All Things Movie/Documentary Reviews/Recommendations Thread

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We saw The Big Short - another very good movie and frustrating as all heck knowing that little has changed on Wall Street. As they are in almost every movie they are in, Christian Bale and Brad Pitt were fantastic, as was Steve Carrel and Ryan Gosling were also very good.

I highly recommend the movie.

Go Gophers!!
 

I didn't find it a coincidence she told him she wanted to cheat on him, and he attempted one overdose and then finished it. He was a pretty vulnerable person especially when junked out on heroin.
 



Anybody watch making a murderer? I'd especially like the oppinion of the lawyers on the board
 


bigtenchamps1899 said:
Anybody watch making a murderer? I'd especially like the oppinion of the lawyers on the board
Click to expand...

I'm only through 8 episodes, but I thought Avery's lawyers for the murder trial did about as much as they could to plant seeds of doubt. The jury didn't buy it though.

Besides the obvious poor police work, as an analytical chemist my biggest gripe was with the FBI forensic chemist and WI state crime lab DNA analyst. Both did a pretty bad job. The state DNA analyst was beyond sloppy - why would you be conducting training while working up the most important, precious sample in your lab? The contaminated evidence should have been thrown out.

The FBI chemist offered more opinion than fact, especially about the untested swabs. He also failed to mention limits of detection, and the types of positive and negative controls used for assay development. I would love to review his lab notebooks. I liked what the defense scientific expert witness said about the speculation and lack of a reported detection limit by the FBI chemist. Something to the effect of, "I'm an analytical chemist. I'm not in the business of guessing."

On thing that Avery's lawyers mentioned in interviews but didn't at trial, was that the victim's DNA was absent from the key found in Avery's trailer. It only had Avery's DNA. This suggests the key was completely cleaned then tainted with Avery's DNA. This point should have been hammered home.
 



We watched the documentary That Sugar Film last night. Similar vein to Supersize Me, but this was about the overabundance of sugar in our diets. As someone who works in the food industry now, there is no doubt in my mind that our society will look back in a generation in shock at how much sugar we put in our foods now. Most people don't know or care, but it is becoming more widely reported and understood by consumers. It's alarming how much sugar is in every day foods. The documentary gets a little repetitive, but overall it's worth a watch if you enjoy topics such as this.

Go Gophers!!
 




We finished watching Making A Murderer and I can't stop thinking about how the DA and Police worked to make that conviction stick. I wonder if SA hadn't upgraded his defense team (they were excellent), then the prosecution wouldn't have felt pressured to coerce the confession from Dassey.
 

Saw The Hateful Eight. 8.1 on IMDB. Too high for me. A 7 or so on the Rayometer.
 

I was addicted to Making a murderer. I still think Avery committed the crime. There were requests for Teresa to come specifically made by avery-- not in the documentary. His rap sheet was much longer in actuality. She had verbally told her work she didn't want to go and previously, Avery answered the door in only a towel. He also confessed to pouring gasoline on his cat and throwing it into the fire.

After 5? days of time to hide/burn evidence. I think the police felt pressured for physical evidence.

I think the police planted the key to help the case stick. Not sure about Brendan Dassey, sounds like he would do what anyone older/stronger/more authoritative would tell him. Brendan's first lawyer, Len Kachinsky, should probably face disbarment for playing for the prosecution.

Makes you wonder what kind of justice poor people get? If Brendan had the defense lawyers Avery had, I'm not sure he would have been convicted.




WorkingMyTailOff said:
We finished watching Making A Murderer and I can't stop thinking about how the DA and Police worked to make that conviction stick. I wonder if SA hadn't upgraded his defense team (they were excellent), then the prosecution wouldn't have felt pressured to coerce the confession from Dassey.
Click to expand...
 



march madness said:
I was addicted to Making a murderer. I still think Avery committed the crime. There were requests for Teresa to come specifically made by avery-- not in the documentary. His rap sheet was much longer in actuality. She had verbally told her work she didn't want to go and previously, Avery answered the door in only a towel. He also confessed to pouring gasoline on his cat and throwing it into the fire.

After 5? days of time to hide/burn evidence. I think the police felt pressured for physical evidence.

