have picked up one of his socks, walked to the car, rubbed it wherever and walked away.
I'm not saying it definitely happened this way, just that it would have been easy to do for anybody with access. While the article goes to lengths to claim that the documentary leaves out important evidence, but arguments they use to support that claim don't hold water. Their primary argument about the hood latch DNA contains a factual error and the assertion about planting the evidence being 'nearly impossible' is absurd. And that is apparently the best argument they have about the documentary being biased...
There's a possibility that it was her spare key, not her main key.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MakingaMurderer/comments/3z8pwn/sum...
They had full control of his entire property for more than 8 days. They had access to his bedroom for that entire time. It would be trivial to just grab a used sock and swipe it on the latch.
All the evidence they had against Avery could easily have been planted. That's very very unusual.
These kinds of arguments seem thematically identical to the ones used against Hans Reiser.
(As for Reiser: he told the prosecutors where he buried the body, so his guilt is established beyond reasonable doubt)
This is the most important critique point. I'm glad you noticed it and mentioned it.
I don't think the article is actually equating the two offenses. despite the quote you highlight. The point I took away is showing how easy it is to create a narrative. The show isn't a neutral piece, you can't get past the title without seeing that.
I understand your point that the authorities have a much higher responsibility to be truthful and honorable in their duties. I just won't attack the entire article because they care to mention that a lot was left out. It's always important to think about anything you consume in this way.
I didn't totally hate the article. For instance I liked the points they made and the statistics they gave about the structural nature of forced confessions, false testimonies by police officers and the like. But they chose to emphasize the horrors of the narrative instead, even though the article itself -- by making that editoral choice -- is doing the exact same thing they condemn the documentary for. They highlight one thing at the expense of another thing, thereby creating a "biased" narrative. It's either sheer hypocrisy or the entire argument is asinine.
>It's either sheer hypocrisy or the entire argument is asinine.
A bold declaration. Everything doesn't boil down to right and wrong. There is nuance in the world and there is nuance in the article.
> The public has to let go of this naive view of the world
I think your words, reordered in this manner, are just as true. It's just as naive to believe that juries will trust a police officer just because of their profession without any consideration to further supplied evidence as it is to believe that police officers are infallible. We're talking about people here, with all the complexities, history and motivations that come along with that. Let's not degrade this discussion by stereotyping the groups involved.
For me, personally, the ultimate proof of injustice is how Ken proposed two different theories in two trials. For Avery, murder was committed in garage. For Brendan, murder was committed in the bedroom. I have learned that as per the letter of the law, it is legal. However, by doing this, Ken Kratz has confirmed that all he cares about is prosecution and he is not out seeking truth/justice.
I would guess the risks associated with planting evidence and other misconduct by police is pretty low when you use it to coerce a plea. There's not any sort of venue to expose it.
[1]http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/20/why-innocent-peop...
This is really the biggest issue that makes the whole misconduct problem so many times worse (judging by numbers in the article, "so many" is at least around 97/3 ~= 30x, putting cases like the one in question here within a margin of statistical error -- and that is not even accounting for the fact that, as you noted, misconduct is much easier and for that reason likely to be more common in pleaded cases). And it still stays hidden in plain sight: no court proceedings to generate public interest, no doubt in public opinion, no documentaries, no nothing. And indeed very little risk in case you decide to embellish your case with a little misconduct -- after all, even if plea bargain doesn't work, you can always skip presenting the most questionable evidence at trial.
It is really quite disgusting how much discretion prosecution currently has in terms of charges to bring, and the associated range of penalties.
2. The documentarians omit, while the police fabricate. The documentarians are not mirroring the entity they set out to indict.
3. 3 to 4 days is not a terribly long time for a jury to deliberate on a case like this.
For example:
- prosecution presents first. (Google Anchoring, Confirmation Bias)
- police are allowed to lie to witnesses to extract confessions, along with many other psychological tricks
- prosecutorial immunity
- election of prosecutors based on conviction rate
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
There are lots of problems with our legal system. This isn't one of them.
But if we're thinking more broadly about how the system could be reformed, we should remember that there are more than two options here. For example, The defense could present first and then have an opportunity for rebuttal after the prosecution presents its case. I'm not sure this would be near the top of my list of proposed criminal justice reforms, though.
IMO, the real bias is expert witnesses get preselected and paid, so they tend to favor a specific side. This has allowed a lot of pseudoscience to be shown a trial and enter the literature. Forensic science is rarely validated because that’s just not its job.
Consider, two people that compare hair samples, but one always supports the prosecutors case. Now, which one do you think gets more work? When someone says something is inconclusive that's it they not going to get paid to show up at the trial just there initial 'investigation'.
And this is as terrifying as the fact that experts are selected specifically to support the side that pays them. Expert witnesses should probably be selected and paid by the court, which would at least help a bit. But the pseudoscience stuff horrifies me. The whole hair comparison thing is bunk and a lot of people were put in jail on the supposed strength of this "science". Ditto for so many other forensic "sciences".
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/fbi-overstated-fo...
