Brendan Dassey

Brendan Ray Dassey (born October 19, 1989) is an American prisoner from Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, who was convicted of being a party to first-degree murder, mutilation of a corpse, and second-degree sexual assault.

The series examined the 2005–2007 investigation, pretrial publicity, and trials of Dassey and his uncle, Steven Avery, who was convicted of murdering the photographer Teresa Halbach on October 31, 2005.

In August 2016, a federal magistrate judge ruled that Dassey's confession had been coerced and overturned his conviction and ordered him released, which was delayed during appeal.

In June 2017, a small panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the magistrate judge's order overturning Dassey's conviction.

[5] The school psychologist observed that he willingly engaged in speech and language therapy, and generally had minimal eye contact, gestures and vocal range.

Steven Avery had called Auto Trader in the morning requesting the same lady again, and Halbach had arrived around 2:35pm to photograph a red minivan parked outside.

[31][32] In addition, novelty restraints had been found in Avery's trailer, and the media reported that the police suspected he planned to commit violent or sexual torture, though there was no forensic evidence.

[22] Dassey was interviewed on Sunday, November 6, by Marinette County Sheriffs Deputies O'Neill and (Todd) Baldwin, in their squad car.

After 20 minutes the officers became confrontational and suggested, based on information they believed at the time, that he should have seen Halbach when he arrived on the school bus on Monday, October 31.

[43] On February 27, DoJ DCI special agent Fassbender and Calumet Sheriff Deputy Wiegert went to Dassey's school and told him he was at a bonfire on October 31 (reportedly based on an unnamed witness[44]), and they believed Halbach was burned there, so he would have seen body parts.

After going through several stages of the adult Reid method of interrogation, including legalistic threats and promises, Dassey talked about seeing body parts in a fire on October 31.

A central issue was interrogators asking what Avery did to Halbach's head, because they knew a report had concluded that a skull fragment showed bullet marks.

[49] Investigators could now obtain further search warrants, and reported finding two bullet fragments in Avery's garage, in addition to casings which were also found back in 2005.

[51][52] He was interrogated via the Reid technique,[53] which was developed to permit and encourage law enforcement officers to use tactics that pressure suspects to confess, whether true or false.

As a result, extra charges of kidnapping, false imprisonment and sexual assault were brought against Avery, though they would all be dismissed by the trial judge at the request of prosecutors, likely due to lack of forensic evidence.

[66][67] On March 10, when he first spoke with his new state-appointed attorney, Len Kachinsky, Dassey said his confessions under interrogation were false, and asked to take a lie detector test.

He had declined but then agreed on condition that expert fees were paid to hire lawyer colleague Ray Edelstein,[74] who dealt with the interrogation tapes.

The forensic anthropologist, Leslie Eisenberg, said she had visually determined some of the bone fragments from a "Janda barrel" to be human, but the prosecution case was that Avery put them there.

She had a recollection (originally volunteered to police on November 5, 2005) of seeing a lady photographing a junk vehicle nearby, but accepted she wasn't sure which day or week.

[85][86][87] His lawyers were surprised and Edelstein rushed to a store to find a copy, although a day or two prior Dassey had started saying to them maybe he got the ideas from books or dreams.

The jury deliberated for four hours before finding Dassey guilty of being a party to first-degree intentional homicide, second-degree sexual assault, and mutilation of a corpse.

[93][94] On May 5, 2007, the Wisconsin Criminal Justice Study Commission, a group set up in 2005 to deal with issues beyond the Avery Task Force, published its position paper on the causes and prevention of false confessions.

[67] Dassey's case was taken up in 2008 by confession expert Professor Steven Drizin, from the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law in Chicago, who thought his wrongful convictions clinic could help and it would be good for his students to work on.

In October, Drizin co-founded the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth within the law school's Bluhm legal clinic, which took on Dassey's case.

[108] The Netflix series, which chronicles the trials of Avery and Dassey, generated global dialogue centered around wrongful convictions, coerced confessions, interrogation of minors, and criminal justice reform.

[109][110][111][112][113] There were petitions for Dassey's freedom and the implementation of the "Juvenile Interrogation Protection Law in Wisconsin", which would prohibit police from questioning minors without a lawyer present.

[117][118][119] Prominent legal analyst Dan Abrams pointed out that much of the country was divided over whether “they” did it, ignoring the likelihood that Dassey is innocent regardless of Avery's guilt.

[124][125] In December 2015, Dassey's attorneys filed a writ of habeas corpus (unlawful detention) in federal district court for release or retrial, citing constitutional rights violations due to ineffective assistance of counsel and a coerced confession.

[126][127] In August 2016, William E. Duffin,[128] magistrate judge for the Eastern district of Wisconsin, ruled that Dassey's confession had been coerced, and was therefore involuntary and unconstitutional, and ordered him released or retried.

[159][160] In 2023, a documentary called Convicting a Murderer argued that Dassey's confessions were spontaneous and that, although his sentence was long, he should have taken a deal to plead guilty.