Making A Murderer: Netflix Documentary Series (SPOILERS)

[RumHam]

One of the jurors told the producers they didn't believe Avery had been proven guilty, but "would have feared for their life" if they had voted not guilty. 

Do they explain if they meant they were afraid of being murdered by the other jurors? or by the police? or by angry people afterwards?

[Jack Bauer 24]

Roth Cornet asks if this was ethical filmmaking http://hitfix.com/the-dartboard/is-making-a-murderer-ethical-filmmaking-spoilers-the-best-of-fandemonium

[Glaurung]

How could the jury find him guilty behind a reasonable doubt with how botched the entire prosecution was? No blood anywhere on top of that and this is just bizarre.

They were convinced he was guilty before the trial even started.  Jurors have even said that a large # of them were convinced of his guilt before the trial even started and that they strongarmed everybody else into voting guilty.  Avery is "white trash" and he's kind of a little creepy, so he fits the profile of somebody who they would think might do this kind of thing.  

And maybe he did, but one thing I can say for sure is that he didn't receive a fair trial.  I don't know if he is or isn't innocent, but there is plenty of doubt with regards to his guilt, and on that alone, he shouldn't be behind bars today.  The amount of tampering and corruption involved makes the evidence pretty much useless, and casts doubt on any legitimate evidence.  

[Glaurung]

So I haven't seen this and I know next-to-nothing about the case, but I'm curious, does this article change anyone's opinion or is it not-compelling/actually addressed in the series? It's supposedly a list of evidence the series ignored...

I don't know if he's innocent or guilty, but I do think he should not be in prison, because there is plenty of reasonable doubt.  

Regarding the physical evidence listed.  There was a lot of tampering going on with evidence.  That calls into question any physical evidence.  

Regarding the circumstantial evidence...Circumstantial evidence is just that.  Circumstantial.  Nobody's ever claimed Avery is a saint.  If it is true that he answered the door in nothing but a towel, that makes him a creep, not a killer.  As to him calling her 3 times, he was trying to sell his sister's(or maybe it was his aunt) car.  As for using the *67, maybe he did want her to sell the car and knew that she didn't like him, but again, that makes him a creep, not a killer.  Not enough to convict, by any means.  

The only evidence that I see as damning is the iron shackles and/or chains/ropes.  But again, this isn't evidence of a crime and his excuse was a valid one.  

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

While I am not convinced of Avery's innocence, there was a lot of room for doubt.

But I was totally pissed off about Dassey's interviews and convictions.  And his first lawyer should have been disbarred.  And where was his child psychologist?  The first judge, who said "he's in mostly regular classes and just a couple of special ed classes" clearly does not understand how special ed works now a days.  

[Dr. Pepper]

I can't recall, was it even questioned in the docuseries whose gun the bullet came from?  I had just assumed that it was accepted that it was very possible and/or likely that the bullet was fired by a gun that Steven had access to, but I can't recall what episode the bullet was discussed in so haven't had a chance to go back to check.

As it relates to the bullet, the series focused more on the problems that existed in how this bullet was found, who found it, how it was tested for DNA, how the testing was contaminated, etc.

[Commodore]

Kratz and Strang just did a joint interview, whoa

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4687060804001/lawyers-reveal-the-truth-behind-making-a-murderer/

 

[The Human Abstract]

You are correct in that this bullet match was never concluded.  The bullet came from a .22 -- the most popular type of "plinking" gun and the type Avery has -- and the barrel it was from could have in theory fired the bullet.  There was no actual matching to the gun like you see on the latest episode of CSI: Budapest or whatever they are up to now.  Wasn't that conclusive.  

The *67 thing, incidentally, is just because Avery had a private line (because they would get harassed) and some of the calls came from this line.  It appears the same to the phone company as using *67.  This is a dude with about an 80 iq who has the woman coming to his property anyway.  He's not that devious or bright.

I believe this is all evidence the creepy prosecuter released to the media recently as if they just had this mountain of unused evidence that didn't appear in the documentary.  It's pretty unverified.  

[Nictarion]

Do they explain if they meant they were afraid of being murdered by the other jurors? or by the police? or by angry people afterwards?

No, unfortunately. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Crazy good show.

 

[Bridgeburners]

So I just finished the series. I must say that I agree with the jury's ruling on Avery's case. That doesn't mean that I believe he did it. It's possible that he did and the Manitowoc police didn't plant anything. It's also possible that he did it and the Manitowoc planted some of the evidence to ensure he gets convicted and save their asses from the lawsuit. It's also possible that Avery didn't do it and the Manitowoc police completely framed him.

Here's the problem. The burden of proof required to convict someone of a serious enough crime to put them away for life, at the very least, should be tremendous. But, assuming there was no evidence planting going on, the evidence they had was more than enough to convict Avery. If there was no question of planting, I would be as convinced as you can be, with no confession or actual tape of the incident, given the blood in the car and the key in his apartment. Therefore you cannot make the case of his innocence without claiming that the police completely framed him (the third scenario that I illustrated in my first paragraph). This was much harder to show, and ultimately, I don't think they provided nearly as convincing evidence of this than the actual prosecution's evidence towards Avery. In order to exonerate Avery, you essentially have to convict the two officers (whose name escapes me) that were the primary framing suspects. (I know that's not technically true, as they weren't on trial, but if Avery was found innocent there would almost certainly be another trial that leads to the officers' arrest.) In my opinion, while the defense lawyers did show very suspicious behavior of the officers that at least shows that they messed up the handling of the evidence, if not worse, the case they had for framing just wasn't strong enough. At most, I would say, they would have to dismiss the key exhibit and the bullet with traces of the victim's DNA, but they had absolutely nothing to dismiss the blood. Of course, I completely buy the argument that the blood analysis by the FBI, looking for the EDTA trace, was simply a false positive, and that in no way implies the opposite (negative) claim. But the burden of demonstrating that there was EDTA in the blood was still on the defense lawyers, not the prosecutors.

