Doug Schneider

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Steven Avery case becomes jumping off point for debate about cameras in the courtroom in Texas

Another 'Making a Murderer' defense attorney, Steven Drizin of Chicago, hits the speaking circuit

Despite "outrageous conduct" by the lawyer who represented him a decade ago, convicted killer Brendan Dassey is unlikely to get a new trial in the 2005 killing of photographer Teresa Halbach.



That's the word from Peter Joy, a Missouri law professor who writes on his school's website that the standard for proving that legal counsel was ineffective is impossibly high.

The benchmark, from a 1984 case, is known as the Strickland standard. Joy blogged about the issue on a site run by his employer, Washington University in St. Louis, according to Dan Abrams' website.

Joy describes shocking circumstances in which attorneys’ conduct did not reach the Strickland benchmark, including trials in which the defense attorney fell asleep, was under the influence of drugs or alcohol, was mentally impaired or admitted the defendant’s guilt.

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“In establishing the Strickland standard, the Court created conditions in which unequal assistance of counsel can thrive with little or no recourse for those adversely affected," Joy said.

Writes Abrams' LawNewz.com:

Dassey’s defense attorney Len Kachinsky "seemed to care more about the prosecution’s needs than on presenting a defense.

"First, Kachinsky appeared to pressure his client to plead guilty, despite the teen’s claims that he was innocent. Kachinsky failed to challenge Dassey’s confession, which police officers obtained during a four-hour interrogation using questionable methods.

"Instead, the attorney’s investigator coached Dassey into affirming his confession. Kachinsky then arranged for police officers to interrogate Dassey again without his attorney or his parents present. One does not need a master’s in legal studies to realize that this conduct violates the rules of ethical lawyering."

Yup.

A Texas newspaper's website uses the "Making a Murderer" case to launch a robust point-counterpoint over whether cameras should be allowed in courtrooms. The Victoria Advocate says it's rare for judges in their little corner of Texas to allow video and still photography of court cases.

"It's up to each judge whether to allow cameras. Traditionally, they do not unless it is a bench trial. The last time that happened was in 2013, when Delbert Mills was on trial for the 2003 murder of his wife, Patricia Leigh Mills, in Goliad County."

The "pro": Cameras allow the public access to a branch of government about which many citizens know little, including the story of a woman who was only able to gain access to trial proceedings via video after the fact, despite the fact that the trial involved the murder of her sister.

The "con": A somewhat-weak argument that "cameras turn trials into theater," including a claim that the O.J. Simpson prosecution and other cases lasted longer than necessary because they were televised.

Hmmm.

Meanwhile, back in the Midwest …

Steven Avery's new defense lawyer, Kathleen Zellner, apparently read (some of) John Ferak's recent story about the public-relations help that Manitowoc County received from a law-enforcement group to battle negative perceptions of its sheriff's department once "Making a Murderer" began airing on Netflix.

Zellner tweeted yesterday that "Manitowoc should spend $ on independent investigation not PR coverup. Look at Riley Fox case. #MakingAMurderer."

Zellner's tweet also references a Chicago Tribune article about the Riley Fox case, a suburban Chicago homicide investigation that went off the rails.

For the record, Manitowoc County Exec Bob Ziegelbauer insists the county did not spend any money on PR help, other than its normal membership dues to the group.

Finally, yet another attorney involved in the Steven Avery case has hit the speaking circuit.

Steve Drizin, co-founder of the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth at Northwestern University, is slated to speak for free Monday at the Dominguez Hills campus of Cal State University. Attorneys Jerry Buting and Dean Strang, who defended Avery at his trial in the Halbach slaying, are in the midst of a multi-city North American tour.

Drizin, one of the lawyers handling Dassey's appeal, said the documentary omitted key evidence about how police pressured Dassey into telling them a story that fit their narrative of the crime.

"The film highlighted really basically one passage of Brendan’s interrogation where the detectives are feeding to Brendan the fact that Teresa had been shot in the head in the garage, and it didn’t really show any footage from any of the earlier interrogations," he told The Daily Breeze. "It also didn’t show any of the most coercive tactics that were used by the detectives to break Brendan down to a place where he felt he had no choice but to confess.”

And unlike the law professor at the beginning of this article, Drizin says the documentary has been a "godsend" for his case, and for those of a number of juveniles whose confessions were coerced or made without adequate legal defense.

“This is a series that has gone global and has opened the eyes of the general public to the problem of coerced and false interrogations of juveniles in a way that few other stories or series can match,” Drizin said. “It’s led a number of states to debate new laws to provide greater protections for young people during interrogations.”

dschneid@greenbaypressgazette.com and follow him on Twitter @PGDougSchneider