Steven Avery, the man convicted of a 2005 Manitowoc County murder and made famous by Netflix’s “Making a Murderer,” continues to profess his innocence.
Avery, 63, has been serving a life sentence since 2007 for the killing of 25-year-old Teresa Halbach. His appeal process has gained an international following after the 2015 premiere of “Making a Murderer,” a docuseries that highlights arguments Avery’s attorneys made at trial: that Avery may have been framed by a disgruntled sheriff’s office that stood to owe him millions in a wrongful conviction lawsuit.
After serving 18 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, Avery was a free man for barely two years when he was again arrested and charged with Halbach’s murder.
Since he was found guilty of Halbach’s murder and sentenced to life in prison in 2007, Avery has made multiple efforts to appeal his conviction. His latest motion for post-conviction relief was denied at the circuit court and appellate court level, then denied a review by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in May.
At that time, Avery’s appeal attorney, Kathleen Zellner, said the next step is to file a petition in federal court, requesting a review of Avery’s case — the first time he has taken his appeal to the federal level.
Zellner hasn’t shared any updates on Avery’s case since then, and didn’t respond to the Journal Sentinel’s request for an update.
Here’s what to know about the case and its history:
What is Avery convicted of?
Avery was convicted after a jury trial in March 2007 of first-degree intentional homicide, as party to a crime, for the murder of Teresa Halbach.
The jury additionally found him guilty of possessing a firearm while convicted of a felony.
Halbach, a 25-year-old woman from the Calumet County community of St. John, went missing Oct. 31, 2005. A freelance photographer on assignment for Auto Trader magazine, Halbach had gone to the Avery Auto Salvage, the Avery family’s 40-acre auto salvage yard in Two Rivers, to take vehicle photographs that day.
She never returned.
Days after Halbach’s disappearance, searchers found her Toyota RAV4 on the Avery’s salvage yard, hidden by branches and with a disconected battery. Investigators then found remnants of Halbach’s camera and cellphone in a burn barrel. Throughout the investigation, more evidence came out, including drops of Avery’s blood in Halbach’s RAV4, the key to the vehicle in Avery’s bedroom, license plates from the RAV4 hiding in another vehicle on the property, a bullet fragment in Avery’s garage with Halbach’s DNA on it, and human woman bone fragments in and around a burn pit.
At the time, Avery had barely been out of prison for two years, after serving 18 years of a 32-year sentence for a sexual assault he didn’t commit. He was wrongfully convicted at a 1985 jury trial, which included evidence that the victim believed she had identified him in a lineup of headshots. Then, in 2003, he was exonerated and released from prison when DNA evidence pinned the crime on a different man.
When he was arrested for Halbach’s murder, Avery had an ongoing civil lawsuit against Manitowoc County and various county officials in which he was seeking $36 million in damages for his wrongful conviction. A few months later, his civil lawsuit was settled for $400,000 — money he used to hire a private attorney.
Also linked to Halbach’s murder was Brendan Dassey, Avery’s then-16-year-old nephew.
In a police interview months after Avery’s arrest, Dassey told law enforcement that he sexually assaulted Halbach at Avery’s command, then assisted his uncle in killing Halbach and burning her body.
Dassey contradicted himself numerous times during the confession, and later recanted it entirely. His attorneys pointed out that Dassey had a low IQ bordering on intellectual disability, and questioned law enforcement’s interrogation tactics — including allowing the teen to be interrogated without a parent or attorney present.
Dassey was also convicted after a jury trial in 2007 and given a life sentence. However, unlike Avery, Dassey may be eligible for release on extended supervision, in 2048. At that time, he will be around 59 years old.
What has Avery’s attorney most recently said about his appeal process?
In May, Zellner wrote in a post on X that the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s denial to review Avery’s appeal was “expected.”
“Two things are certain at this point: (1) Steven Avery will never give up on proving his actual innocence. (2) Steven Avery’s legal team is more dedicated to winning his freedom than ever before,” Zellner said in an email at that time.