I think the police planted the key to help the case stick. Not sure about Brendan Dassey, sounds like he would do what anyone older/stronger/more authoritative would tell him. Brendan's first lawyer, Len Kachinsky, should probably face disbarment for playing for the prosecution.

Makes you wonder what kind of justice poor people get? If Brendan had the defense lawyers Avery had, I'm not sure he would have been convicted.
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March Madness I agree completely. I think Colburn stumbled across the Rav while conducting an illegal search.
It's amazing how someone on the verge of a huge windfall would be unable to keep himself from doing something awful.
 

WorkingMyTailOff said:
March Madness I agree completely. I think Colburn stumbled across the Rav while conducting an illegal search.
It's amazing how someone on the verge of a huge windfall would be unable to keep himself from doing something awful.
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Finding the Rav4 is my biggest question mark.

Colburn, who had received the call from another LE agency about Gregory Ellis admitting to Avery's rape case, buried that phone call and let Avery sit in prison for 8 more years. How is he still on the force? Then there's the phone call to dispatch of him asking her to run the plate # that corresponds to the Green Rav4 and of course he asked "It's a Green Rav4 right" so clearly he was looking at the car at that time and that was two days before the car was found. So....where were he & the car at that time? Was he on Avery property illegally when he made that call or was he somewhere else and the vehicle was later moved to Avery property? Being caught lying about that while on the stand should discredit anything he had to say, imo.

How about his buddy Lt Lenk who testified he arrived at the Rav4 search scene at 2:30-3:00pm, when the report he filed showed him arriving at 7:00pm? After Colburn swore no one had access to the vehicle (presumably to plant evidence) that entire day, they looked at Colburn's in-out list and sure enough there's Lt Lenk leaving the scene, with no record of him ever entering. That proves he was alone with the vehicle for quite some time before anyone other than Colburn showed up to document the ins-outs.

How about the two ladies (one was a cousin of the victim) who found the vehicle? 40 acres of auto salvage and they found the vehicle in 20 minutes? "God guided us right to the vehicle" was their explanation? No, they knew where the vehicle was OR the vehicle was set up to be found very easily.

I still don't understand this either....if Avery was trying to hide the Rav 4 and he owned a junk yard measuring 40 acres, why not hide it somewhere hard to find on those 40 acres? Why not crush the car? Why leave it right by the front where it was easy to find? On that note, if he was so unconcerned that he left it right by the front of his place, why the weak attempt to camouflage with a couple tree branches? It seems like he either didn't care, so he would have just left it by the front, or he did care and he would have made efforts to hide the vehicle better. To leave it right by the front entrance with a couple tree branches on it just doesn't make any sense to me.

Last thought on that part of the movie is how suspicious it looked that the victim's male roommate and the victims ex-boyfriend, who are friends, led the search party that found the Rav4. They had searched miles of terrain looking for that vehicle, but on this one occasion only the roommate gave the two women searching a camera to document anything they might find. Why would they feel so confident that the vehicle would be found on Avery property as to supply a camera, when they hadn't done that at any other point? With 40 acres of salvage to sift through, why would they send those two ladies anyhow? Why not the strongest, most fit men available? It's almost like they knew the vehicle would be found by those women right near the front?
 

march madness said:
I was addicted to Making a murderer. I still think Avery committed the crime. There were requests for Teresa to come specifically made by avery-- not in the documentary. His rap sheet was much longer in actuality. She had verbally told her work she didn't want to go and previously, Avery answered the door in only a towel. He also confessed to pouring gasoline on his cat and throwing it into the fire.

After 5? days of time to hide/burn evidence. I think the police felt pressured for physical evidence.

I think the police planted the key to help the case stick. Not sure about Brendan Dassey, sounds like he would do what anyone older/stronger/more authoritative would tell him. Brendan's first lawyer, Len Kachinsky, should probably face disbarment for playing for the prosecution.

Makes you wonder what kind of justice poor people get? If Brendan had the defense lawyers Avery had, I'm not sure he would have been convicted.
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Which of those crimes indicates a propensity for murder though? During the first trial they said the exact same thing. He'd burglarized a store ($14 in change & some cigs I think?), had burned a cat (never heard about the gasoline, Avery said he was just swinging it around over a fire and it lit up?) and his cousin claimed he ran out into the road and jacked off at her as she drove by? The mentality was that since he was a petty criminal, that showed he was likely the man who raped the first woman. As we know now, that was not true. So, if his behavior wasn't an indicator the first time, why would we assume it is this time on a much more serious charge?
 

bigtenchamps1899 said:
Anybody watch making a murderer? I'd especially like the oppinion of the lawyers on the board
Click to expand...

