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this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
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This story is fucked. He was wrongfully convicted and then set free, gets $800k compensation in August, then pulled over (looks like they’re still coming up with a reason for pulling him over), threatened I’m sure with more jail (essentially provoked), tased then shot.
~~I think some fucking cops were after him and pissed that the dude got paid.~~
Video link from a comment below. Not a good look for the guy. Hard video to watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GrcptVf8Yk
And the alleged 'good cops' are out here confused why no one respects them.
Until I start running across evidence that some police are angrier about the bad cops than they are about everyone else being angry about the bad cops, I refuse to believe they exist.
As someone who knew an actual good cop (grew up with him): They quit. That’s what he did. That’s all they can do. Because speaking up just ruins your career path. So they choose to go along or they change careers entirely.
We had a "good cop" DA in my city. The cops went on strike (though they didn't call it a strike, they just stopped doing their jobs), and started a propaganda campaign. When crime went up, people are stupid and blamed the DA. He got recalled and a police bootlicker got put in instead.
I'll bet the crime rate didn't even go up, it's a really easy number to fabricate because no one's looking for the evidence to back it up.
We had a good DA in my city, he ended up getting killed by some billionaire vigilante who went after the police commissioners family
Man, I don't know why everyone in that city is so serious
I'm still tickled that they have chose the idiom "a few bad apples" to describe the situation.
Like... Y'all aware the full idiom is "A few bad apples spoils the whole bunch."?
Good cops don't exist lmao
paying their union dues, which keep going up because the defense of their fellow cop's actions are expensive... if they get caught and lose qualified immunity.
Ok so this whole story is fucked up beyond belief but I just want to take a minute to say holy shit, because that dollar figure is pretty messed up in and of itself. They gave him $817k. That's $5.82/hr.
Minimum wage plus overtime for his time in prison placed monthly into a mutual fund with 7% return for 16 years would be a little over 2.5 million dollars.
No, you see they subtracted room and board from him, that's why he only got $800k.
Yeah could be better but I do love that Ron desantis had to sign that shit.
Eh. We always like to think that this stuff bothers them. It doesn't. He didn't think twice about it. I'm sorry to paint with a broad brush, but conservatives just do not think on the same level as normal people do. They aren't bothered by this stuff because they don't think about any subject long enough to have deep thoughts on them. Frankly, they wouldn't even be such an angry frothing-at-the-mouth group of people if they didn't have all variations of media avenues telling them what to be mad about every second of every day. If not for conservative media, they'd be relatively pleasant little dipshits doing manual labor and whatever other grunt work, but instead we have this failed experiment of a nation.
Or $51k/yr which is representative of what he could have earned.
Certainly doesn't excuse the wrongful conviction but their math is a little more in tune with reality than $819k divided by (16x24x365) equals OMG.
Until the police departments, or their unions, start paying the settlements, then the amounts don't even matter punitively
Huh?
It doesn't any good to "punish" the police by awarding large sums of money to the wrongly convicted, because the taxpayers pay for it. To really add some justice, the awards should Come from the police pension funds. Then they are Incentivized to do it right. Now they don't care, because there is little downside for them
It may have also incensed the police doing the slaying that he got any money, let alone out of prison.
Isn't this basically what happened with the Making a Murderer guy? He was due a huge settlement from being wrongfully convicted, so they planted a bunch of evidence to put him back in jail instead.
The police were definitely corrupt, but that documentary is intentionally misleading.
While some evidence may be in question, it's important to know that Teresa Halbach's vehicle was found on the property, along with charred pieces of ~~her~~ human bones in a burn pit.
It was the last place she went, the last place she was seen, and Avery lured here there under false pretenses (Teresa was not even supposed to be meeting with Avery).
None of this excuses any bad behaviors by the police, and that department certainly appears to be corrupt, but probably not a good example for this instance.
Police corruption is the problem. Her vehicle being on the edge of his fairly large property is a lot less damning if it weren't for Steven's blood being reported in the vehicle. There were witnesses who claim to have seen it moved there, even if Zellner cannot seem to decide who moved it.
