"Making a Murderer" on Netflix

The one thing that doesn't make any sense to me is Colburns calling in of the licence plate before it was found. It was never explained.

The hubris and attitude of the state and officials is truly disturbing. Averys first false conviction appears to have lead to no reforms or no one being held to account. Or despite the title of the show nobody seemed to really reflect that how the police behaved in the first case may well have led to the second.

 

A lot of things don't ad up. I feel really bad for everyone involved, especially Brendan. That "lawyer" of his was a real beaut. With "friends" like that you don't need any enemies.

 

It's a pity that they didn't have juror #8 be a Henry Fonda type character...

 

Not reading this thread because I haven't finished watching it yet (I'm at episode 7), but I'm hooked and appalled at the same time.

 

I think the defense was implying that the police found the victim's vehicle well before it was discovered on the Avery property. Once Colburn confirmed it was the missing woman's car (via the recorded phone call), he then set out to "hide" it in the Avery's junkyard.

 

I'll be at Episode 8 on Monday-but I can't seem to resist all the publicity this show has rightfully stirred up so I'm pretty well aware of "spoilers". It really isn't hard to figure out how it's going to play out even without all the hoopla. This whole thing is just so horrifying. I really wish there was a way for Steven and Brendan to have a retrial, hopefully outside of Wisconsin. A young woman was murdered and if the killer isn't Steven or Brendan, Teresa's murderer needs to be brought to justice.

 

If true, this is all fairly damning stuff.

 

Here are some more articles:
http://www.maxim.com/entertainment/making-a-murderer-left-out-evidence-2016-1

http://www.maxim.com/entertainment/steven-avery-murderer-suspects-2016-1

 

On the one hand, it is hard to believe that thousands signed petitions, either to Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, or to President Obama, for a pardon (or at least a new trial). Are you kidding me? And this petition was based on the Netflix documentary? On the other hand, these petitions aren't surprising at all, and show the intoxicating power of media and rumor, esp. in the Internet age. One writer observed, the Internet often becomes a kind of "cult generator":

"Somebody puts up some weird thing and somebody else thinks yeah maybe that’s the way things work and pretty soon you have some cult going. Its not the fault of the internet, it’s the fault of a social and culture system that doesn’t educate people properly . . ."

 

Yep but what I mean is we never heard any logical explanation for that from the prosecution or anyone else. To me it is the most suspect thing against the police.

 

Steve is where he belongs and should stay there just for Cat incident alone, not to mention the murder he committed. Doesn't matter to me how they put him away for good, just that they did.

 

Nice to know some people are all about government and law enforcement corruption. As long as they're doing things you personally like it doesn't matter how corrupt they are.

This could have easily happened to you or anyone. That's the alarming part.

 

So you're cool with the collateral damage of destroying a poor, mentally challenged kid's life?

 

Which completely misses the point of the documentary and is, ironically, the exact train of thought the comically corrupt police offers in this case used.

As one of the lawyers in the doc pointed out, it's easy to think this way until YOU or someone you love is in this position.

There are plenty of people who think he may well have committed the murder, but that there was so much corruption and reasonable doubt that a conviction shouldn't have happened. This doc reminds me of "The Staircase", another documentary where I'm very 50/50 on whether the guy did it, but I also feel there was more that sufficient reasonable doubt that he should not be convicted.

Unfortunately, there are many people who don't understand reasonable doubt. We just have to hope and pray they don't end up on a jury or in any position to decide a court case.

Interestingly, the laws of civil court are not as strict. It may be a bit of an oversimplification, but if the family brought a "wrongful death" suit against Avery, they would mostly just have to prove it's more likely that he did it than he didn't do it. I could easily see Avery losing a case like that, where if you're 51/49 that he did it, that might be enough.

 

There were a number of telling moments in this documentary. One that spoke more than anything to lack of humility and insane bias and unwillingness to admit any mistakes, came from a point that hasn't been as often mentioned in a lot of the articles about the case.

During a *pre-trial* hearing for Avery's murder case, they question the Manitowoc County Sheriff, Kenneth Peterson. This is the guy that was the arresting officer for Avery's 1985 case, and was also deposed in Avery's 2005 civil suit.

