Dassey Retrial Hearing Day Three

The hearing for a request for retrial of Brendan Dassey continued on on 20 January, 2010. Dassey was convicted in 2007 for the 2005 rape and murder of Teresa Halbach. Dassey’s uncle, Steven Avery, was convicted for the murder of Halbach.

Dr. Leo returned to complete his testimony. Assistant Attorney General Tom Fallon asked if this was a proven case of false confession. Dr. Leo replied no.

Of course, one of the points of this hearing was to show that this was a false confession. Fallon was attempting to place the cart before the horse. If we consider the complete lack of evidence to corroborate the confession, its validity approaches nil.

Mark Fremgen, the lead trial attorney for Brendan Dassey, was the second witness. Fremgen agreed that the behavior of his predecessor, Len Kachinsky, “a poor job.”
This was the about the May, 2006, interrogation that was performed by two seasoned interrogators while Kachinsky was attending other business.

Fremgen was shown a video of yet another interrogation of Dassey. This one was conducted by defense investigator, Michael O’Kelly who was hired by Kachinsky and took place the evening before the May police interrogation. Fremgen opined that is appeared that the prior defense team was working for the police.

Kachinsky and O’Kelly were going out of their way to incriminate Steven Avery. Kachinsky gave interviews claiming that Avery was orchestrating Brendan’s claim of innocence. O’Kelly also gave an interview that claimed that because Avery telephoned Dassey’s mother, Avery’s sister, which meant that Avery was orchestrating events from jail.

And given the direction of Kachinsky and the efforts of O’Kelly, they were equally intent on convicting their client.

Fremgen denied that he was an ineffective counsel. Fremgen claimed that his defense adequately addressed the nineteen points which the State claimed proved the Dassey confessions.

But, he did not show any videos during the trial that would have clearly shown the investigators repeatedly feeding information to and badgering Dassey until Dassey repeated their words. These instances of “show and tell” would have been very helpful
for the jurors as Dr. Leo had earlier testified.

The trial defense team also stipulated to a truncated version of the 1 March, 2006, interrogation. The ending where Dassey recanted the confession was not shown. Why a defense attorney would allow this is baffling.

Certainly showing the jury Dassey’s recantation after the interrogation would have been useful to the jury as would the expectation that Brendan had that he could return to school after he repeated to investigators what they wanted to hear.

From my observation of the trial, the defense was not aggressive enough in attacking what the State called evidence. Often, the litany was that no evidence was really evidence because Avery was so good at cleaning the scene. Investigators also claimed that the lack of evidence was because they had tested so many items.

The trial defense was able to shut down the claim by prosecutors that the Halbach vehicle was ready for crushing early in the trial.

The appeals attorneys are also arguing the trial attorneys did not properly argue for the inclusion of the February and May interrogation sessions. These would have been useful to demonstrate the insistence of the interrogators to have their way. Most of the themes and “nineteen points” of the interrogators can be traced back to the first interrogation when they were introduced by the interrogators.

Fallon asked Fremgen if he recommended plea deals for his clients. Fremgen answered yes. He was obligated to communicate offers to this clients. He said he recommended Dassey take an offer.

Brendan Dassey did the right thing to turn the deals down.