A petition launched by Brendan Dassey’s mother, Barbara Tydych, has been given a boost by the recent news of her son’s conviction being overturned. Barbara’s Change.org petition asking the state of Wisconsin to pass legislation designed to protect juveniles during interrogations, is now trending and the signatures are on the rise. In her petition, titled: “Please Pass Juvenile Interrogation Protection Law in Wisconsin”, Barbara details why her son’s case highlights the need for legislation requiring that an attorney be present during a custodial interrogation of a minor.

Brendan Dassey was wrongfully convicted of murder in the state of Wisconsin in 2007, on the basis of a coerced false confession to the rape and murder of Teresa Halbach. No other evidence supports his conviction, and physical evidence flatly contradicts the statements in which he incriminated himself.

The Netflix series “Making a Murderer” has brought renewed attention to Brendan’s case. The 10-part documentary details the murder of Teresa Halbach and the controversy surrounding her death. Video clips of Brendan’s interrogation, which are presented in the documentary, have left many viewers wondering how Brendan’s confession was ever deemed admissible at trial.

Audio and video recordings show how interrogators adopted a friendly, solicitous manner and quickly brought Brendan under their control. Video footage shows that Brendan was willing to go along with any story line they suggested, but he volunteered almost no information other than reciting back what his interrogators were feeding him. Two seasoned interrogators went to work on a 16-year-old kid and they got to his head. What they didn’t get was the truth.

Steve Drizin and Laura Nirider, attorneys for Northwestern’s Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth, and attorney Robert Dvorak, are co-counsel for Brendan Dassey’s post-conviction litigation. In October of 2014, Dassey’s defense filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus. On Friday, August 12, a federal judge in Milwaukee granted their petition and overturned Brendan’s murder conviction, giving the state 90 days to decide whether to retry him or release him.

Injustice Anywhere, an organization of which I am a part of, is working with Barbara Tadych on this petition. Brendan is not a free man yet, but the recent ruling is a significant step in the process to secure his freedom. Please take two minutes to sign this petition so that other minors do not suffer like Brendan has. All we are asking is that a minor be provided an attorney before being interrogated by police. No matter what your opinion is on Brendan’s case, can’t we all agree that minors should have an attorney present before being subjected to an interrogation?

You can view the petition here: https://www.change.org/p/wisconsin-state-house-please-pass-juvenile-interrogation-protection-law-in-wisconsin. Please sign and share today. Thank you

You can learn more about Brendan’s case here by visiting these resources:

FreeBrendan.org

Free Brendan Facebook Page

Justice for Brendan Dassey Facebook Group

http://www.wisn.com/news/brendan-dasseys-conviction-overturned/41178138

Brendan Dassey, Steven Avery’s nephew, was sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 41 years after he was convicted in 2007 of first-degree intentional homicide, second-degree sexual assault, and mutilation of a corpse in the killing of Halbach in Manitowoc County.

Read the court ruling

The federal ruling says the state has 90 days to appeal the federal order or Dassey must be released from prison. He is being held at Columbia Correctional Institution.

U.S. Magistrate Judge William Duffin said “misconduct” by Dassey’s lawyer, Len Kachinsky, in defending Dassey was “indefensible.”

The court ruled Dassey’s confession was “involuntary” and was based on “false promises” by interrogators, “Dassey’s age and intellectual deficits.”

Avery remains convicted of murder, but continues to appeal that conviction.

WISN 12 News contacted the state Attorney General’s Office for reaction and received this comment, “As we are currently reviewing Magistrate Judge Duffin’s order, we have no comment to offer at this time.”

The case was recently brought into the spotlight in the documentary, “Making a Murderer.”

The Committee to Free Jamie Snow is hosting their sixth annual Postcards in the Park in Bloomington, Illinois, on July 30, 2016. The annual event is designed to bring more attention to the wrongful conviction of Jamie Snow.

Jamie Snow was wrongfully convicted in 2001 for the 1991 murder of William Little, a gas station attendant in Bloomington, Illinois. Jamie is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole in Stateville prison in Joliet, Illinois.

Jamie Snow has proclaimed his innocence from day one. In the years following his conviction, new information has come to light clearly showing that police misconduct and bad lawyering sent the wrong man to prison for William Little’s murder. Jamie Snow is innocent.

The Committee to Free Jamie Snow has worked diligently to keep the spotlight on Jamie’s case. The postcard event has successfully drawn the attention of the media each year. This year’s postcards will be sent to Aphrodite Jones, thanking her for looking into Jamie’s case for an upcoming episode of Crime Watch Daily.

The committee is asking supporters to gather at Miller Park in Bloomington, Illinois, on Saturday from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm to show their support for Jamie’s innocence. All supplies needed to send the postcards will be provided at the park.

You can view the Postcards in the Park Facebook event page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1090373717667869/

You can learn more about Jamie’s case, along with information on his pending appeal as well as his request for DNA testing, by visiting FreeJamieSnow.com.

http://reason.com/blog/2016/07/06/just-five-prosecutors-account-for-one-in

Harvard Law School’s Fair Punishment Project released a new report late last month titled “America’s Top Five Deadliest Prosecutors.” In it, the authors describe the U.S.’ use of the death penalty as a “personality-driven system” where “only a tiny handful of prosecutors are responsible for a vastly disproportionate number of death sentences.”

Or as Ed Pilkington put it in The Guardian, “of the 8,038 death sentences handed down since the death penalty was restarted in the modern era 40 years ago this week, some one in 20 of them have been the responsibility” of the five district attorneys who give the report its title.