And you say "her bones", but there's two problems with that. The bones have been confirmed to be human female, but they couldn't confirm or deny they were Halbach's. And there's a compelling reason to believe they were not burned in the burn barrel they were found.
There seem to be two real possibilities in his case. EITHER it's a fairly ridiculous frame-up job or he's guilty. That should be easy because of the question "why would anyone go to THOSE lengths to frame Steven Avery?" It's not easy because the open animosity and bad-faith of thep olice in this case is compelling.
I think he likely did it, but I genuinely think the case is so tainted, he should not have been convicted.
Huh, I could've sworn I had read that the DNA was confirmed to be hers. After looking more thoroughly you're absolutely correct. I did see a few articles that said it was matched via a partial tooth, but looking deeper into that it looks like the findings may have just been "consistent" with Halbach. Still compelling evidence, but not a direct DNA match.
I also think it's more than likely he did it, but that's an important clarification.
It's a really complex case. And just like the Depp v Heard documentary, Netflix didn't do it justice. Sometimes exaggerations make the validity of a claim harder to see. Judges don't like to offer mistrials or retrials to people they are convinced are guilty, whether the appeal was valid or not.
From my own (very ameteur) independent reading, there's a few big things that should've been slam-dunk for vacated verdict, and his attorney colluding with the prosecutor to have him interrogated unassisted is the top of the list, though Avery lost appeal on that already. Brendan Dassey had perhaps the strongest case to vacate verdict I've ever seen short of exoneration, and his eventually failed (after a very reasonable appeal verdict in his favor).
EDIT: I'd also like to note that Netflix's exaggeration has led to anti-Avery people who also exaggerate the case against him. People like Kathleen Zellner don't get involved in cases that are strong or clean. At the very least, a good lawyer would have a cakewalk winning the Reasonable Doubt standard and arguably would have with only the limited evidence that was available during his first trial. It's that exoneration cases are so hard, understandably so.
The hardest ethical question regarding law I think ask is this. If a person is guilty of a crime but can only be convicted by illegal and unethical behavior, should they be incarcerated? I've always thought we've allowed the "be certain they're guilty" standard to erode too much in the US between jurors who will convict on "I'm pretty sure" and the Federal Habeas Corpus changes.
I mean, if you boil it down, Steven Avery is arguably in prison today not because he might have committed murder but because he filed his Habeas Corpus appeal without the assistance of a lawyer and is forbidden to file another. And Brendon Dassey is definitely in prison because the current standard for that federal Habeas Corpus appeal is "no reasonable judge would ever rule this way" despite 2 reasonable federal judges agreeing he reached that standard. Hearing the appeal audio is chilling, with one of the judges constantly saying "you know we MUST reject this" without actually listening to the argument.
It's certainly very complex. I definitely agree he didn't get a fair treatment or trial and for that reason alone shouldn't be incarcerated
I also think that the Netflix documentary really skewed the view and understanding of the evidence, though. And, as you note, there can be confusion over what level of certainty a jury needs to reach. Beyond a reasonable doubt, not beyond any doubt.
All this being said, it bothers me to some degree that people will go to great lengths to fight for Avery's innocence, largely due to that documentary, when there are others whose cases are much more questionable and deserve attention too, such as Temujin Kensu.
I just hope that people, upon seeing documentaries (or really any information that drives them to a certain decision or thought, particularly based on an emotional response), would do further research.
Here's the Ninth Circuit opinion on reasonable doubt: "A reasonable doubt is a doubt based upon reason and common sense and is not based purely on speculation". A single "I don't know", a single seemingly-minor inconsistency, a singular whiff of incompetence by the defense council. More complicatedly, a single defense line of questioning that gets suppressed (which, maybe a juror is supposed to disregard, but being told to disregard something favorable to the defense at all is something that gets my "common sense" aware)
There's a gap between reasonable doubt and doubt, but it's a lot narrower than the gap between reasonable doubt and preponderance of evidence. If the phrase "probably did it" shows up in deliberation, that should be the moment everyone stops and agrees to a "not guilty" verdict because of the "probably".
