U.S. Appeals Court upholds conviction of Brendan Dassey in 'Making a Murderer' case

A federal appeals court on Friday ruled 4-3 that Brendan Dassey's conviction in what became known as the "Making A Murderer" case shouldn't be thrown out after all.

The Chicago-based U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision reinstates Dassey's conviction and sharply reduces his chances of getting out of prison, as his lawyers would have to get the U.S. Supreme Court to hear and reverse Friday's decision.

Judge David Hamilton wrote the majority opinion, joined by Judges Diane Sykes, Michael Kanne and Frank Easterbrook. They found that despite Dassey's age (he was 16 at the time), his lower intellect and suggestibility, his confession that he helped his uncle, Steven Avery, kill Teresa Halbach at the family's Manitowoc junkyard in 2005 was not coerced.

"Dassey spoke with the interrogators freely, after receiving and understanding Miranda warnings, and with his mother’s consent," Hamilton wrote. "The interrogation took place in a comfortable setting, without any physical coercion or intimidation, without even raised voices, and over a relatively brief time."

The majority was also swayed that Dassey gave "many of the most damning details himself in response to open‐ended questions" and resisted suggestions of other particular details.

The dissent, written by Judge Ilana Rovner and joined by Judges Diane Wood and Ann Williams, called the decision "a travesty of justice."

Dassey's confession was coerced and should not have been admitted as evidence, Rovner wrote, noting there was little to no other evidence tying Dassey to the crime.

"And even if we were to overlook the coercion, the confession is so riddled with input from the police that its use violates due process. Dassey will spend the rest of his life in prison because of the injustice this court has decided to leave unredressed," Rovner wrote.

A federal magistrate judge in Milwaukee had granted Dassey's petition for release or a new trial, finding his confession had been unlawfully obtained and used against him. The state appealed, and a three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit affirmed, 2-1, prompting prosecutors to seek review by the full Seventh Circuit court.

The seven judges heard oral argument in the case in September. Judges Joel Flaum and Amy Barrett did not participate.

Like his uncle, Dassey was found guilty by a jury in the Halloween 2005 murder of Halbach. The 25-year-old photographer's remains were found outside Avery's Manitowoc County trailer.

The case drew extra attention because Avery had already served 18 years in prison for a rape he did not commit and was suing Manitowoc County over that flawed prosecution when he was charged with Halbach's gruesome death.

The case exploded back into worldwide attention when the Netflix series "Making a Murderer" was released in December 2015.

Here's a look back at some of our coverage:

Original coverage of Avery's 2007 trial

Analysis comparing the trial evidence to "Making a Murderer"

Dassey was 16 and had no police record at the time and was convicted not based on physical evidence, as Avery largely was, but on statements he made to investigators for the prosecution.

Dassey's appeals in state courts were rejected. But in August 2016, U.S. Magistrate William Duffin in Milwaukee threw out the conviction, saying Dassey's constitutional rights were violated. He found that the prosecutor’s investigators made false promises to Dassey during multiple interrogations.

The state appealed Duffin's decision to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Rovner, Williams and Hamilton heard arguments in February from lawyers from the state Department of Justice and from the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth at Northwestern University's law school.

Rovner and Williams voted to affirm Duffin's ruling; Hamilton dissented.

Dassey, 28, and Avery, 55, have been in prison since being convicted in separate trials in 2007. Both were sentenced to life in prison, though Dassey's sentence made him eligible for parole in 2048.

Avery's verdict made history in that he was only the second person to be convicted of a serious crime after being freed from prison through DNA testing — and the first to be subsequently convicted of killing someone, according to the national Innocence Project.

The Wisconsin Innocence Project had won Avery's freedom in 2003, after he had served 18 years in prison, with DNA tests that proved he did not commit a 1985 sexual assault in Manitowoc County.

Avery has a new lawyer, Kathleen Zellner, who has said she is developing evidence to get Avery another day in court in the Halbach murder. A judge in October denied one of Zellner's motions for a new trial.