Now, like I said, I do believe that the jury came to the right conclusion, given the information they had at the time. But I also think that the arguments given by the defense lawyers warrants enough PC to start an internal investigation onto the two accused officers, by a department like IAD or something like that. At the very least the blood from the car should be tested with much more detailed, sophisticated methods than the FBI used in order to check for EDTA. If they find something positive beyond reasonable doubt, that would be enough to retry Avery and (probably) find him innocent. However, if not, nothing can really be done for him. It's unfortunate, especially if he is innocent. It's especially scary that if someone does a good enough frame job on you, you can be locked up without anyone being the wiser. But that's not a statement on a flaw in our justice system, but rather, on the fundamental limitations of human beings' ability to gain knowledge. 

[RumHam]

I dunno. I tend to think he did it, but I think the defense clearly established reasonable doubt. So he shouldn't have been convicted. I'd love to one day get another documentary/book describing the jury deliberations. Especially since it seems like three stubborn jurors gradually convinced the rest to vote guilty. That had to be some Twelve Angry Men shit. 

[Nictarion]

To those who think he did it, how do you explain Officer Colbourn calling in the RAV4 days before it was found on the Avery property? 

Or it taking 7 searches before the key was found? 

[Jack Bauer 24]

Jodi say's he is not innocent and she had to eat 2 boxes of rat poisoning to get away from him http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/12/entertainment/steven-avery-appeal-feat/index.html?sr=nfCNN011316steven-avery-appeal-feat0518PMVODtop

[kairparavel]

To those who think he did it, how do you explain Officer Colbourn calling in the RAV4 days before it was found on the Avery property? 

Or it taking 7 searches before the key was found? 

That it's possible that he in fact did kill her and the Manitowoc's Sheriff's office (or at least some of their officers) independent of that, framed him/set-up evidence.

[Nictarion]

That it's possible that he in fact did kill her and the Manitowoc's Sheriff's office (or at least some of their officers) independent of that, framed him/set-up evidence.

So you don't think it's possible that someone else did it (not the police), and they framed Avery who was completely innocent? 

[RumHam]

To those who think he did it, how do you explain Officer Colbourn calling in the RAV4 days before it was found on the Avery property? 

Or it taking 7 searches before the key was found? 

Avery having murderd her and the sheriffs department planting evidence are not mutually exclusive scenarios.. I suspect, as Avery's defense attorney suggests at one point, that the cops planting evidence thought they were just making sure a guilty man didn't get away with it because of the unusual circumstances.

As for the cop calling in the car early, I think he probably did find it abandoned on the side of the road somewhere. A lot has been made of the fact that the Averys owned a car crusher, but Steven didn't crush the car. I would argue that crushing the car in the family crusher would have been a stupid move. If he did crush it wouldn't there still be evidence? Paint chips in the crusher maybe? If the authorities did find a crushed car somewhere, wouldn't that be worse for Avery than if they just found her car a few miles away on the highway? I could see Avery thinking he was being clever by ditching her car on some road some distance away rather than crushing it. 

 

[kairparavel]

So you don't think it's possible that someone else did it (not the police), and they framed Avery who was completely innocent? 

I still have 3 episodes to go. Our viewing was interrupted the past two weeks.  At any rate, I was merely answering your question. Do I think he did it? Maybe? I lean towards no, but it's not for certain. As for a framing, early on I felt it was a double frame. The killer used the opportunity of where she was last seen to make Avery the focus, and independent of all that, the county sheriff's office was doing their best to put the screws to him. Did they fabricate evidence or make iffy evidence better? Totally possible. 

[DaveSumm]

As far as I can see, there's nothing in the documentary or any other articles I've read on which to base an opinion. This is the fundamental problem with what happened - the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department completely destroyed anyone's ability to judge whether he's guilty or not. There are facts in this regardless of where you fall on whether they framed him; they shouldn't have been on the Avery land during the search, but they were. Somebody definitely tampered with Avery's blood (which incidentally, I'd love to know if there's a seperate investigation on - that's a serious thing whoever did it). For me, him being guilty and being framed, him being innocent and being framed, and every shade in between all end up equally plausible. The safest bet in proving him innocent would be to properly investigate the alternatives, and his lawyers were explicitly prevented from doing so.

[The Monkey]

I binged all episodes in the past week or so. It's a truly upsetting piece of work. The thing is though that I keep suspected the documentary makers left a lot of things out; that's the only way I can explain the guilty verdicts.

As for Steven, I can understand how he was convicted. Judging by what's presented in the show, there obviously isn't enough evidence to overcome reasonable doubt. But seeing as how freeing Steven at least in some way would imply crooked cops, I can understand (though not excuse) if a jury, whose core values include the idea that police are the good guys, would render a guilty verdict.

As for Brendan however, it's mind-boggling how he could convicted with an obviously coerced confession and no technical evidence whatsoever. Which leaves me to wonder if the documentary makers haven't left some incriminating stuff out. This suspicion is fuelled by the fact that all the appeal courts have refused to take on his case.