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The making of “The Making of a Murderer” — 12 Comments

  1. I have heard that police consider eye witness testimony to be the most unreliable.

  2. I think you have to go with Occam’s razor on this case. I am not sure she was killed according to the theory the prosecution put forward (none of her DNA was in the trailer) but I do think he did it. I am just so uncertain of the nephew’s involvement. The nephew seemed almost autistic to me. The shame of the Manitowoc justice system seems to me to be the interviews of the nephew. I have no sympathy for Avery, but I think the mentally challenged, really low IQ nephew got a raw deal. They should reexamine his case.

  3. Avraham Rosenblum:

    Yes, the link goes into the difficulties with eyewitness testimony.

    Avery’s rape conviction rested in large measure on an eyewitness identification that turned out to be incorrect. His murder conviction is different; it rests on forensic evidence, in the main.

  4. Janetoo:

    From what I’ve read, the nephew’s involvement may be more sketchy. But Avery’s involvement is quite clear, and rests on forensics.

    In order to doubt it, one has to posit a conspiracy so massive it would involve enormous numbers of personnel working on the crime, and those workers would have to have had second sight and have anticipated all sorts of things and planted evidence involving them, as well as to have somehow arranged for the victim to have gone to Avery’s business after phone contact with him, and then to have somehow been killed at that point by someone else.

  5. I don’t doubt it. What I was saying is – the evidence points to him entirely – the circumstantial evidence. I do think Avery is guilty. They (the police) just went about it so sloppily, the two cops who were being sued found the bullet and the key when they weren’t even supposed to be involved in the search. Manitowoc acted corrupt and creepy. What I meant was Occam’s razor – the simplest explanation is usually the correct explanation. I do, however, think there is a strong possibility they planted the key and bullet to make the case solid. I don’t think he killed her in the trailer. I think the nephew merely helped burn the body, etc. I think they have the right guy, but I also think there is corruption aplenty.

  6. I agree that material evidence ought to count for a lot. Forensic evidence however can be a lot of different things. But material evidence does mean a lot.

  7. Janetoo:

    You have to delve into the details to see why it’s highly unlikely that those things were planted. For example, from the Harsanyi article (which I hope you’re read in depth):

    The infamous car key that was found in Avery’s residence had DNA of his sweat on it. So not only are we asked to believe the Manitowoc police department planted the keys in his trailer (and that the neighboring police force was either incompetent or complicit in the deception), but also that somehow the cops had extracted Avery’s perspiration and put it on the key. Another explanation might be that Avery handled the keys when dealing with Halbach, although he denies having ever seen them.

    If I’m not mistaken—I’m doing this from memory; don’t have time to check right now—the other question is: if they planted the keys, where did they get them from?

    See this (and there’s lots more):

    I think the defense poked holes in the case by raising serious questions. However, this would have been the most elaborate, complicated framing in the history of frames. Or at least one of them. Those cops up there in Manitowoc are geniuses.

    Furthermore, it would have to be a DOUBLE FRAME by people not working together. Both the killer and cops would have to be planting lots of stuff separately and almost simultaneously — bones for the killer; key, blood and sweat for the cops — to get Avery. That is, unless you think the killer and cops are one and the same — but even Avery’s defense did not argue that. Someone, the cops or someone else, not from the salvage yard property being the killer would raise a host of new questions, such as how they knew Teresa Halbach was there, how they got the bones back onto the property without being seen and more.

    And it would take multiple agencies in cahoots, too — including agencies that would have no motive as they were not involved in the earlier wrongful conviction case or the civil suit that followed. It becomes fantastical at that point.

    I am reminded of the principle called Occam’s Razor. This dates back to a 14th century friar, and it is often interpreted as “when you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better.” Occam’s Razor also holds that “one should not make more assumptions than the minimum needed.”

    Please read the whole thing. It’s quite overwhelming.

    One more thing—I can’t find the source right now, but I read elsewhere that the keys were found only after a dresser in the room was either moved or broke in some way, and the keys which had not been in sight before either fell on the floor or dropped to the floor at that point.

  8. Mistakes are made and when an innocent loses his or her liberty due to an incorrect verdict that is truly a tragedy.

    However, as it seems with Avery, law enforcement rarely grabs boy scouts or nuns off the street and throws them in a line up. Often times people falsely imprisoned for a crime were well known n’er do wells in their community prior to their false incarceration.

    Glenn Reynolds recently printed a proposal from a lawyer that law schools balance any extra-curricular legal groups formed by students. For example, it’s not unusual for law students to take up cases of convicted murderers and work to exonerate some. A student group like that should be balanced with a group that works with prosecutors to incarcerate guilty perpetrators who are currently free.

    Like you, neo, I won’t watch this (as compelling as it sounds) because the documentarians choose the data they show the audience and the data they do not show the audience.

  9. A person doesn’t have to actually go all the way to prison to be harmed by the system. Rattling a cage, and going to peoples place of work to investigate often leads to employers wanting to play it safe and separate themselves from a person. If this is due to false accusation or similar, the person may never get back on track as good as it was, though on some level everyone recovers to some degree.

  10. I saw all sorts of people on The Federalist forums comment on this who I’d never seen before. The negative review of the series just drew them out of the woodwork.

  11. Matt_SE:

    Yes. Many people have hopped on the bandwagon of freeing this guy. They remind me very much of Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorists and 9/11 truthers. They fasten on one or two facts that they don’t like and ignore the whole, and do so with remarkable vehemence.

  12. It’s not about whether they like it or not. It’s about who is pulling their strings and what triggers are being used and why.

    Looking at the tool won’t tell you what the purpose of the user is all about.

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