He's an Innocence Project exoneree who, as you just agreed, was railroaded again. I'd like to point out that Netflix didn't lead the publicity about him, they just profited from it. And the truth is, there's enough inconsistency with the prosecution's case that "probably did it" is honestly a bit strong and I vacillate between thinking he did it and that he's innocent because as bad as it looked for him, there were a couple stronger suspects that didn't have alibis. The only reason I'm not "team innocence" is the physical evidence, but even I have to admit it's evidence that prosecution couldn't form a cohesive narrative for but defense could.
Coincidentally, I watched a "Police Accountability" video just yesterday that matches the Defense story of this trial almost perfectly. Small car (let's say house), they keep searching for something and fail to find it... Then you hear them panicking that this is going to blow back if they don't find something. And then the cop plants a little marijuana thinking the angle on his body-cam won't catch it, and it only barely does. There are inconsistencies with how they discovered the only physical evidence that directly ties Steven Avery to the homicide (the bones weren't a smoking gun), evidence that is so weird it doesn't create a sensible story.
Both Lenk and Colborn are described like they had nothing against Avery, but both were caught in the exoneration crossfire, and their behavior could have prevented Avery from being convicted of the original rape.
See, there I go again. Just talking to you and remembering my own independent research about the whole key-and-blood situation, I'm leaning towards actually innocent again. I'll probably flop back the other way shortly. But that's why it's a complicated case. Netflix never shows both sides of everything. And FWIW, all the evidence we've been discussing is divulged in the Netflix documentary.
That was my takeaway. The more fucked up part is that they dragged his nephew into it and at each man's trial, told wildly differing stories about how the murder supposedly occurred.
Haven’t seen it but that sounds fucked too
Public execution because of jealousy? And nothing will happen to the cops?
The police will do a full investigation of themselves and find no wrong doing. After that, the murderer will return from his paid vacation, which will allow his wife for some much needed time to recover.
USA! USA!
Best nation in the world baby!
Well of course! If you ask a Yank they'd say that USA is the world...
Only if you're white.
Black and Brown people don't enjoy the same benefits.
Not even then. Maybe if you're white and rich; lots of rich white foreigners settle here, and they could go anywhere they want.
Oh, I see the problem. You've written black and brown people.
You should know by now that they don't count as people unless they go through a very rigorous "personhood" check, with markers such as "will they stay quiet about racism," "will they strive to emulate rich white people in dress, speech and manner, to the detriment of their own culture," "will they lead fully sanitized lives as wage slaves without complaint and never dabble in white collar or petty crimes that would be ignored if their skin was lighter," and "will they silently and happily vote for rich white capitalists in politics, against their best interest". Because clearly if they can't follow these very generous and simple guidelines, they don't want to be considered people, duh.
Fuck I feel dirty having typed that out.
I see you don't understand sarcasm
I really wish Batman was real these days.
Their Reason: Driving While Black
I always joke with my black girlfriend when she driving. I'll say "Be careful you don't want to get pulled over for a DWB". She laughs, I laugh, we both die a little inside.
My local department of family services very openly teaches about the risk of police violence towards black people and those who adopt them, to make up for the education they would receive from black parents on how to avoid being beaten or murdered by cops.
It's so real part of our government formally acknowledges it. While the other part wins "most racist" awards.
When I was younger, I worked under a Black man driving trucks through Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas. Anywhere rural, it was unofficial company policy that I (a white man) was supposed to drive and pretend to be in charge. Anywhere urban, my actual boss could be himself.
It is so incredibly fucked up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GrcptVf8Yk
Dash and body cam footage of the incident. They didn't need to retroactively come up with a reason for pulling him over, it's right there in the footage - he apparently was speeding at 100 mph.
Edited my comment, thanks. Very difficult to watch. I don’t love the way the interaction was handled by either of the men, though. I understand speeding is dangerous and against the law, but he began the interaction at 11. This could have gone another way, despite the apparent mental health issues the dude was clearly dealing with.
Agreed. The cop started out at 11, and the guy started out openly hostile.
It could have gone another way, but the moment the dude attacked the officer it wasn't going to.