Statement by Brendan Dassey’s attorney Laura Nirider from Northwestern Pritzker School of Law’s Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth “We will continue to fight to free Brendan Dassey. Brendan was a sixteen-year old with intellectual and social disabilities when he confessed to a crime he did not commit. The video of Brendan’s interrogation shows a confused boy who was manipulated by experienced police officers into accepting their story of how the murder of Teresa Halbach happened. These officers repeatedly assured him that everything would be ‘okay’ if he just told them what they wanted to hear and then fed him facts so that Brendan’s ‘confession’ fit their theory of the crime. By the en

The Supreme Court long has recognized that in enforcing constitutional rights it must pay attention to the fact that juveniles are different from adults and that a criminal suspect’s mental condition can make him susceptible to coercion by police interrogators. On Thursday the Supreme Court will consider whether to hear a case that raises both issues. It involves the appeal of Brendan Dassey, who claims that police took advantage of both his youth and his intellectual limitations to coerce him into confessing to helping his uncle, Steven Avery, kill and mutilate photographer Teresa Halbach in 2005. A jury in Wisconsin convicted Dassey of murder, sexual assault and mutilating a corpse. Dassey

Professor Steven Drizin & Laura Nirider discuss the case before the Supreme Court; Dassey v Dittman with Rabia O'Choudary.

"This is an unbelievably important case,” says Wilmer Hale's Seth Waxman, who wrote the petition on Brendan Dassey’s behalf. The petition had been on the justices' Thursday conference list but was later rescheduled. It is rare for a cert petition to include discs that will allow the justices to watch the video of a controversial criminal confession to police that is at the crux of the case before them. Rarer still is the fact that the confession has also been watched by millions of Netflix viewers in the 2015 “Making a Murderer” series. Thousands of viewers who found the confession to be coerced signed petitions to have the juvenile defendant set free. The high-profile case is Dassey v. Ditt

It was the crime story that gripped millions. Now the US Supreme Court will consider whether a 16-year-old was coerced into confessing. Two and a half years ago millions of Netflix viewers became obsessed with a documentary series called Making a Murderer, a dark and twisted true-crime story set in a small and impoverished rural American community, The television show revolved around two men accused of murder: Steven Avery and his 16-year-old nephew Brendan Dassey. Both were convicted in separate trials, of the killing of Teresa Halbach, a 25-year-old freelance photographer. In 2005 her charred remains were found in a fire pit in a scrapyard where Avery and his extended family lived in Manit

Any day now, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to weigh in on the case of Brendan Dassey, convicted “co-star” of the 2015 Netflix documentary "Making a Murderer." The court should review the case because it raises many troubling issues about coercive techniques used on a vulnerable teenager — a population the court has protected in the past. This is Dassey’s last chance. A federal judge overturned Dassey’s conviction in 2016, ruling that his confession was coerced. A three-judge panel later affirmed that ruling. This past December, however, by a 4-3 vote, the 7th Circuit reinstated his conviction. If the Supreme Court chooses not to hear the case, Dassey will remain incarcerated a

Editors Note: Marty Tankleff, J.D., was sentenced to prison for the murder of his parents before his conviction was overturned nearly 18 years later. He is now an Adjunct Professor of Government at Georgetown University and a Member of the New York State Task Force on Wrongful Convictions. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his. (CNN)- Being a teenager is tough. There's a promise of maturity in the offing, but you're not there yet -- which is why society restricts teenage driving, drinking and many other adult activities. Indeed, authorities ranging from leading psychologists to the Supreme Court have recognized that the adolescent brain is not yet developed enough to expect teens

Brendan Dassey in a Wisconsin courtroom in 2007. His lawyers say he was coaxed into making a false confession.CreditPool photo by Dan Powers WASHINGTON — In 2015, millions of people watched “Making a Murderer,” a Netflix documentary series about the murder prosecutions of two Wisconsin men. Opinions varied on the guilt of the program’s central figure, Steven Avery, who was convicted of killing Teresa Halbach, a 25-year-old photographer. But many people were made powerfully uneasy by the treatment of Mr. Avery’s nephew, Brendan Dassey, whose videotaped interrogation was among the most gripping parts of the series. Mr. Dassey, 16 at the time, was a study in pathos: hapless, lost, scared, painf

Netflix's 'Making a Murderer' got it right by showing how Brendan Dassey's confession should have never been admitted. The popular Netflix documentary Making a Murderer told a compelling story with several unexpected twists. One that particularly shocked and discomfited many Americans was seeing law enforcement professionals extract a false confessionfrom a 16-year-old boy with borderline intellectual disability. Brendan Dassey’s “confession,” which has become widely known as a textbook example of an involuntary confession, is now before the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices should review the case and reaffirm the importance of carefully evaluating confessions, especially when it involves our

Brendan Dassey, whose case was featured in “Making a Murderer,” is serving a life sentence that was entirely based on his confession, with no physical evidence linking him to the crime. Photograph by Eric Young / Herald Times Reporter / AP This month, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether to review the case of Brendan Dassey, the Wisconsin man who, as a teen-ager, confessed to the 2005 rape and murder of a young photographer named Teresa Halbach. Dassey’s videotaped confession to police, portions of which were included in the 2015 Netflix documentary “Making a Murderer,” bore so many hallmarks of coercion that, after the documentary aired, hundreds of thousands of viewers signed petitio

The US Supreme Court has long warned judges to be circumspect about accepting confessions from kids as evidence in criminal cases. They haven’t always listened and convictions based on involuntary admissions abound. The case of Brendan Dassey—featured in the 2015 Netflix documentary Making a Murderer—is an opportunity to change that, or so he argues in a petition for review (pdf) at the high court. Dassey is serving a life sentence for murder, rape, and corpse mutilation, crimes he admitted to when he was 16. He has an IQ of 70 and linguistic difficulties. In 2005, after a series of interviews with the police—who pulled him out of school to talk, and seemed to be feeding him answers until th

Brendan Dassey of “Making a Murderer” notoriety has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case, arguing his conviction and life sentence for murder betrays the cavalier manner with which most trial courts treat coerced confessions from juveniles and the intellectually challenged. Although the case comes in a procedural posture about which the justices are usually dubious, the pervasive problem Dassey’s petition reflects, the intense public interest attending his conviction and the formidable coalition of support he has assembled might compel the high court to intervene. Much of Washington D.C.’s legal establishment has leant assistance to Dassey’s petition. His lead attorney is Seth Wax