Category: Wrongful Conviction

‘Making a Murderer’ – A Broader Debate

“Making a Murderer,” the Netflix series about Steven Avery, who may or may not have murdered Theresa Halbach in a rural Wisconsin town, has created a healthy controversy. Everybody is asking: “Did he do it? Or was he framed by the police?” Avery served eighteen years in jail for a crime he did not commit until he was exonerated by DNA evidence in 1999. His multi-million dollar lawsuit against the county, he alleges, is the motive for the police charging him with murder. Avery, along with his nephew Brendan Dassey, a mentally-challenged teenager, were convicted in separate trials.

The 10-part series is controversial. The documentarians are accused of biased reporting intended to prove the defendants are innocent. But that’s unfair;  ultimately, the series  demonstrates something true and more important: that despite the guilty verdicts we really do not know who killed Halbach, how, or why. The prosecution presented a strong circumstantial case, but this evidence is carefully dissected, and a viewer can readily believe that what little there was had been planted by the police. Moreover, Dassey’s “confession” in which he “guessed” at what the police wanted to hear, and later repeatedly recanted, is utterly uncorroborated by anything the police could find and appears to be the unreliable product of well-known unsavory police interrogation tactics.

We should broaden the debate beyond guilty or not guilty,  because “Making a Murderer” raises several fundamental questions about the criminal justice system.

First, what is the goal of our system? Is the goal to yield results that society is willing to accept? To be sure, we hope the adversary system and the use of juries lead to reliable results. But we know that, as the documentary shows, tragic mistajes are made, eyewitnesses are mistaken, and that the most we can ever hope for is uncertainty.  Is that enough?

Does the criminal adversary system really produce a fair fight? Avery’s retained lawyers worked incredibly hard, were unstintingly loyal, and were highly effective. Dassey was indigent and was assigned an attorney who, from the beginning, believed and announced that his client was guilty despite Dassey’s protests of innocence, and in fact,  handed the prosecution evidence to use against him. After this attorney was removed, new counsel was appointed and did the best he could. But once again we revisit the age-old maxim that the quality of justice depends on how much money you have.

Did the prosecutors perform their constitutional duty to be “ministers of justice”? Whether one buys the claim that Avery was framed, it’s clear that the prosecutor accepted whatever came from the police without any independent reflection. Even after the court ordered the local police to stay out of the investigation, they stayed deeply involved and produced the only “evidence” of guilt. The prosecutors believed Dassey’s fantastic tale of bloodthirsty sexual assault even though not a drop of blood or any other forensic evidence could be found to support it. Moreover, disregarding his ethical obligations, the prosecutor repeatedly made highly prejudicial statements to the media revealing extensive inflammatory details about the crime.

A few other thoughts. The absence of any racial issues – everyone involved is Whites – simplifies the legal and policy questions raised by the film. This is an excellent opportunity. But in their place we see issues of class and culture at play in a small rural community in middle America, a culture we really can’t penetrate. How do rumor, personal history, kinships, friendships, and resentments impact the quality of justice here?

In the final analysis, nobody really knows why or how Theresa Halbach died. Avery may be innocent, a degenerate, or a predator; Dassey may be no more than an immature, mentally-deficient teenager. They may have killed her, or maybe they did not. The title alone raises the provocative question: did the police “make” a murderer by framing a case against Avery? Or did society “make” a murderer by wrongly imprisoning a young man for eighteen years on the basis of a single mistaken identification? One can always fault the messengers, but the series raises important questions.

Related Readings:

Westchester Exoneration

Please click on the link below to read about a local exoneration. Counsel for the defendant were Herman Kaufman, of Rye, NY, and Anthony DiPietro, a Pace Law alum who maintains an office in White Plains, NY.

Jamar Smythe – National Registry of Exonerations

A Warning to Itinerent Defense Counsel: Beware of Conflicts of Interest

The Supreme Court, Kings County, has granted a post-conviction motion to vacate a conviction (CPL 440.10) where the defendant’s attorney accepted employment with the Kings County District Attorney’s Office after having been substantially involved in the preparation of the case for trial.  The attorney was assigned to the homicide bureau, became Chief of the Trial Division, and then an Executive in the office and there were no mechanisms put in place to avoid a breach of confidence or the appearance of a conflict of interest.

People v. Dennis, Indictment No.: 12843/1989 (N.Y. Kings Cnty, Mar. 16, 2015).

News for “Serial” Fans

If you listen to the Podcast Serial – a broadcast that addresses the conviction (or wrongful conviction) of Adnan Syed in Baltimore, you probably already know that the court has granted a hearing on his claim of ineffectiveness of counsel. Syed claims his trial attorney failed to communicate a willingness to discuss a plea to the prosecution and failed to investigate an alibi witness.

Art meets reality once again. Last week we discussed the film, The Newburgh Sting, about the terrorist prosecution arising out of Newburgh involving a claim of entrapment. What is the role of journalism and art in addressing a claim of injustice?

In Serial, Syed claims he was innocent, as he has claimed all along. Sara Koenig, the journalist who produces and hosts the show, reaches no conclusions. Now the court is going to hear evidence on his claim that he was willing to plead guilty. What could be more complicated?

Some thoughts about the intersection of life and art in this case:

First, one has to think that the tremendous publicity this case has garnered had a role in the court’s willingness to look at it. Post-conviction claims of ineffectiveness are almost routinely rejected.

Second, to what extent will Syed have to explain his very public innocence claim in relation to his claim he was interested in pleading guilty before trial? The evidence that he always claimed to be innocence is now recognized worldwide. How, if at all, should or will that play out in the litigation?

Third, for those litigators who listened to the defense attorney’s cross-examination on the show, we all must have had second thoughts about the condition of the attorney. She became ill and was disbarred and then died after the trial. While hindsight is 20-20, and knowing what happened after, her performance in court, at least, doesn’t seem like she is functioning well.

Related Readings:

NY Court of Appeals Decides to Review 440.10 Summary Denials

In one of its last decisions of 2014, the Court of Appeals held that it will begin reviewing the Appellate Division’s summary denials of CPL 440.10(1)(g) motions.  The Court had held in People v. Crimmins, 38 N.Y.2d 407, 409 (1974) that

[t]he power to review a discretionary order denying a motion to vacate judgement upon the ground of newly discovered evidence ceases at the Appellate Division.

For nearly 40 years, the Crimmins decision kept the Court of Appeals from reviewing and determining whether such denials constituted “abuse of discretion.” People v. Jones, No. 14-219, ___ N.E.3d ___, 2014 N.Y. Slip Op. 08760, 2 (Dec. 16, 2014). In Jones, this Court overruled itself and explained that “the rule enunciated in Crimmins has needlessly restricted this Court’s power of review concerning CPL 440.10(1)(g) motions….”

In Jones, the Court held that the Appellate Division abused its discretion in summarily denying a defendant’s motion for an evidentiary hearing as part of his efforts to vacate his conviction on the ground of newly discovered evidence, pursuant to CPL 440.10(1)(g). Mr. Jones claimed that newly discovered DNA evidence would exclude him as the perpetrator of crimes of which he was convicted in 1981.  This decision signals a step in the right direction for the NY judiciary trying to grapple with evidence, like DNA, that may not have been available at the time of trial.