I don't practice criminal law, and I don't know Wisconsin's criminal or ethics code. But here are some thoughts:

- I don't believe for a second that Dassey did anything illegal. He's a victim of a system that routinely chews people like him up.

- Avery may have committed the murder, but he should have gotten off from reasonable doubt. The judge either wasn't very able or has a bias toward prosecutors, as most judges do, based on his rulings. The cops also clearly tampered with evidence. The prosecution's expert witnesses were atrocious. The FBI crime lab guy and the lab test were a travesty. The Wisconsin lab woman's handling of the DNA was beyond inexcusable. This is the biggest case in her career, and she's supposedly training people and deviating from protocol for the first time in her career. The DNA should have been thrown out. If preponderance of the evidence is 51% certainty, clear and convincing evidence is 75-80% certainty, and reasonable doubt is 90-95% certainty, then there is no way jury members should be unanimously 90-95% certain that Avery committed the crime from what we saw.

- The criminal justice system is a very flawed system. Prosecutors have too much power, police interrogation tactics are flawed, and poor and/or stupid people are completely up sh*t creek in a system like this. Also, the quality of state district court judges varies wildly. Some are excellent. Some are so stupid that you would question how they got where they are. I'm very leery of counties with only one or two judges. The quality of the judges are generally weaker than bigger counties, and the good ole boy, parochial factor ratchets up quite a bit. If I had a client like Avery in such a county, I would be trying to change venue as fast as possible. If that didn't work, then I would have the judge removed if he was a poor judge. This is the one tactical question by Avery's team that I didn't understand. But I don't know Wisconsin law, so maybe they didn't have a good chance or any chance of succeeding. In Minnesota, you can remove the first judge appointed without question as long as you do it in a timely manner, before trial and certain hearings. Moreover, most judges are former prosecutors. They're naturally predisposed to the prosecution. Big city judges have more talent to choose from, but they're still hit or miss. The Federal district court judges are typically far superior.

- Never settle for a public defender unless it's your only option. It's not because public defenders are all bad attorneys, in fact, many of them good. The problem is, they handle a caseload that is too big to manage, so they cannot give their clients the best possible representation. Even though Minnesota hired more public defenders this year, they didn't hire enough. We probably need to hire another 75 across the state for public defenders to have a chance at defending their clients. Also, you'll never get a team of lawyers or access to first rate investigators and expert witnesses with a public defender (defendants often refer to them as public pretenders). If you're facing serious time, it's worth draining your retirement or other accounts if you have to in order to field good private defense attorneys. You don't need great attorneys like Friedberg or Colich for small time or mid-level offenses unless you can easily afford them. If you don't know who a good one is, check Super Lawyers. Anyone who earns the honor of Super Lawyer is held in high regard by judges and his peer attorneys. A very small minority of attorneys are awarded Super Lawyer status every year. 5% or less of all attorneys can be honored as a Super Lawyer. This is a great resource to find excellent attorneys who are just as skilled as those at the big law firms at a much cheaper rate due to lower overhead.

- Len Kachinsky should be disbarred. He's a stain on the profession.

- Ken Kratz is your typical small town prosecutor. He's very average in the courtroom, and he's interested in the appearance of justice. He abuses his power, but most prosecutors do. It's a systemic problem. Kratz is also borderline unethical in how he handles his prosecution. He's completely unethical for the text messages he sent. He probably should have been sanctioned by the Wisconsin Supreme Court with at least a suspension of his license.

- Prosecutors seeking conviction through the media are despicable. Gag orders should be mandatory for all pending matters in criminal court.
 

TruthSeeker said:
I don't practice criminal law, and I don't know Wisconsin's criminal or ethics code. But here are some thoughts:

- I don't believe for a second that Dassey did anything illegal. He's a victim of a system that routinely chews people like him up.

