Lately, when I have free time, I've been attempting to watch the Documentary, Making a Murderer. It's been a difficult ride for me.
Let's start at the beginning: I haven't had much free time lately. Now that I am back around my friends and family, I find that I've had many things to do on a regular basis, and I've put a lot of things to the side that I was able to focus on when I didn't have as many people to share my time with. Obviously blogging was one of those things. The other has been television. I've spent very little time watching television in the last month, and I'm fairly OK with that. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that I really do want to at some point finish this documentary, I wouldn't care at all about watching television.
That's the first reason I've been struggling with the program. Ten hours is a rather large commitment of time. The second reason is not much better: this is just a difficult thing to watch. I have many other things going on in my life recently and I have found it difficult to give my attention to a single thing, like an episode of this documentary series, for a full hour at a time. Make no mistake, this is the kind of show that requires one's full attention. I can't play on my phone, or check social media, or chat with someone, etc, and expect to catch all of the things going on in this program. That kind of attention span is difficult for me to begin with, and it's only been made worse by how many other things I have to think of lately.
Those two things aside, though, the biggest reason for my struggle with this show is just how utterly revolting the entire thing is. I haven't reached the end of the series yet (I think I finished episode 7 two nights ago), but I have seen enough of the shady, and often downright criminal activities of the police, prosecutor, and judge that I'm disgusted to my core. By the end of each episode I find myself needing to turn it off just because of how angry I am.
Now, as I said, I haven't finished the series yet, nor have I done any research on the subject outside of the documentary, which has an obvious skew towards Avery's innocence. However, what I have seen is enough to make me mistrust the entire criminal justice system. Let's start with the obvious things: Steven Avery was the only person ever investigated as a potential suspect. In fact, a quick search brings up an article showing that less than 3 hours after Teresa Halbach was reported missing, Avery was accused of murdering her. However, just watching the trial unfold and listening to the questions point to the fact that no other person was ever investigated. If Avery was not the murderer, than whoever was got away with it because the police had a vendetta against Avery and they focused 100% of their attention on him.
More disturbing, though, is the complete garbage testimony of Brendan Dassey. This poor young man was removed from class and questioned by police without a lawyer or parent present. In fact, his mother claims she was denied entrance to the questioning when it took place. Let me start by saying that I find it absolutely appalling that it is completely legal in our country to question a minor without a parent present and expect that they can understand and react appropriately. It was incredibly obvious in this video that Brendan did not know what was going on; he thought at the end of the interrogation that he was going to be able to return to class. I also believe that police holding anyone for an extended period of time for interrogation without a warrant should not be legal. Dassey was being questioned for 4 hours. That's 4 hours, stuck in a small room with two police officers, likely little to no food or water, and nothing to do but be constantly badgered by police. What if Dassey had understood his right to silence and chosen not to speak to the police? How long would they have held him, waiting for him to crack? It's disgusting.
The way they chew up this young man who is obviously not capable of understanding the situation he is in is despicable. Then his testimony is used to smear Steven Avery on public radio and television with a horrific tale that no other evidence supports in any way. Neither Avery nor Dassey were ever considered innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. From the start they were treated as criminals, and the entire apparatus of the criminal justice system was going out of its way to smear them and make sure they ended up in prison. For me, I don't know or really care if either Dassey or Avery is innocent or guilty. What I care about is how criminal the entire system has shown itself to be. Every person involved in this case broke their own rules, their own laws, and nothing will come of it. Avery and Dassey have had their rights taken from them because the system wanted to take them away. No one else was even considered, and the investigation was obviously biased, yet two men sit in jail after being denied the rights that should be due to them as human beings.
This is the kind of governmental overreach that I find outrageous. I can't handle seeing people being violated in such a way with no consequences to those committing the real crimes. Think of this: if Avery is in fact innocent (and it's very possible he is), his life was taken away from him because the police, prosecutor, and judge wanted to.
Who's the real murderer?
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