Madison, Wisconsin — The Wisconsin Dept of Justice's commitment to defending the wrongful conviction of Steven Avery received a legal thrashing in the latest Avery court filing.
The once-exonerated Steven Avery was made internationally famous in the Emmy-winning documentary, Making a Murderer,
for his 2003 exoneration, and subsequent apparent retaliatory frame-up by crooked
Wisconsin law enforcement, resulting in his 2007 conviction for the
murder of Teresa Halbach in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
Avery's fight continues in a state coming to be synonymous with corruption in law enforcement.
In a spectacular development, a witness came forward in an affidavit in April 2021, and named Bobby Dassey and "an unidentified older male" as individuals whom witness Thomas Sowinski saw planting Ms. Halbach's dark-blue RAV-4 auto in the Avery auto salvage yard.
Put another way, a witness swears he saw the prosecution's primary witness planting the murder victim's vehicle on the property of the man convicted of first-degree homicide.
After Sowinski witnessed the planting of Ms Halbach's RAV-4, he reportedly phoned
the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office and was told by a female employee
that the Office "already knew who did it," the motion's affidavit reads.
The response of the Wisconsin DoJ to the affidavit was not to launch an investigation into criminal conduct of the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office and other Wisconsin law enforcement, though the record is rife with police and prosecutorial misconduct.
Rather, the DoJ, under the authority of Attorney General Joshua Kaul (D), penned a personally insulting legal fling claiming, in part, "The [Avery, April 12] motion on its face shows that it [witness's affidavit] was filed in violation of Wis. Stat. § 802.05(2), applicable here via Wis. Stat. (Rule) 809.84, because it was filed for an improper purpose and without a reasonable inquiry into its factual basis." (State Response to motion for remand, Introduction, p.2)
Attorney Zellner replied that the vetting of witness Thomas Sowinski included an extensive three-month examination, using expert investigators in a reply detailing the examination as being so thorough, it makes liars and fools of the DoJ.
The WorkwithKZ website — that translates legal filings for the general public because of the far-reaching implications of the Avery case — sums up Kathleen Zellner's filing as follows:
In a nutshell, Kathleen says the State is wrong about everything they said and she's insulted that they would accuse her of not researching the validity of a witness. She said their claims that she didn't conduct proper background research into this witness was based on an incorrect assumption they made and listed the ways she feels the state did just that in the initial trial (re: Bobby). She detailed the timeline of her contact with the witness, her research, and their conversations. She provided a copy of the email he [Sowinski] sent her in December, the email he sent to the Innocence Project in 2016 to support his claim that he tried to contact Avery's attorneys at that time, newspaper clippings showing the witness was an employee of the paper, and previously filed statements from Blaine Dassey and Kevin Rahmlow, which she says corroborate the claims this witness is making. She also included a text from this witness, which says he's not interested in the reward. In response to the state saying she didn't perform an open records request, she showed that when she requested this information previously, the response to her was that they didn't have it, so why would she ask again?So much for the State's assertion that Zellner did not conduct a reasonable inquiry into the factual basis of witness Thomas Sowinski's oft-repeated claims, ignored and effectively buried by the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office.
An examination of Zellner's legal filings appears to show that she laid a trap for the reckless and dishonest DoJ, knowing it could not resist a personal insult and a contentious statement of fact.
This DoJ development supplies a point of disagreement that militates for Avery and Zellner's requested remand to County Circuit court and an evidentiary hearing.
The DoJ has throughout this post-conviction litigation ignored its own misconduct that would lead a different attorney general committed to lawful operation of the DoJ to demand several probes to find out how and why rampant misconduct happens with such frequency in Wisconsin law enforcement.
Writes Zellner:
It is a supreme irony that in one of the most blatant examples of a wrongful conviction the State's only response is to falsely accuse Mr. Avery's lead counsel of nefarious conduct for discovering a 6th Brady violation. Rather than seeking justice, the State wants to 'slay the messenger' by putting forth more false allegations, a skill that it has mastered over the last 16 years. The State turns a blind eye towards its past actions of withholding exculpatory evidence. When the State disclosed a CD of violent porn from the Dassey-Janda computer 12 years after the CD was created and concealed from prior counsel, the State argued, as it does now, that Mr. Avery was attempting to add new material to his § 974.06 motion. (740.5). When the State facilitated the destruction in 2011 of evidence it had agreed to allow Mr. Avery to test, the State argued, as is it does now, that Mr. Avery was attempting to add new material to his § 974.06 motion. (See 770.2). This Court did not accept those disingenuous responses then, and it should reject the same disingenuous response now. (pp 1-2. Reply to State's Response, April 22, 2021)The community behind Steven Avery's second exoneration remains optimistic that complete vindication is near at hand.
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