- Avery may have committed the murder, but he should have gotten off from reasonable doubt. The judge either wasn't very able or has a bias toward prosecutors, as most judges do, based on his rulings. The cops also clearly tampered with evidence. The prosecution's expert witnesses were atrocious. The FBI crime lab guy and the lab test were a travesty. The Wisconsin lab woman's handling of the DNA was beyond inexcusable. This is the biggest case in her career, and she's supposedly training people and deviating from protocol for the first time in her career. The DNA should have been thrown out. If preponderance of the evidence is 51% certainty, clear and convincing evidence is 75-80% certainty, and reasonable doubt is 90-95% certainty, then there is no way jury members should be unanimously 90-95% certain that Avery committed the crime from what we saw.

- The criminal justice system is a very flawed system. Prosecutors have too much power, police interrogation tactics are flawed, and poor and/or stupid people are completely up sh*t creek in a system like this. Also, the quality of state district court judges varies wildly. Some are excellent. Some are so stupid that you would question how they got where they are. I'm very leery of counties with only one or two judges. The quality of the judges are generally weaker than bigger counties, and the good ole boy, parochial factor ratchets up quite a bit. If I had a client like Avery in such a county, I would be trying to change venue as fast as possible. If that didn't work, then I would have the judge removed if he was a poor judge. This is the one tactical question by Avery's team that I didn't understand. But I don't know Wisconsin law, so maybe they didn't have a good chance or any chance of succeeding. In Minnesota, you can remove the first judge appointed without question as long as you do it in a timely manner, before trial and certain hearings. Moreover, most judges are former prosecutors. They're naturally predisposed to the prosecution. Big city judges have more talent to choose from, but they're still hit or miss. The Federal district court judges are typically far superior.

- Never settle for a public defender unless it's your only option. It's not because public defenders are all bad attorneys, in fact, many of them good. The problem is, they handle a caseload that is too big to manage, so they cannot give their clients the best possible representation. Even though Minnesota hired more public defenders this year, they didn't hire enough. We probably need to hire another 75 across the state for public defenders to have a chance at defending their clients. Also, you'll never get a team of lawyers or access to first rate investigators and expert witnesses with a public defender (defendants often refer to them as public pretenders). If you're facing serious time, it's worth draining your retirement or other accounts if you have to in order to field good private defense attorneys. You don't need great attorneys like Friedberg or Colich for small time or mid-level offenses unless you can easily afford them. If you don't know who a good one is, check Super Lawyers. Anyone who earns the honor of Super Lawyer is held in high regard by judges and his peer attorneys. A very small minority of attorneys are awarded Super Lawyer status every year. 5% or less of all attorneys can be honored as a Super Lawyer. This is a great resource to find excellent attorneys who are just as skilled as those at the big law firms at a much cheaper rate due to lower overhead.

- Len Kachinsky should be disbarred. He's a stain on the profession.

- Ken Kratz is your typical small town prosecutor. He's very average in the courtroom, and he's interested in the appearance of justice. He abuses his power, but most prosecutors do. It's a systemic problem. Kratz is also borderline unethical in how he handles his prosecution. He's completely unethical for the text messages he sent. He probably should have been sanctioned by the Wisconsin Supreme Court with at least a suspension of his license.

- Prosecutors seeking conviction through the media are despicable. Gag orders should be mandatory for all pending matters in criminal court.
Click to expand...

- Dassey must have an IQ of about 55? No way a juvenile, with obvious learning disabilities should have been alone in that room with the police interrogating him without a lawyer or his Mother present. He just wanted to get back to class to turn in his project at 1:30pm. When told he was looking at life in prison what was his concern? He would miss Wrestlemania. Watching those investigators lead him like that was disgusting. "What did you do to her head?"....."Uh....cut her hair?"...."NO, you didn't cut her hair, think harder, what did you do to her head!?"....."Uh...punched her?"....."NO, you didn't punch her. You shot her! Which one of you shot her you or Steve?"...."Uh....him", some confession.

- Kachinsky should not only be disbarred he should be prosecuted criminally and sued civilly.
 

Costa Rican Gopher said:
- Dassey must have an IQ of about 55? No way a juvenile, with obvious learning disabilities should have been alone in that room with the police interrogating him without a lawyer or his Mother present. He just wanted to get back to class to turn in his project at 1:30pm. When told he was looking at life in prison what was his concern? He would miss Wrestlemania. Watching those investigators lead him like that was disgusting. "What did you do to her head?"....."Uh....cut her hair?"...."NO, you didn't cut her hair, think harder, what did you do to her head!?"....."Uh...punched her?"....."NO, you didn't punch her. You shot her! Which one of you shot her you or Steve?"...."Uh....him", some confession.
Click to expand...