All but one of these prosecutors — Johnny Holmes of Harris County (Tx.) — have seen their cases revisited because of allegations of misconduct, although Holmes did preside over the conviction of one person who ended up being exonerated. The assistant prosectuors overseen by Holmes put 201 people on death row — averaging 12 per year — before he retired in 2000. Since then, his successors have averaged about one death penalty conviction per year. Read More >>

http://dksale.net/2016/06/21/lincoln-appeal-denied-by-green-koster-disgusting-failure-by-those-who-should-truly-be-behind-bars/

The Rodney Lincoln appeal denied by Judge Green at the hand of Attorney General Koster is a disgusting failure by those who should truly be behind bars.

Starting with sitting governor Jay Nixon, who as the Attorney General of Missouri in 1993 walked into the Livingston County Courthouse with some twisted mission to advance his and others careers. A plan that included the most faked and manufactured evidence possible — all to frame a special ed farm boy named Mark Woodworth for murder on the pretext the real killer might step forward – and a deeper political objective I bet they thought went un-noticed.

The world needs to step back and see what Nixon did with his college mate Brent Elliot – whom he later appointed chief justice of the same circuit – no doubt reward for his part to play in this most despicable acts. Read more >>

http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/making-many-murderers-how-america-ignores-criminal-justice-news-dean-strang-jerry-buting-steven-avery-netflix/Content?oid=4741872

Making A Murderer should terrify you.

The story of Steven Avery — sent to prison for 18 years for a rape he didn’t commit, following an investigation so shoddy you’d be forgiven for thinking sheriff’s deputies in Manitowoc County, Wis. railroaded him; then exonerated and released thanks to DNA evidence, before he was again arrested, convicted, and sent to prison two years later, this time for life, following an even more questionable murder investigation — is illuminating and outrageous, and helps explain why the 10-part documentary about his trials became a sensation.

But scarier still than a criminal justice system with investigators who, without lawyers present, can coerce a mentally infirm 15-year-old boy into a false confession — as sheriff’s investigators from the same Manitowoc County did with Avery’s cousin, Brendan Dassey — is how many more Steve Averys are in the world, and how close the story came to not being told at all. Read more >>

Judge Daniel Green has repeatedly shown malice when ruling on appeal cases. Rodney Lincoln is his latest victim. Judge Green didn’t just reject Rodney Lincoln’s appeal, he intentionally released his decision on the day of Rodney’s granddaughter’s funeral. Just one day prior, Green denied Rodney’s request for a furlough to attend the funeral, so the judge was well aware of the date he chose.

Was Green’s decision to release his ruling on that specific date a mere coincidence? His past history makes that prospect highly unlikely. Green is the same judge who denied Ryan Ferguson’s appeal on October 31, 2012. Green chose to hold onto his decision until that day, because it was the day that the crime had occurred. It is quite clear that Judge Green goes out of his way to show his disdain for those who are appealing their convictions.

Thankfully Green’s ridiculous ruling against Ferguson was overturned by a state appeals court panel, and Ferguson was released in November of 2013. According to St Louis Today, Lincoln’s attorneys stated that they are already working on their appeal. If our justice system has any hope at all, Green’s ruling against Lincoln will be overturned just as his ruling against Ferguson was.

Here is the latest new article on Rodney’s case:

Judge rejects appeal of Rodney Lincoln in 1982 St. Louis murder

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/judge-rejects-appeal-of-rodney-lincoln-in-st-louis-murder/article_3a52202e-a7a0-5ddb-883a-0731aefc1a19.html

A judge on Thursday rejected the appeal of a man who claims that he is innocent of the 1982 murder of a St. Louis woman and the attack on her two young daughters.

Rodney Lincoln, 71, had cited the recantation of testimony by one of the daughters of JoAnn Tate, questions about hair analysis, claims about prosecutorial misconduct and his own lawyer’s ineffectiveness.

But Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green wrote that Lincoln had to make “a clear and convincing showing of actual innocence that undermines confidence in the correctness of the judgment.” He had to do so, Green wrote, with evidence that “instantly tilts the scales” and leaves the fact-finder’s mind “with an abiding conviction that the evidence is true,” quoting a 1996 appeals court opinion.

Green wrote that he did not find credible the daughter’s recantation 33 years after the trial, triggered by a television program suggesting another culprit.

A spokeswoman for the Missouri Attorney General’s office declined to comment.

Tricia Bushnell, legal director of the Midwest Innocence Project, said, “We are working on the appeal as we speak,” in a phone interview Friday.

Bushnell pointed out that Green’s opinion is an “exact duplicate” of a filing by the Missouri Attorney General’s office in January opposing Lincoln’s bid for freedom, with the exception of a short concluding section. She said that it includes none of the evidence brought out in a hearing in March, including the recantation by Tate daughter Melissa DeBoer and claims that DeBoer was coached and pressured into making the original identification of Lincoln as the attacker. Read more >>

NATCHEZ — After more than 13 years on death row, an Adams County man has been granted a 2017 court date to argue that new evidence should warrant a new trial.

Judge Forrest “Al” Johnson, who oversaw Jeffrey Havard’s first trial, issued an order setting an evidentiary hearing for Aug. 14 to Aug. 16, 2017, for Havard, citing the defendant’s call for the hearing “on the issues of newly discovered evidence presented in his application for leave.”

If the evidence is compelling enough, the court could order a new trial for the case.

Read more >>