Steven Avery & Brendan Dassey
Steven Avery was long thought of as a trouble maker from a bad family, many of the local police hated him and couldn’t stand the fact he had been proven innocent and was about to receive a huge payout for being wrongly convicted and serving 18 years in prison. In the series at least 3 officers seemed to think he still committed the sexual assault in the first case even though DNA evidence clearly proved it was someone else. Plus prior to that there was so much other evidence showing it wasn’t him and he had several alibi’s. All that was ignored. This all meant that he was prime suspect in the Teresa Halbach murder. It looks to me like several pieces of evidence were planted and manipulated to incriminate him. Everything was stacked against him and as for that vile prosecutor Ken Kratz, he was one of the worst for playing the media and hiding evidence.
Kathleen Zellner has worked tirelessly uncovering so much new evidence and has indicated several other suspects who could have murdered Teresa. It seems that none of them were ever seriously investigated. The justice system so far seems to be refusing to hear the new evidence, it all seems completely wrong and unjust.
Brendan Dassey was so obviously coerced into confessing at the age of 16, he has learning disabilities and this was in no way taken into account. He had no legal counsel and his mother wasn’t present in the first interview. The lawyer Len Kaplinsky then sold him down the river and was working with the prosecution to get him to ‘confess’ and further incriminate himself along with that awful investigator. As far as I understand it he has now exhausted all possibilities of a retrial and is stuck in prison for another 30 years at least. It is such an injustice and so sad to see. His only hope is if Steven Avery is proven innocent, this might mean he would get a new trial or be released.
The worst part of it is that Teresa and her family have not received the justice they deserve and the actual killer(s) have been left to roam free possibly committing other serious crimes. Which is exactly what happened in the first case, the perpetrator went on to attack at least one other woman - another life ruined.
I find the whole thing so awful, the US justice system is completely inept and unfit for purpose. If you have money you can often get away with crimes but if you are poor you are basically fucked.
I don’t see the British justice system as being much better in some cases. Legal aid has been cut right back and again money talks with legal representation.