Zellner also said in the email that the average time to reverse a wrongful conviction in the United States is 15 years, but that “many cases have spanned decades with dozens of motions being filed before an individual is freed.”
What is the history of Avery’s appeal efforts?
In Wisconsin, a defendant seeking to appeal their conviction must often first file a motion for postconviction relief at the circuit court level, depending on the circumstances of their argument.
If the trial court judge denies the motion, a defendant can then petition the Court of Appeals to reverse the trial court’s decision. Similarly, if the trial court grants the motion, prosecutors can appeal.
Over the years, Avery has filed four motions for postconviction relief in Manitowoc County Circuit Court, all of which were denied. Of those four motions, one had no attorney representation and was dismissed after Avery retained new attorneys. In each of the other three instances, Avery’s attorneys went to the Court of Appeals, which affirmed the denials, then petitioned the state Supreme Court, which declined to review the case.
Avery’s latest appeal argued that another man killed Halbach, then framed Avery and was a key witness against him at trial. In a January decision affirming the circuit court’s denial for postconviction relief, a panel of three judges from the Wisconsin Court of Appeals District II said Avery’s motion was “insufficiently pled” and didn’t have adequate evidence to warrant an evidentiary hearing, which would allow a judge to hear witness testimony and arguments.
The appellate court’s decision refuted multiple issues with Avery’s arguments. Among them was that evidence that a third party committed the crime — which Avery had intended to present evidence about at an evidentiary hearing — is only admissible in Wisconsin if the defendant can show “the third party had motive, opportunity, and a direct connection to the crime.” Avery’s arguments did not meet these requirements, both the circuit court and appellate court agreed.
Avery is incarcerated at the Fox Lake Correctional Institution.
On numerous occasions while awaiting decisions on his postconviction motions, Avery has mailed letters to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals and the state Supreme Court without attorney approval, asking for speedier decisions.
What is the update on Brendan Dassey?
Dassey, now 35, has exhausted his appeal efforts.
His attorneys filed a motion for postconviction relief in Manitowoc County Circuit Court in August 2009. In January 2010, a five-day hearing was held in the circuit court to hear testimony about Dassey’s motion, much of which focused on evidence that his confession was coerced and that his trial counsel was ineffective. Based on that hearing, the trial court denied Dassey’s motion in December 2010.
Dassey then attempted to appeal that ruling. In January 2013, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals affirmed the decision, and that August, the state Supreme Court denied a petition to review that decision.
Then, in 2016, Dassey received a success: a federal judge accepted a habeas corpus petition, and overturned Dassey’s conviction. In the judge’s decision, he criticized investigators, state courts and Dassey’s pre-trial attorney for their handling of the case.
Prosecutors appealed the ruling, and a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit — which oversees lower courts in Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana — affirmed the decision, 2-1, in June 2017, a further win for Dassey.
But prosecutors then sought further review by the full 7th Circuit Court, which upheld Dassey’s conviction in a 4-3 vote — putting a halt to his hope for release.
The majority opinion said they did not find that Dassey’s confession to police was coerced. The dissenting opinion called the decision “a travesty of justice.”
The only higher court to hear the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit is the U.S. Supreme Court. In June 2018, the Supreme Court announced it would not hear Dassey’s case.
In 2019, Dassey petitioned Gov. Tony Evers to grant him clemency, through either a pardon, which would release Dassey from prison and restore some of his legal rights, or commutation, which would either release or shorten his sentence, but both were denied.
In 2022, Avery’s trial lawyers, Dean Strang and Jerome Buting wrote a letter to Evers requesting clemency for Dassey.
Dassey remains incarcerated at the Oshkosh Correctional Institution.
Contact Kelli Arseneau at (920) 213-3721 or karseneau@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @ArseneauKelli.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Steven Avery hopes to take his case to federal court. Here’s what to know about his appeal
Reporting by Kelli Arseneau, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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