Former Manitowoc Co Sheriff's Deputy Targets Free Speech in Defamation Suit — Attempt to Shield Corruption

Manitowoc County Sheriff Dept Lt., Andrew Colborn, (Ret),
was implicated in misconduct in the second Steven Avery
frame-up, becoming a major disgraced public figure, as
documented in Making a Murderer, and Wrecking Crew,
Demolishing The Case Against Steven Avery, (Ferak).

Wisconsin Cops View with Suspicion and Hostility Public Criticism

Update: In July 2019, U.S. District Judge Pamela Pepper published a NOTICE of Hearing on pending motions set for December 19, 2019.

It appears likely Judge Pepper will dismiss Colborn's legal action, Colborn v. Netflix, Inc (1:19-cv-00484).

Just as likely, Colborn will appeal the case to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
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Madison, Wisconsin — The very liberties that animated the formation of our United States are under attack by those who betray and would destroy the great experiment of Constitutional democracy to hide malicious conduct in public office at local, provincial jurisdictions — Wisconsin cops and prosecutors.

A retired Manitowoc County Sheriff Dept Lt., Andrew Colborn, who helped frame Steven Avery is soaking up his tax-payer-financed pension after committing the moral equivalent of murder in his public conduct and performance of public duties, as documented in Making a Murderer, (Seasons One and Two) and the public criminal trial of innocents and post-conviction litigation, Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey.

There is not a statute indicating a specific crime for cops framing innocents like Avery and Dassey in the Wisconsin Criminal Code. There should be; the broad immunity cops enjoy is indecent.

Misconduct in public office and obstruction statutes often fall woefully short in implicating crooked cops and prosecutors. That's because the criminal justice system is wired, rigged, for cops and prosecutors to lie, cheat, and even kill the accused, or the deemed-unworthy and expendable.

But Andrew Colborn has just entered a realm with which he is both ignorant and hostile: First Amendment-protected speech, and privileged speech in libel law.

Colborn and his rightwing attorney, Michael C. Griesbach, have filed a defamation suit against against the Making a Murderer producers, Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos, and Netflix in Manitowoc County Wisconsin Circuit Court, (Andrew L. Colborn v. Netflix Inc., Chrome Media LLC, Laura Ricciardi, Moira Demos, Lisa Nishimura, Adam Del Deo, Mary Manhardt, and Synthesis Film LLC). [Summons and Complaint text is here.]

Colborn, who retired in 2018, has taken a public posture in defending his Department's conduct since at least 2016 when Colborn sent a rambling communication through his Sheriff Dept's email account to USA TODAY Network-Wisconsin, (Dirr, USA Today, Jan, 2016; Sitzer, InTouch Weekly, Aug 2016).

Now, Colborn has retained a former Manitowoc County prosecutor, now in private practice, to file his defamation suit. [Summons and Complaint text is here.]

According to Colborn's novel theory of libel law underlying his complaint, any public official performing his public duties, criticized at a public trial, now enjoys a basis for a civil action if journalistic and political speech criticizing the official's public conduct does not comport with a cop's, for instance, self-serving portrayal of his public performance.

Steven Avery's attorney, Kathleen Zellner, like every other civil libertarian following the Avery case, does not hide her joy in Colborn's bumbling legal and public relations miscue.

From Rolling Stone:

'We are thrilled that Colborn filed this lawsuit [because] he will have to testify under oath about all of the issues that have swirled around him for years. Everything about the first wrongful conviction will be exhaustively explored as well. From having observed the meticulous, painstaking, uncompromisingly ethical work of Ricciardi and Demos for 2.5 years they have to be amused but not in the least threatened by this frivolous lawsuit. For us it is an early Christmas present.' ...

'The basic theme of the complaint is flawed,' Zellner, who is not named in the suit, tells Rolling Stone. '[Colborn] is going to have to show that, but for these few edits, the world would have viewed Sgt. Colborn differently. … If the public wanted an un-edited version it could order the trial transcripts. Filmmaking is not stenography.'

Colborn has one hell of a career to answer for under oath. Read Wrecking Crew, Demolishing The Case Against Steven Avery, (Ferak).

Maybe Donald Trump will chime in on the case to further Trump's view of sorts of American libel law.

American liberty is imperiled if Colborn's civil complaint were to succeed. Criticisms of municipal and county police conduct would be chilled, and the secrecy and power of the police and prosecutor over the citizenry would morph.

"History abundantly documents the tendency of Government -- however benevolent and benign its motive -- to view with suspicion those who most fervently dispute its policies," wrote Justice Powell for an unanimous United States Supreme Court striking down the Nixon administration's attempt to goad the Court to write out of existence Fourth Amendment and by implication in this case, First Amendment liberties, because administration ideologues hated the criticisms of the Peace Movement, the Civil Rights movements and burgeoning citizen movements of the 1960s-70s, (United States v. United States District Court (No. 70-153)). "[P]rivate dissent, no less than open public discourse, is essential to our free society."

That's true even if the object of criticism and ridicule are corrupt cops like Colborn.

Making a Murderer focused worldwide attention on the police-prosecutor-prison complex in east-central Wisconsin.

Will corrupt Wisconsin cops and allies use Colborn v. Netflix Inc to try to radically change the First Amendment?

Why wouldn't they? Attorney Kathleen Zellner is closing in, and in no other state than Wisconsin would a new trial already not have been ordered by the state judiciary.

Make no mistake, Colborn and his band of miscreants whether living on pensions or still working for Manitowoc County would take a defamation case and try to axe the First Amendment with every bit of enthusiasm they wielded in the crucifixions of Steven Avery, Brendan Dassey and other innocents unfortunate enough to reside in Manitowoc County.