I watched all 10 episo
des of the Netflix hit film “Making a Murderer” and this weekend I caught up with the NBC-TV “Dateline” report on the crime story phenomenon.
Anyone who knows me understands I despise television and avoid it like politicians in trouble evade pesky reporters. But this docudrama has been one of the most compelling I’ve seen in a long time.
The series and the “Dateline” segment confirmed my following suspicions:
- The whole truth really is very difficult to determine.
- We do not live in a society in which the accused is assumed to be innocent until proven guilty, it’s the other way around.
- Besides people of color, the poor and mentally challenged very rarely are treated fairly. Or, as attorney Clarence Darrow once observed, “Justice is like sugar or salt… the amount you get is regulated by the amount of money you have.”
(For those of you unfamiliar with Clarence Darrow, he was the Scopes Monkey Trial attorney played by Spencer Tracey in “Inherit the Wind.”)
Story synopsis: Steve Avery of Manitowoc, Wisc., was arrested wrongly for a rape and served 18 years, finally exonerated by DNA evidence linked to another man. After he was released, he filed a $36 million wrongful imprisonment lawsuit against the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department.
Not long after he was released, he was charged with the murder of photographer Theresa Hallback because he was believed to be the last person who saw her alive. She came to the Avery Salvage business to snap of a photo of a car.
The story afterward became very complicated and it widened to include Avery’s 16-year-old nephew, who came up with a harrowing story under police questioning. The teen said he encountered Hallback in Avery’s bedroom and helped kill her by slitting her throat, yet the prosecutor claimed she had been fatally shot in a garage.
There were more holes in the case against Avery and the teen than there were holes needed to fill Albert Hall. As the case unfolded, it became clear to me that Avery being poor and slow-witted contributed mightily to the notion that he must be guilty because he and his nephew are solid examples of white trash.
Furthermore, neither at first had the financial resources for a quality defense, like O.J. did. Yet the defense in both trials very easily proved reasonable doubt, perhaps making it necessary for hung jury or mistrial.
The juries in both cases seemed to rush to judgment against the poor and the stupid. When the trials were over, it appeared the teen had been coerced into a bogus confession and the investigation of Avery was bungled by allowing police officers being sued by him to help collect evidence.
The filmmakers who produced “Making a Murderer” have presented a very disturbing portrait of our criminal justice system we so often tout as the best in the world and the best in history. And Columbus was a great man who discovered the “New World.”
Virtually all of my experience in covering courtroom drama and crime has shown me the accused is assumed to be guilty by common everyday folks, by authorities and by media, who seem to believe that if the police arrest you, you must have done something wrong. And I’ve too often seen people who don’t have much money get talked into plea agreements in order to speed up the trial process.
I have a nagging fear that privatizing prisons has led to making them into pseudo-hotels that must be filled in order to make the owners profit.
None of the Wall Street crooks who gambled away the peoples’ money in 2008 went to prison. Except for Bernie Madoff, they were too rich to be jailed and their banks were too big to fail.
If anything, “Making a Murderer” confirmed my rock solid opposition to the death penalty. Because Avery got a life sentence, maybe someday he will be set free for a second time.