Though, if it has a positive effect, it seems like it would be a cheap and easy reform to make. I think it's pretty reasonable that the defense be the first to speak and the last to speak to the jury in a criminal trial, even if its gets extra timeslots compared to the prosecution.
How else would you do this? There is a presumption of innocence; the defendant needs to defend against the arguments made by the prosecution.
http://georgetownlawjournal.org/files/2015/06/Kozinski_Prefa...
The presumption of innocence is different than only hearing one side of the story. And in journalism you aren't supposed to operate with blatant bias.
Like the article explains, we allow the defense to zealously advocate because there is another side to counter it.
Not enough, in my opinion. Watch this PBS show about the story of Cameron Todd Willingham, put to death by Texas for the arson-murder of his three little girls: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/death-by-fire/
The sole basis of conviction was arson science, and as the PBS show explains it isn't much of a science at all. This is a sad story of an innocent man put to death by the state of Texas.
Five years later, with a Texas commission working inexorably toward a formal acknowledgment that the state had executed an innocent man — surely a watershed in the history of American capital punishment — Governor Rick Perry pulled a bureaucratic maneuver that effectively stopped the investigation in its tracks. More on that here: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-cameron-todd...
The point, as I see it, is that you need to also identify your source for your believe that the police fabricated. Is it entirely informed by the documentary? If so, then that's circular logic. If you believe the police fabricated evidence because of the documentary in question, then it's hardly a defense against the charge the documentary manipulated opinion through the careful curation of presented evidence.
Personally, regardless of specific opinion, I'm a little startled at how many people here are using just the documentary to explain their view that the police obviously fabricated evidence, which is then used as evidence that the article in question, regarding the trustworthiness of the documentary in question, has less merit. It's disconcerting, but hopefully it's just a case of people not explaining their other sources of information.
The short haired sheriff who called in Theresa's licence plate + Make/Model two days before it was discovered...
+
The licence plates were discovered separately hidden from the car
There is a set of writers who will always (always) take the contrarian view, just to drive clicks.
She spends the first 4 paragraphs talking about Perry Mason. And then just a couple, talking about Avery.
Here's the problem with the case, as I saw it (I watched the entire 10 episodes over a week). The only physical evidence tying Avery to the murder was collected by the pair of detectives who least of everyone else were supposed to be there. How convenient!
Secondly, to the evidence itself: if Avery did all the throat-slashing and raping, where is the evidence?? Surely they should find ONE speck of blood, or hair or skin cells or something??? Avery is such a genius that he can wipe all evidence of this massacre from a carpeted, cluttered bedroom (so badly cluttered that they couldn't find the key, sitting in plain sight, in 4 previous tries!), while leaving his own DNA around everywhere?? Same for the garage, where apparently she was shot: no blood, nothing. But there was blood from various deer carcasses of the past!
And don't even get me started on the key! His DNA is on it ... but not hers, even though she drove it?!? And why is it the valet key? And how come the two suspect detectives immediately recognized it was the "right" key, even though they were in a f'in junkyard with a 1000 vehicles around?
And his blood in the vehicle: even if you accept that it's his blood, where are the fingerprints?? Oh right: when it came to fingerprints, he was wearing a glove. Which, conveniently once again, allowed the blood to seep through in the right places.
The author uses Brendan's statement that he helped his uncle put the body in the RAV4, hence the "sweat DNA", AFTER admitting that the confession was fake! Anyone who has watched the "confession" would be left with boiling rage at the interrogators.
And she doesn't mention Len Kachinsky, the public "defender" who effectively railroaded Brendan?
I could go on and on, but this article is pure drivel.
So if you find yourself typing up a nasty email to a sheriff or whoever bc of something you saw on a tv show...please realize you are being a moron and stop typing...save as draft. Then, if you're willing to invest the time, do some real research and if you are still convinced your outrage is justified...by all means carry on with the nasty email.
This way film makers can make their money, people can be entertained and/or inspired to better things, and nobody gets assaulted by an angry mob of stupid people.
Aww come the hell on! The public has a very strong interest in monitoring the criminal justice system. We cannot do that without knowledge of the crimes and the victims. Yes, it sucks for them. Crime is bad. But the public cannot hope to establish and direct a justice system capable of deterring crime without learning facts about actual prosecutions, which unfortunately includes information about the victim and what was done to them.
Besides, the vast majority (possibly all, IIRC) of the footage of Hallbach's family consisted of public interviews of her brother. You can't repeatedly and voluntarily thrust yourself into the media spotlight and then cry foul when people use that footage.
What serious journalist really thinks this is a reasonable argument to make? Are we supposed to turn a blind eye to police corruption and inadequate due process because it makes one person and their family uncomfortable?
But maybe you saw that and were just making a joke? In which case, I'll just <whoosh> myself.
> To help investigate his cases, Gardner assembled a committee of crime experts, including a private detective, a handwriting analyst, a former prison warden, and a homicide specialist with degrees in both medicine and law. They examined dozens of cases between September of 1948 and October of 1958
So, the magazine was active from 1892 to ~1986. At some point, which appears to be between 1948 and 1958, Erle Stanley Gardner headed the feature in question.
So no, the makers did not just wake up one day after the conviction and tried to make him innocent. They were there the whole time.