Court rejects Making a Murderer appeal

Brendan Dassey, the teenager who appeared in Netflix doco Making a Murderer looks set to stay behind bars after a Chicago appeal court overturned a ruling that could have seen him freed.

The full 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals analysed Dassey’s claims that detectives manipulated him into confessing that he took part a crime he didn’t commit.

In 2007, Dassey was sentenced to life in prison after telling investigators he helped his uncle, Steven Avery, rape and kill photographer Teresa Halbach in 2005.

A statement following a 4-to-3 ruling said, “The state courts’ finding that Dassey’s confession was voluntary was not beyond fair debate, but we conclude it was reasonable.”

However dissenting Judge Ilana Diamond Rovner wrote, “His confession was not voluntary and his conviction should not stand, and yet an impaired teenager has been sentenced to life in prison. I view this as a profound miscarriage of justice.”

Dassey, who was 16 with learning disabilities at the time of the confession, is now 27.

Source: Variety