During questioning, Avery's lawyer first mentions that Avery was cleared (after 18 years) in the 1985 case. But Peterson actually refuses to agree that Avery was innocent in the 1985 case. Even with DNA proof (and apparently a confession) that another guy did it, and after a court freed Avery based on that evidence, the guy who was RESPONSIBLE for that 1985 case and was STILL the county sheriff when Avery was arrested in 2005, defiantly refuses to admit that Avery was innocent in the 1985 case.

Imagine sitting in court and the sheriff won't even acknowledge what DNA evidence and a court of law says about a previous case of yours.

I would say that *especially* for hawkish, pro-police folks, you should be embarrassed by this Manitowoc police department. By doing such inept, conflicted, murky, skeevy, work under obvious clouds of conflicts of interest, *they* make police offers who actually do their job fairly look bad.

 

Simply as a procedural issue, does anyone know how, when, and where they eventually found the license plates from the RAV?

When the officer who suspiciously called the plate numbers in *before* the car was found was being questioned in court, it looked like they had the actual plates (which were reported as not being on the car when they found it). Where did they eventually find the plates?

Separately, that officer calling in the plates was another "WTF?" moment. A bigger question to me than *how* he knew the plate number is *why* he was calling the plate number in. It made no sense, unless he was indeed actually looking at the plates at the time. Otherwise, you have to simply believe he called the plate number in (setting aside how he got the plate number) for no reason other than to amuse himself or just to double-check, and had to double-check while he was out on patrol and had to call it in. Weird.

 

He did do 18 years for a rape he didn't commit, maybe that makes up for the cat! That should also make up for any speeding ticket he got at that time too!

 

So, I got sucked into this a few days ago and cracked out on the first 5 episodes. What a mess.

I certainly think it is possible Avery is guilty. However, based on what I've seen so far (and IANAL, but I do work for them, including one that does civil rights law), he deserves a new trial.

Whether he was actually involved or not, that poor kid was railroaded. My heart breaks just about every time he speaks with his mother after the arrest. The guy had no idea what was happening to him. When he asked the cop who is arresting him if he will be back in school in time to turn in his project, I about threw something at the TV. When he said, "I'm just so stupid, mom," I wanted to throat-punch his "attorney" and those investigators. He had no one looking out for his interests at all. Once of the most frightening abuses of power I have ever seen or heard of in the criminal justice system.

 

As one of Avery's lawyers points out near the end, the fatal flaw in the criminal justice system is that everyone involved -- cops, judges and lawyers on both sides -- is certain that they're right. You can see how that creates an intractable situation that results in farcical proceedings like this one.

Who else wanted to slap Teresa's brother? What a smug creep.

 

This is human nature 101 though. I think that we are taught that everything is a battle and there are teams. You fight for your team and suspend any sense of morality or ethics. Avery got on the bad team because he messed with a cops wife. People seem basically incapable of anything resembling justice.

 

Sort of, but then I remembered that his sister was murdered, possibly raped, and then incinerated. Under similar circumstances, I'm sure I would be a lot less than charming myself.

 

From what I have been able to gather:
1. The plate or plates were found in another junker car on the lot.
2. That call was not radioed in, it was called in.

And how on the planet of f could he have known it was a '99 Toyota?
What information was he looking for? Just corroborating information?

If I were on the jury, it would have been just that moment where I would have asked the judge if we could all go home and stop wasting our time with this.



Dan

 

and you would still be there today trying to argue with 11 of the biggest knuckleheads you never knew existed

 

Well, in all fairness, if you lived anywhere near Krantz/Lenk/Colburn/Petersen/Kachinsky/Weigert/Fassbender.....would YOU want to piss them off? There's even a theory that they orchestrated the car accident that the excused juror's daughter got into. 2 of the jurors had ties to local law enforcement. I mean, I am angry at the jury, but at the same time I understand. These are EVIL, sociopathic criminals
whom you cannot even sway with DNA evidence. I would never be able to sleep.


Dan

 

Ya know, I used to work summers for a city garage fixing police cars. More than one officer or detective showed me their throw down weapons—unmarked weapons used in the case that they shoot someone who is unarmed. It made a big impression on me.

I've also been on a jury wear I'd swear there was an insurance agency plant in the mix getting paid to sway the jury to a low settlement.

Life is a slippery affair.