Dassey’s New Attorney Revisits Earlier Motions
Steven Avery’s nephew, the second suspect in the Teresa Halbach murder case is contesting earlier judgments in his case. Brendan Dassey’s new Attorney Mark Fremgen, is disputing two important rulings.
The first is the waiver of a preliminary hearing. The first public defender, Ralph Sczygelski, on the case waived the preliminary hearing and Dassey agreed. Fremgen claims that Dassey was not properly prepped about the consequences of the waiver, given his status as a special education student. Also, his original attorney first met with Dassey twenty minutes before the entering the decision in court.
Fremgen also argues that Sczygelski did not attempt to have Dassey’s case assigned to juvenile court.
Sczygelski excused himself due to conflict of interest. He is a distant relative of Teresa Halbach.
Dassey’s next attorney, Len Kachinski, attempted to have Dassey’s first confession thrown out. He argued that the police mislead, lied, and nagged Dassey, taking advantage of his poor learning background.
The judge, Jerome Fox, disagreed, claiming that the badgering by Calumet County Investigator Mark Wiegert and State Special Agent Tom Fassbender was simply an attempt to persuade Dassey that he had “a moral obligation to tell the truth.” It would well to point out that investigators have a moral duty avoid railroading suspects. Unfortunately, Judge Fox appears to be biased in favor of the investigators and prosecution.
I hope a trier of fact would be aware of the multitude of false confessions (and false accusations) extracted by zealous investigators. Cases such as the Central Park Jogger Rape, and the Stephanie Crowe murder are two examples*. One reason a person like Dassey would make such confessions is merely to comply. That is to be an agreeable
The Dassey confession appears to have been guided to something the investigators thought would be good for their case rather than fact finding. And, other difficulties appear upon examination of the confession.
Perhaps Special Prosecutor Ken Kratz has evidence to corroborate the confession, but even before such evidence could be found, Kratz was singing to the public in a gratuitous grandstanding television address.
While Fremgen might argue that Dassey’s inexperience and lack of understanding made him an easy mark for investigators, even those with more resources have been tricked or coerced into false confessions. There is research about how to conduct interrogations properly and obtain valid results. Yet, some investigators start with a hypothesis and then force the investigation to support the hypothesis rather than perform an investigation that is impartial and scientific.
It is possible that the confession did address the facts, although it still appears to be guided by what the investigators wanted rather than what they had. But, there were further confessions that contradicted the first. And, in August 2006, Dassey wrote a letter to Judge Fox denying the validity of the confession and giving an alibi.
To further cloud the issue, Investigators Wiegert and Fassbender interviewed Dassey again on 13 May, 2006, knowing he was represented by an attorney but that attorney excused himself from the interrogation, rather than reschedule. They were clearly taking advantage of this suspect which at the least is unethical.
The initial treatment of Dassey deserves a close look. Whether he has been adequately represented is a valid issue. The confession process also needs a greater scrutiny than Judge Fox gave it in the prior hearing. If our judiciary is concerned about false convictions, this is a good place to start. If the judiciary is concerned about protecting the public, then those investigating and prosecuting need to be held responsible for sloppy behavior and thoughtless investigations.
* The Central Park Jogger case involved false confessions by five teen black males. Law and order folks and gender feminists were very pleased by the outcome and quick action. The real rapist went on to rape at least four more times, killing one of the victims. The innocent men were sent to prison for terms of 5 to 15 years.
* The police investigating the murder of
The three were charged with murder and prosecuted. But, the attorney for one of the boys had another piece of evidence tested and the tests revealed spatter from Stephanie’s blood. The evidence was a sweatshirt belong to a paranoid schizophrenic, Richard Tuite, known to be in the Crowe’s neighborhood on the night of the murder. There was no forensic evidence tying any the boys to the murder; except for the hairs which had dubious value.
San Diego County Sheriff’s Department took over the investigation which led to the Charging of Tuite. The State Attorney took over the prosecution. Some Escondido police later testified for the defense during the trial of Tuite. They had too much invested in their certainty of the guilt of the innocent boys and could not accept the wrongness of their tactics and prejudgment. The original San Diego County prosecutor maintained there there was contact between the boys and Tuite which led to the murder.
by Brian McCorkle
in category Brendan Dassey