What disgusts me is how the cops goaded Dassey into incriminating himself without a lawyer present and under what I consider to be essentially false pretenses. Early during the interview, they tell him over and over that, as long as he tells the truth, he's going to be alright - or something to that effect. That was clearly giving the false impression that, if he told them what they wanted to hear, they'd let him go and let him finish his homework and watch Wrestlemania. He had no idea that what he was saying would land him in prison. Completely separate from the matter of Avery's guilt, this is the ruination of a young man's life as nothing more than a tool or a pawn in a bigger game. It makes me sick just thinking about it.
 

TruthSeeker said:
I don't practice criminal law, and I don't know Wisconsin's criminal or ethics code. But here are some thoughts:

- I don't believe for a second that Dassey did anything illegal. He's a victim of a system that routinely chews people like him up.

- Avery may have committed the murder, but he should have gotten off from reasonable doubt. The judge either wasn't very able or has a bias toward prosecutors, as most judges do, based on his rulings. The cops also clearly tampered with evidence. The prosecution's expert witnesses were atrocious. The FBI crime lab guy and the lab test were a travesty. The Wisconsin lab woman's handling of the DNA was beyond inexcusable. This is the biggest case in her career, and she's supposedly training people and deviating from protocol for the first time in her career. The DNA should have been thrown out. If preponderance of the evidence is 51% certainty, clear and convincing evidence is 75-80% certainty, and reasonable doubt is 90-95% certainty, then there is no way jury members should be unanimously 90-95% certain that Avery committed the crime from what we saw.

- The criminal justice system is a very flawed system. Prosecutors have too much power, police interrogation tactics are flawed, and poor and/or stupid people are completely up sh*t creek in a system like this. Also, the quality of state district court judges varies wildly. Some are excellent. Some are so stupid that you would question how they got where they are. I'm very leery of counties with only one or two judges. The quality of the judges are generally weaker than bigger counties, and the good ole boy, parochial factor ratchets up quite a bit. If I had a client like Avery in such a county, I would be trying to change venue as fast as possible. If that didn't work, then I would have the judge removed if he was a poor judge. This is the one tactical question by Avery's team that I didn't understand. But I don't know Wisconsin law, so maybe they didn't have a good chance or any chance of succeeding. In Minnesota, you can remove the first judge appointed without question as long as you do it in a timely manner, before trial and certain hearings. Moreover, most judges are former prosecutors. They're naturally predisposed to the prosecution. Big city judges have more talent to choose from, but they're still hit or miss. The Federal district court judges are typically far superior.

- Never settle for a public defender unless it's your only option. It's not because public defenders are all bad attorneys, in fact, many of them good. The problem is, they handle a caseload that is too big to manage, so they cannot give their clients the best possible representation. Even though Minnesota hired more public defenders this year, they didn't hire enough. We probably need to hire another 75 across the state for public defenders to have a chance at defending their clients. Also, you'll never get a team of lawyers or access to first rate investigators and expert witnesses with a public defender (defendants often refer to them as public pretenders). If you're facing serious time, it's worth draining your retirement or other accounts if you have to in order to field good private defense attorneys. You don't need great attorneys like Friedberg or Colich for small time or mid-level offenses unless you can easily afford them. If you don't know who a good one is, check Super Lawyers. Anyone who earns the honor of Super Lawyer is held in high regard by judges and his peer attorneys. A very small minority of attorneys are awarded Super Lawyer status every year. 5% or less of all attorneys can be honored as a Super Lawyer. This is a great resource to find excellent attorneys who are just as skilled as those at the big law firms at a much cheaper rate due to lower overhead.

- Len Kachinsky should be disbarred. He's a stain on the profession.

- Ken Kratz is your typical small town prosecutor. He's very average in the courtroom, and he's interested in the appearance of justice. He abuses his power, but most prosecutors do. It's a systemic problem. Kratz is also borderline unethical in how he handles his prosecution. He's completely unethical for the text messages he sent. He probably should have been sanctioned by the Wisconsin Supreme Court with at least a suspension of his license.

