Since my wife and I no longer have cable TV (see my last post on Cutting the Cord), we have taken to watching shows offered on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. The first on our list has been the very trendy Making a Murderer on Netflix. For those who haven't heard of the show (i.e. cave dwellers and island castaways), Making a Murderer is a documentary series that follows the legal adventures of Steven Avery, a native of Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. Following his conviction and incarceration in the 1985 rape of Penny Beerntsen, Avery spent 18 years in prison before eventually being cleared of wrongdoing by DNA evidence. After getting out of prison, Avery brought a 36 million dollar civil suit against the Manitowoc County sheriffs department alleging misconduct leading to his false conviction. The basis of this claim was that several members of the sheriff’s conspired against him because...well...they didn't like him.
Now, here's where things get really weird. In 2005, in the middle of depositions for this pending lawsuit, a local photographer named Teresa Halbach went missing the same day she went to Avery's for a photoshoot for Auto Trader Magazine. In fact, it would seem that Avery was the last person to see her alive. Her Rav4 was eventually discovered on Avery's property, and he was charged with her murder and eventually convicted. He is now serving a life sentence in a Wisconsin prison.
Flash forward 10 years, and we now have the Netflix phenomenon, Making a Murderer, which has been become the subject of a great deal of interest and speculation. If the show is to be believed, Avery was set up by the Manitowoc County sheriff's department in retaliation for his lawsuit (which was subsequently dropped), and as a response to their perceived embarrassment at having improperly convicted him the first time around. Now, I have no problem with this theory. Stranger things have happened, and more egregious abuses of power are seen all the time. I would in no way be surprised if it turned out that Avery was innocent and that corruption led a group of frustrated law enforcement agents to frame the man out of spite.
Here's my problem. The public seems to have taken this documentary completely at its word, and decided that if the producers say Avery is innocent, then he must be innocent. Over 450,000 people have signed a petition at Change.org calling for the President of the United States to pardon Steven Avery. Pardon him. Meaning set him free, right now, without any further legal proceedings. Based solely on a bit of streaming TV.
Now let's forget the fact that Avery is being held in a Wisconsin State Prison, and that the President has as much power to pardon him as I do, and that the governor of Wisconsin has made it clear that he has no plans to do so (though he actually does have the power). What really bothers me is that nearly half a million people signed a petition to set this man free, based on little more than a glorified piece of reality TV.
I mean no offense to this shows producers, and certainly don't mean to compare the Averys to the Kardashians. This is a well-produced documentary that brings to light some serious concerns regarding the American justice system. It is NOT, however, meant to replace said justice system. It is a one-sided argument in favor of Avery's innocence, highlighting the conspiracy and providing absolutely NO opportunity for rebuttal from those who believe Avery to be guilty. Imagine a trial in which the defense was allowed to present evidence in a case, but the prosecution wasn't allowed to cross-examine witnesses or present any of their own evidence. No one would ever be convicted of a crime again.
And yet that's essentially what's happened with the Avery case. The producers presented their arguments in the form of a documentary, choosing 10 hours of evidence to best support their conspiracy theory, and 450,000 members of the public decided that was enough to set free a man that was convicted based on 6 weeks of trial and 3 days of deliberation. Setting Avery free would be the ultimate end-around to our justice system, and would subvert the entire process. There's a reason murder trials aren't decided in the court of public opinion.
So while I find Making a Murderer to be an interesting piece of television, and a suspicious one at that, it brings to light a case that requires, perhaps, another look. It does not, however, support overturning Avery's conviction on its own merits. I would suggest that anyone looking for a petition to sign choose something of greater worth, like the one to Let Bert and Ernie Get Married on Sesame Street, or this one to Nationalize the Twinkie Industry, or even this one to Deport Justin Bieber.