Making A Murderer

[Tony Moanero]

I've not seen this, is it a bit like The Brittas Empire?

[Charles Penrose]

Charles, aren't you a police officer / ex-police officer? Have I got that right?

 

I know this isn't your case or anything (!), but it's a worrying statement.

I wondered how long it'd be before I got that exact bite.

[Kant]

Great article the "Reid interrogation" one.

 

The whole basis of a police interview should be to elicit information/facts, and if necessary use that information to prosecute a case, rather than to use underhand techniques to elicit a confession. The sheer volume of cases based on confession that are later proved to be nonsense should be troubling to anybody remotely interested in justice.

 

It's a horrible world.

Yep, good article.

I was particularly taken with this quote:

 

"Thirty-five years ago, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology named Saul Kassin began researching the psychological factors that affect jury decisions. He noticed that whenever a confession was involved, every juror voted guilty. Alibis and fingerprints didn’t matter in these cases."

 

Pretty shocking stuff that someone would take that as a basis for a 'method'.

[razor]

I wondered how long it'd be before I got that exact bite.

 

Bang to rights in under 4 hours, but I'm pleading habeas corpus - I was set up!

 

Have you watched it?  Is it vastly different to our own justice system?  I am interested in the different interview / interrogation approaches of PEACE and Reid (UK/US).

[Spy Bee]

Got fifteen minutes into episode 1. Discovered he threw a cat on a fire so ceased to give a fuck.

Because that is worth 30 years in prison.

[VladimirIlyich]

Great post in full.

 

Ken Kratz says "if you are accusing our police officers of misconduct (he then stretches "misconduct" to "murder" to muddy the waters) then you bet have more then your elbows to put on the table" (he seems very pleased with this little idiom).

 

Just that leap from "misconduct" to "murder" is ridiculous, and worthy of embarrassment.

 

Kratz then makes the kind of insinuation that I've only ever seen in dated American dramas - "big shot out of towners coming down here to tell US down here in (small town in the south) how to lead OUR lives". He almost spat out his chewin tobaca before he said it.

 

Playing the "local and proud" card.

 

Shockingly, he wasn't laughed out of court, but rather he was backed by the jury.

 

I know some of this was shown said to the media rather than in court, but some of it was said in court, and it is likely that this was his consitant line to the jury.

These are also,mostly,the same 'honest' Policemen and Women who convicted an innocent man and imprisoned him for 18 years because they were not bothered about whether he was actually innocent or not.

One of those officers also received some vital evidence via a telephone call in 1996 and didnt reveal the phone call until seven years later,shortly after the innocent party was released from jail. This is the same officer who appeared to be looking at the female murder victims car before it was discovered in the wake of the search for the body and,I think? after the girl's time of death. This officer was in it up to his neck and,in my opinion,had far more input into the dodgy dealings than he was credited with. He may have simply been following orders but he had previously been deposed in the wrongful arrest action and was a common denominator in both cases. This despite his force not supposed to be anywhere near it.

Like I say,corruption running right through the whole department and people who are no more than criminals running it.

[Bob]

Interesting the way Kratz went on to worry about the affect in his family and the damage that would be done when it was about him.

 

The massive cunt.

[Bob]

Some light hearted observations from the programme:

 

Dassey's lawyers when his case goes to trial would be the guys playing Lenk and Kratz if a low budget, straight to TV film was ever made.

 

Clint Eastwood would play Fassbender in a higher budget one.

 

Dean Strang is Saul Goodman

 

The policeman in the back of the court loves a nap, and at one point yawns so hard he almost swallows his own fist.

 

The female reporter is lovely.

 

They obviously don't go without good in the Green Bay correctional institution

 

Any more?

[Anubis]

Danny Bruno should play Steven Avery.

[Charles Penrose]

Because that is worth 30 years in prison.

I see I got you too then.

[Red Dawn]

Riveting stuff. The US justice system and how it allows the media so much access both pre-trial and during the trial is completely messed up.

 

One of the best lines was that sheriff saying rather than framing Avery they could have just "got rid" of him. Bloody hell.

 

Anyway..dunno if this was posted before and now true it all is but a list of other suspects and their "colourful" backgrounds....

 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/01/10/making-a-murderer-meet-the-men-steven-avery-thinks-may-have-killed-teresa-halbach.html

 

That is one seriously messed up family...shows what can happen if you dont venture outside of sticksville, USA and broaden your horizons every now and then

[Special K]

Some light hearted observations from the programme:

 

Dassey's lawyers when his case goes to trial would be the guys playing Lenk and Kratz if a low budget, straight to TV film was ever made.

 

Clint Eastwood would play Fassbender in a higher budget one.

 

Dean Strang is Saul Goodman

 

The policeman in the back of the court loves a nap, and at one point yawns so hard he almost swallows his own fist.

 

The female reporter is lovely.

 

They obviously don't go without good in the Green Bay correctional institution

 

Any more?

Probably already been mentioned but William H Macy as Len Kachinsky

[Curly]

Oh you were fishing?

 

'Cooouurrse you were mate. 'Course you were.

[Captain Turdseye]

Was he the Doc Brown-esque landlord guy? He was never tried, was he?

Someone else went down for the crime he obviously commited. There's no way a jury could possibly find this man innocent.

 

 

Out of camera shot his top is covered in pizza stains.