- Prosecutors seeking conviction through the media are despicable. Gag orders should be mandatory for all pending matters in criminal court.
Click to expand...

A lot of great information in your post.

Does anyone think that this documentary will make someone who has information on this case to share some additional information?
I think if the brother in law or either of Steve's brothers committed the crime that Steven would have talked (if he knew).
 

Bad Gopher said:
What disgusts me is how the cops goaded Dassey into incriminating himself without a lawyer present and under what I consider to be essentially false pretenses. Early during the interview, they tell him over and over that, as long as he tells the truth, he's going to be alright - or something to that effect. That was clearly giving the false impression that, if he told them what they wanted to hear, they'd let him go and let him finish his homework and watch Wrestlemania. He had no idea that what he was saying would land him in prison. Completely separate from the matter of Avery's guilt, this is the ruination of a young man's life as nothing more than a tool or a pawn in a bigger game. It makes me sick just thinking about it.
Click to expand...

They also repeated to him many times that the "truth" is that he or Steven killed her. That's the "truth". Now, if you tell us the "truth" we can help you, but only if you tell us the "truth" and the "truth" is you or Steven killed her. Eventually I think Brendan came to understand that telling the "truth" meant saying what they wanted to hear.
 

Costa Rican Gopher said:
- Dassey must have an IQ of about 55? No way a juvenile, with obvious learning disabilities should have been alone in that room with the police interrogating him without a lawyer or his Mother present. He just wanted to get back to class to turn in his project at 1:30pm. When told he was looking at life in prison what was his concern? He would miss Wrestlemania. Watching those investigators lead him like that was disgusting. "What did you do to her head?"....."Uh....cut her hair?"...."NO, you didn't cut her hair, think harder, what did you do to her head!?"....."Uh...punched her?"....."NO, you didn't punch her. You shot her! Which one of you shot her you or Steve?"...."Uh....him", some confession.

- Kachinsky should not only be disbarred he should be prosecuted criminally and sued civilly.
Click to expand...

I'm with you. It was disgusting seeing how that kid was steamrolled.
 

Costa Rican Gopher said:
They also repeated to him many times that the "truth" is that he or Steven killed her. That's the "truth". Now, if you tell us the "truth" we can help you, but only if you tell us the "truth" and the "truth" is you or Steven killed her. Eventually I think Brendan came to understand that telling the "truth" meant saying what they wanted to hear.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, this is police interrogation tactics 101. Almost every police department uses techniques like these. They're designed to illicit confessions. They're not designed to illicit the truth. Sometimes the truth is a byproduct of the confessions, sometimes it's not. What's really sad is that most police officers are good guys who think they're doing an excellent job capturing the bad guys by using their coercive interrogation techniques. In reality, those techniques make cops part of the problem and allow many monsters to freely prey on people.

I also feel extremely sorry for Brendan. He was just a harmless, dumb kid who tried in school despite his limitations and enjoyed his video games and wrestling like tens of millions of people. Unfortunately, the media tainted the jury against him, and he received terrible representation. Kachinsky is a slime ball. Dassey's second attorney is what your typical public defender will be. He knew the law and acted on his client's best interests, but he didn't have the time to properly prepare for Dassey's case. Sometimes you can win with a guy like that but not with a disgrace of a human and a lawyer like Kachinsky. How Kachinsky wasn't brought up for sanction is beyond me. If a Minnesota lawyer can get caught having sex with his female client and sending her a legal bill for the amount of time he drilled her in his office and then get disbarred for it, which actually happened a couple years ago, then Kachinsky totally working against his client should be an easy call for disbarment and potentially liability for malpractice.
 


march madness said:
http://www.pajiba.com/netflix_movie...-evidence-making-a-murderer-didnt-present.php

If you read this write up in includes things beyond what the documentary covered.

Below is also a full transcript of Brendan's confession. He was led but he also gives a tremendous amount of details for someone who is challenged.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ej65jscjwgcpqtc/Transcript - 05-12-2006 - Dassey and O'Kelly.pdf?dl=0

you can click, "no thanks continue to view" at the bottom.
Click to expand...

