Steven Avery, and Making a Murderer

I finished watching the Netflix Series Making a Murderer today. I had put off the last episode for over a week, wrestling with my feelings on the story as portrayed in the documentary.  If you haven’t seen the documentary, beware there are spoilers ahead.

The documentary tells the deeply disturbing story of Steven Avery from roughly 1985 to 2015. The film-makers, Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos, explore how Mr. Avery served 18 years in prison for a sexual assault before his exoneration in 2003. During the ensuing 2 years, Avery brought litigation on the law enforcement officers involved in his wrongful conviction. In 2005, Avery was arrested under suspicion for the murder of Teresa Halbach, a local photographer. Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey were both convicted of the murder in 2007, and are incarcerated.

Making a Murderer is engaging, and  pulls sympathy from you. I found myself outraged for the injustices brought on Mr. Avery throughout the documentary, but noticed some details that left me feeling unsettled. Furthermore, there has been confused and misdirected public outcry to the president and on all social media for action freeing Mr. Avery and Mr. Dassey. Apart from the psychological support that Mr. Avery may now experience, these efforts have produced no results in the month since the documentary was released. The outcry is polarized and in favor of Mr. Avery’s plight, and shows just how successful the documentary is. Upton Sinclair said it best ,“All art is propaganda. It is universally and inescabably propaganda; sometimes unconsciously, but often deliberately, propaganda.”

After watching the finale., everyone involved deserves some degree of sympathy, and all deserve a much larger degree of blame.

First, concerning Mr. Avery. The filmmakers gloss over some very concerning issues in Mr. Avery’s past. These accusations and reports do not point towards Mr. Avery’s guilt in the Halbach case, but they do detract from the sympathetic portrait the filmmakers otherwise create for Mr. Avery.  Mr. Avery had a brush with the law early in his life when he was convicted of cruelty to animals. The reports at that time indicated that Mr. Avery and another man (also charged) doused a cat in gasoline and oil and then tossing it in a fire. It was not a fleeting incident, and Mr. Avery served 9 months.

In 1985, Avery ran a deputy’s wife off the road, and brandished a gun at her to gain entry into her vehicle. Avery let her go when she showed Avery there was an infant in the car. Avery admitted to the crime, and was sentenced to 6 years in prison for endangering the safety of another person.

The details of Avery’s 1985 sentencing are conveniently left out of the documentary, and indeed most discourse in social media. Avery’s 18 years spent in prison were only partly due to his wrongful conviction. 6 of those years were served for endangering the life of another person, and Avery admitted to that crime. Again, not exonerating, but this choice demonstrates the filmmakers story of Avery is not objective.

Prior to his incarceration in 1985, there is evidence that he abused his former wife Lori, and that she left home and went to a domestic violence center. In 1984, police responded to a “family trouble” incident at the Avery residence, but Lori declined to give a statement. During his time in prison, Avery sent several letters to his then wife, demanding she bring their children to visit. Details of Avery’s domestic abuse can be found here.  That article includes disturbing letters from Avery to his then wife demanding she bring their children for visitation, including threats of violence if she does not comply.

Avery’s troubles with domestic abuse do not end there. In the documentary, Lori Strachowski is depicted as supporting Avery throughout his ordeal and well into his second prison sentence. Following release of Making a Murderer, Stachowski has come forward in an interview, and claimed that:  

“The truth,” Stachowski replies. “What a monster he is, and he’s not innocent.” Though Stachowski defended Avery in the 10-part true-crime docuseries, she told HLN that she never loved her ex-fiancé. In fact, it was quite the opposite. “I ate two boxes of rat poison just so I could go the hospital,” Stachowski revealed to Lance. “And get away from him, and ask them to get the police to help me.”

Stachowski also alleged that Avery threatened her life with his hands around her throat, and threatened to burn down her home with her mother in it should Stachowski depict Avery negatively in the documentary. It is clear that Avery did not commit the rape that landed him in prison for 12 years, but it is also clear that he is not the family man the documentary portrays him as.

Advancing now to after Avery’s exoneration, and into the case that was built against him and Brendan Dassey, please see page 5 of the transcript of a phone call between Dassey and his mother. I have copied a short part of page 5 and 6 to illustrate the point below (emphasis mine):

Mother: Did he make you do this?    Brendan: Ya.

M: Then why didn’t you tell him that.    B: Tell him what?

M: That Steven made you do it. You know he made you do a lot of things.   B: Ya, I told them that. I even told them about Steven touching me and that.

M: What do you mean touching you?    B: He would grab me somewhere where I was uncomfortable.

This is an allegation of molestation by Brendan Dassey against Steven Avery. Furthermore, Avery was in prison until Brendan was 13, which is presumably when this molestation was committed. This conversation is papered over in the documentary and not explored further.

I am fully aware of the injustice and questions raised throughout the documentary. Brendan was subjected to questionable interrogation techniques. There was poisoning of the well and conflict of interest throughout the case on the part of the prosecution. Avery’s case was clearly unfair. He deserves sympathy for how he was treated by our justice system, but that’s where the sympathy ends. He deserves blame for consistently being involved with criminals, and for being known by the police as a domestic abuser.

The police and special prosecutor are simpler in their involvement. They deserve blame for not providing due process to Avery and Dassey. They did not recuse themselves appropriately to address their conflicts of interest. I am quite sure that this type of injustice is much more rampant than we care to realize in America. Indeed, I think that people side with Avery in order to side with presumed innocence and Blackstone’s formulation. In criminal law, “it is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer.”

Avery’s case is beyond your control; the legal system is his best chance at a fair trial. A much more positive goal is to presume innocence with fervor in all cases moving forward. If you are asked to serve on a jury, make sure that you understand the concepts of reasonable doubt, and err towards innocence. Remember that we are all, in some sense, part of the justice system, and could find ourselves wrongfully convicted. We can all learn from Steven Avery’s case. Do your best to avoid situations like domestic abuse, burglary, cat burning, and molestation that may put you on the short list of offenders in your town.

In the end, keep your brain on, and remember to consider the motives of the person behind the camera.