[Joe Strummer]

Guilty or not (I think he probably did do it) it should have been thrown out of court. No way did he get a fair trial so although the evidence was dodgy he was always going down. I thought it telling though that he refused to stand and even at his sentancing said he was sorry first to her relatives. His demeanour was not that of an innocent man although of course he had previous experience of this.

 

The case of his nephew was far more disturbing. Damn rednecks.

[Scott_M]

Yeah, I wondered why he didn't take the stand as well. Surely if your innocent, you'd want to tell everybody?

[VladimirIlyich]

Yeah, I wondered why he didn't take the stand as well. Surely if your innocent, you'd want to tell everybody?

He probably tried that before,and got 18 years for a crime he was not guilty of commiting. Once bitten and all that!

Also I think he knew,or his defence did,that everybody's opinion of him was already set and due to his lack of intelligence they could have tied him up in knots due to this.

I used to believe in that pronouncing your innocence stuff but its a bit of a fantasy in reality,and with this mans history in particular.

[Geoff Woade]

WHERE THE FUCK ARE FASSBENDER'S EYEBROWS?? He looks constantly stunned.

[Dr Nowt]

I wouldn't place too much store by what he said to her relatives at his sentencing.  Basic humanity would tell someone that whether they committed the crime or not, the victim's family will have been to hell and back, and he didn't apologise to them on behalf of himself, he said he obviously felt sorry for them. 

 

When the lady who's rape saw him sent down for 18 years apologised to him upon his release, didn't he just tell her she had nothing to say sorry for and he knew she herself had suffered a terrible ordeal?  So it was in keeping for him to be surprisingly sympathetic and matter-of-fact.

 

No idea if he did it or not, he was obviously framed but then the documentary almost certainly went too far the other way in wanting to redress the balance for that.  My gut instinct is that he's innocent to be honest, but who knows.  I go with Strang, I hope he is guilty, as if he's not and has said and done the things he has while being put through that process, such as what he said about her relatives at the exact moment his life was being ruthlessly flushed down the toilet, then that is truly heartbreaking.

[Joe Strummer]

Just watching the final episode now. Just thinking did no-one think to do a polygraph test? While not admissible or 100% accurate it surely would have added weight to either case.

[Longview1982]

Was he the Doc Brown-esque landlord guy? He was never tried, was he?

 

He was the sole focus of the police investigation and they were throwing the kitchen sink at him to try and make him confess as they were convinced he was the guilty man - all of this was conducted in the full glare of the national media where his entire life, character and identity was irrevocably destroyed and there was a wholesale assumption of guilt simply for being charged and long before he would ever get any chance to put up any defence.

 

Sound familiar?

 

Fortunately, the police got an anonymous tip off about the actual murderer - who they'd cleared of involvement to go after Jefferies - and that was a game-changer.

 

And all of that happened to a man who wasn't involved in any of the previous convictions, grudges and civil lawsuits with the authorities that Avery had as a background.

 

There are plenty of people in the UK who've been fitted up with testimony and evidence being created and/or tailored to allow police to get the outcome they wanted. Jefferies was treated disgracefully, but in some ways he was much more fortunate than many others who find themselves falsely accused. 

[Longview1982]

I wouldn't place too much store by what he said to her relatives at his sentencing.  Basic humanity would tell someone that whether they committed the crime or not, the victim's family will have been to hell and back, and he didn't apologise to them on behalf of himself, he said he obviously felt sorry for them. 

 

When the lady who's rape saw him sent down for 18 years apologised to him upon his release, didn't he just tell her she had nothing to say sorry for and he knew she herself had suffered a terrible ordeal?  So it was in keeping for him to be surprisingly sympathetic and matter-of-fact.

 

No idea if he did it or not, he was obviously framed but then the documentary almost certainly went too far the other way in wanting to redress the balance for that.  My gut instinct is that he's innocent to be honest, but who knows.  I go with Strang, I hope he is guilty, as if he's not and has said and done the things he has while being put through that process, such as what he said about her relatives at the exact moment his life was being ruthlessly flushed down the toilet, then that is truly heartbreaking.

 

Regarding the comments from Strang at the round table gathering of Avery's various representatives at the very end of the series, even Strang doesn't rule out the possibility that Avery may actually be guilty and his motivation seems to be that the misconduct of the prosecuting agencies should clearly amount to reasonable doubt rather than any grand claim that Avery is definitely innocent. Tellingly, he seems much more genuinely distressed by what happens to Brendan Dassey.  

 

I couldn't agree more with that last Strang quote you mention. If it does turn out like the first, and there is another killer that is found at a later date, then it's something to genuinely despair over.

[Mendoza]

Currently working my way through the Paradise Lost Trilogy. This fucking loon....

 

[Longview1982]

WHERE THE FUCK ARE FASSBENDER'S EYEBROWS?? He looks constantly stunned.

 

If I'd ever played a game of Pictionary and had been asked to draw "corrupt FBI cunt" - Fassbender would have been the picture I came up with even if I'd never seen this series. 

[Longview1982]

Yeah, I wondered why he didn't take the stand as well. Surely if your innocent, you'd want to tell everybody?

 

Cross examination in courtroom trials is nothing to do with establishing the facts or the truth. It's about lawyers getting the poor cunt in the box to give them what they want to hear by whatever horrible means possible.

 

They could put me on trial next week for the assassination of John F Kennedy and, despite not even being alive at the time, I still wouldn't be 100% confident of getting off with it.