I opened the link, but it's too long for me to take the time to read right now. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. The documentary is about the corruption and the failed processes of the criminal justice and judicial systems. Avery and Dassey present a compelling narrative to illustrate these massive problems. Both Avery and Dassey should be free because the processes to get them were entirely corrupt regardless of whether they committed the crimes. Excluding tainted evidence, removing unethical attorneys, and removing a tainted jury pool through media coercion concocted by the prosecution would lead a jury to find reasonable doubt for both Avery and Dassey. Avery's attorneys would have successfully obtained an acquittal or hung jury at worst if the jury people hadn't been tainted.
 

march madness said:
http://www.pajiba.com/netflix_movie...-evidence-making-a-murderer-didnt-present.php

If you read this write up in includes things beyond what the documentary covered.

Below is also a full transcript of Brendan's confession. He was led but he also gives a tremendous amount of details for someone who is challenged.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ej65jscjwgcpqtc/Transcript - 05-12-2006 - Dassey and O'Kelly.pdf?dl=0

you can click, "no thanks continue to view" at the bottom.
Click to expand...

Weren't many of those details from the book "Kiss the girls" that he had recently read?
 

imo, Colburn was looking at the Rav4 when he called in the plate #/color/make to dispatch. That was two days prior the discovery of the Rav4. Colburn when confronted with this simply said he couldn't explain it? How could Colburn be reading the plate number to the dispatcher two days before it was found? They asked him directly if someone had written the info down for him and he said "no". That means he either found that vehicle in another location and the vehicle was moved onto Avery's property or Colburn was conducting an illegal search of the Avery property and found the vehicle, but couldn't report it at the time?
 

Where's the blood? The woman was stabbed in the stomach, had her throat slit and was shot in the head. Where's the blood? No blood, signs of struggle or DNA were found in Avery's bed where the rape, stabbing and the slitting of the throat allegedly occurred. How can that be?

Then the DA said she was killed in the garage, when she was shot in the head. Where's the blood or DNA? That garage is packed with junk, how could he have cleansed that entire place of blood splatter and DNA?

Where are the drag marks or blood trail, from where she was brought out to the burn pit?
 

This story is the gift that keeps on giving. The filmmakers appeared on the Today Show. From an article:

"The juror contacted us directly and told us the verdicts in Steven's trial were a compromise," Ricciardi revealed in a later Today interview. "That was the actual word the juror used and went on to describe the jurors ultimately trading votes in the jury room. Explicitly discussing, 'If you vote guilty on this count, I will vote not guilty on this count.' That was a significant revelation.

"Demos said they have not spoken to other jurors to confirm the story yet. "They told us really that they were afraid if they held out for a mistrial that it would be easy to identify which juror had done that and they were fearful for their own safety. What they explained to us is they believed that if there was a split verdict like this, that this would send a message to the appellate courts and they thought that Steven would get a new trial," she said. "That was sort of their plan and it didn't work out that way."

This is essentially what I'd speculated in another post based on my own jury experience - that it was a split jury room and that the people holding out for an acquittal caved. I hadn't considered the possibility of horse trading votes, which of course has nothing to do with the evidence and is basically improper. It may have even been that there was a majority for acquittal at one point in the deliberation, but there was an immovable minority who would never throw cops under the bus or even consider the possibility of misconduct or corruption. It's easy for me to say, but the best thing would have been for the not-guilty voters to hold out themselves and force a hung jury.

The citizen jury system is our way, but we have to recognize its flaws, not the least of which is that these jurors just want to finish and get back to their lives.
 

Making a Murder.

A girl being tied up was in the book. Cutting of a victims hair was in the movie, not the book. When I said I think Avery is guilty, I should have said, he should have been aquited based on a reasonable doubt, but I still think he is the likely perpetrator. The location of the crime and the lack of blood/dna is suspicious. Not in the doc is sweat DNA from Avery under the car hood. Brendan suggested he opened the hood, I believe to remove the battery?

I power binged this series. If anyone was enthralled and wants something similar. The west Memphis 3, paradise lost:murder in robin hood hills, documentaries and books are gripping. Also Murder on a Sunday morning, the Thin Blue line, and the Norfolk 4. Most of these involve false confessions.



Costa Rican Gopher said:
Weren't many of those details from the book "Kiss the girls" that he had recently read?
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