Magistrate to rule on Dassey lawsuit

Andy Thompson | USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

A lawsuit that contends Brendan Dassey was illegally arrested and imprisoned in the 2005 killing of Teresa Halbach — and should be released — is awaiting a ruling by a federal judge.

Legal briefs have been filed by attorneys for Dassey and the Wisconsin Department of Justice, clearing the way for a decision by Magistrate Judge William E. Duffin of Milwaukee.

Related: Full coverage of the Steven Avery case

There is no timetable for the decision on the petition for a writ of habeas corpus, court officials said. The petition is used to bring a convicted criminal into federal court, where a judge reviews the legality of an individual's arrest or imprisonment. The magistrate could reject the petition, order a new trial or set the defendant free.

Dassey, 26, was 16 when he was charged with participating in Halbach's murder. His uncle, Steven Avery, also was tried and convicted of the murder. The case has been back in the national spotlight since last Friday, when Netflix aired a 10-part documentary titled "Making A Murderer."

A state appeals court rejected Dassey's request for a new trial in January 2013 and, later that year, the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied Dassey's request to review the case.

"The federal court has the final say," said Laura Nirider, an attorney at Bluhm Legal Clinic at the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago. She is among a team of attorneys assisting in Dassey's appeal.

From the start of the appeals process, Dassey's lawyers claimed that law enforcement used psychological interrogating tactics that "overbore his will and exceeded his personal ability to resist due to his age, intellectual limitations and high suggestibility." They have argued that his pretrial attorney was not looking out for his best interests by pursuing a potential plea agreement with prosecutors.

"Something wrong happened here," said Nirider. "Everybody has a right to have a loyal attorney. His confession was fictitious."

Halbach, a 25-year-old photographer, was murdered when she visited Avery Auto Salvage near Mishicot to take pictures for a car magazine, prosecutors said. Both Avery and Dassey were sentenced to life in prison for being a party to first-degree intentional homicide. A judge set a parole eligibility date of Oct. 31, 2048, when he sentenced Dassey to life in prison in 2007.

In addition to rejecting Dassey's claim of alleged ineffective assistance of counsel last year, the state appeals court concluded that Dassey's confession was voluntary and admissible.

In a brief filed earlier this year, the Department of Justice said Dassey failed to show that the appeals court's decision was unreasonable.

"Dassey maintains that his March 1, 2006 confession was involuntary because his age and intelligence made him particularly susceptible to law enforcement pressure, and police coerced his confession by making promises of leniency, questioning him four times within two days without an adult present and feeding him facts about the crime," the state's brief said. "The Wisconsin Court of Appeals rejected this claim, upholding the trial court's findings of fact, which addressed Dassey's age and intelligence and other personal characteristics, and concluded that Dassey had not shown police coercion."

Nirider told Post-Crescent Media that watching videos of the police interrogations of Dassey shows clearly that he was manipulated into confessing.

"You see a kid who didn't have a clue about what he was doing," she said.

Nirider, who appears in the Netflix documentary that features Dassey and Avery, urged people to watch the 10-part series.

"It's an incredible story," she said. "The story about Brendan is incredibly compelling."

Department of Justice spokesperson Anne E. Schwartz declined comment on "Making A Murderer."



Nirider said there is no way to predict when the magistrate will rule on Dassey's lawsuit.

"It's a waiting game at this point," she said. "We're hoping for the best."

Andy Thompson: 920-993-1000, ext. 320, orawthompson@postcrescent.com; on Twitter @Thompson_AW

Habeas corpus defined

A writ of habeas corpus — Latin for "you have the body" — is used to bring a prisoner before a court to determine if the person's imprisonment or detention is lawful. In the U.S. system, federal courts can use the writ of habeas corpus to determine if a state's detention of a prisoner is valid. A habeas petition proceeds as a civil action against the state agent, usually a warden, who holds the defendant in custody. The federal court's review of a habeas corpus petition is considered to be collateral relief of a state court decision rather than direct review.

Source: Cornell University Law School