Making a Murderer lawyers Dean Strang and Jerry Buting: US justice system is broken “It’s pretty amazing to think we’ve sold out such an iconic location as the London Palladium,” says Jerry Buting. Buting […]

“It’s pretty amazing to think we’ve sold out such an iconic location as the London Palladium,” says Jerry Buting. Buting and the other half of his double act, Dean Strang, have just finished a 25-date tour that’s taken them across America and Europe; this week, they arrive in the UK. Wherever they go, they’ve got an army of adoring fans and are mobbed for selfies whenever they’re out in public together.

But Strang and Buting aren’t a rock band, or a comedy duo. They’re criminal defence lawyers from Wisconsin, who became the surprise stars of last year’s Netflix true-crime documentary, Making a Murderer, a 10-part series that covered the case of Steven Avery. Avery served 18 years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit, then was released, only to be tried and found guilty of the murder of the 25-year old photographer Teresa Halbach in 2005.

Strang and Buting were Avery’s defence lawyers and they resolutely believe that Avery was set up for this murder by the Manitowoc Country Sheriff’s Office – and that Avery’s nephew, Brendan Dassey, convicted of the murder alongside his uncle, was manipulated by officers into giving a false confession.

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The likeable and effusive pair were natural stars from the moment they first appeared in episode three, a real-life detective duo set to expose police and state corruption by pointing up serious flaws in the case – including, most dramatically, the fact that a stored blood sample of Avery’s appeared to have been tampered with by a hypodermic needle, possibly to be later planted in Halbach’s car in the crime scene. But as this wasn’t a fictional show, there was no resolution of justice. The “good guys” lost the case.

Buting and Strang still look back with frustration at the many ways in which they felt the trial was mishandled – including what they see as the near-farcical decision by the judge not to allow them to examine other potential suspects in the case. “We knew the jury would have wanted to know whether there could be other suspects, if it wasn’t Steven Avery. Because the judge denied our opportunity to present any evidence of anyone else, the state exploited that, and in their closing argument they said our defence was that ‘the police must have killed Halbach because you haven’t heard of any other suspects’, [which] was never our contention.”

“The judge denied our opportunity to present any evidence of any other suspects … but we had several ideas”

The series still raises the same question now: if it wasn’t Avery, then who was it? “We had several ideas on other potential suspects, and we never completely settled on one person, but there were a number that were pretty high on our list,” Strang reveals. Buting adds: “That’s always the problem with wrongful conviction – if you imprison the wrong guy, the real guy gets off scot free. We saw that in Steven’s first case, where the real rapist raped another woman while Steven was sitting in prison for his crime.”

“But saying there was deliberate bias in the evidence ‘Making a Murderer’ presented? That’s not a fair claim.”

While the series was a huge hit, it wasn’t without its detractors. Several critics picked up on what they perceived to be its bias, saying that key evidence against Avery was left out and that the screen time was heavily weighted in favour of the Averys. This is something Buting and Strang vehemently deny. “It’s certainly true that the film-makers had more access to the defence side because Steven and his family and the defence chose to co-operate,” says Strang. “But saying there was deliberate bias in the evidence presented? That’s not a fair claim. Out of the 140 hours of actual evidence, and the three-plus hours of screen time of the trial, the film-makers presented every key argument from the prosecutor and the defence. They also included a bunch of unflattering information about Steven that was new evidence.”

Thanks to the likes of Making a Murderer, its podcast predecessor Serial, and another recent Netflix documentary, Amanda Knox, the true-crime documentary has become hot property, but with that has come a tendency to view grizzly murder cases as entertainment, with viewers berating each other for “spoilers” as if they were watching Game of Thrones – and in most cases, the victim’s demise is glossed over. Strang agrees that it can be a problematic genre: “For me at least, I can tell the difference between a voyeuristic presentation of a true crime on the one hand, and a responsible exploration of how the criminal justice system works on the other – the latter is valuable and the former is murder porn. But there are real people affected by the best true crime narratives and that’s always worth thinking about.”

“This is obviously a terrible miscarriage of justice but sadly it’s not alone. In America we saw an average of three exonerations a week last year.”

Making a Murderer was timely, because it appeared when the failing of the US police and criminal justice system is being exposed on a horrifying level. Buting says Avery isn’t the worst miscarriage of justice he’s seen. “I’ve been involved in one where a gentleman served 29 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. This is obviously a terrible miscarriage of justice but sadly it’s not alone. In America we saw an average of three exonerations a week last year. There’s no question that it’s more on people’s radar now. With all the cellphone videos that show police and citizen encounters, particularly with poor people and people of colour, I think there’s been an awakening in the populace of a need for reform in the criminal justice system. Especially in America. All of this the timing has been good for something like this, which shines a light on what exactly goes on inside the courtrooms of many courthouses in this country – not just in Manitowoc.”

“We’re both hopeful and guardedly optimistic Brendan Dassey will be released.”

The case has been back in the news recently, as on 30 September, Dassey had his conviction overturned by a judge, due to the misconduct of his attorney, Len Kachinsky. And while many fans of the show were jubilant about his impending release, Strang is naturally more cautious: “The state has announced it is going to appeal the exoneration and that could take something like nine to 15 months. But we’re both hopeful and guardedly optimistic he will be released.”

Neither lawyer has represented Avery since their trial a decade ago, though they said they last spoke to him in 2015, still in prison, just after the show launched, and he seemed “stoic, as ever”. They have no plans to appear on Making a Murderer series 2, which is currently in production and will focus on Avery’s new lawyer, Kathleen Zellner, among other people.

“I get lots of letters from people in prison and letters from their family members. It is hard getting those”

In the first few months after the show aired, Strang had 4,000 emails about the case to his personal account from armchair detectives thinking they’d cracked it, to scientists with new breakthroughs, not to mention messages from other inmates who wanted the Buting and Strang treatment. “I get lots of letters from people in prison and letters from their family members. It is hard getting those,” says Strang. “I do respond to everyone, there’s very often nothing that I can do as a matter of time and resources. But I try to be both gentle and honest about that with people.”

“We’re not rock stars….and this tour doesn’t feel like being an entertainer or a means of escape for people”

It’s this gentle nature that, out of the pair of bespectacled middle-aged men, led Strang in particular to win a legion of online admirers. They call themselves “Strangers” and alongside creating countless memes, they fetished his sartorial choices on the documentary, leading to Tumblrs like Strangcore, which celebrated his love for normcore dad-garms like clashing patterns, argyll sweaters and golf socks. He still seems a little overwhelmed by this fame, not to mention bashful when it’s brought up: “It feels odd and unlikely, I don’t follow that stuff too much because it’s really just pop culture fizz that will dissipate pretty quickly. It just felt laughably improbable.”

As for the suggestion that they’re the rock stars of the law world, by taking a 90-minute show called A Conversation on Justice on a world tour, the straight strait-laced pair crack up laughing. “No, we’re not rock stars. We’re just normal lawyers,” says Strang. “But it has been really encouraging and gratifying to have an opportunity to converse with a whole range of people who are interested enough in criminal justice to come join us. It doesn’t feel like being an entertainer or a means of escape for people. For us, it feels like a means of engagement.”

Dean Strang and Jerry Buting appear in ‘A Conversation on Justice’ in Manchester on Saturday, London on Sunday and Glasgow on Monday. conversationonjustice.com