Avery Prosecutor Releases Video Showing Police Surveillance of Protected Attorney-Client Meeting

Steven Avery and attorney Jerome Buting are shown in an
apparently illegally produced surveillance video at the
Calumet County Jail that shows a criminal defendant
meeting with his attorney in a confidential conference.

Updated - See Related to Avery Monitoring/Video Recordings of Avery Meetings with Counsel at Calumet County Jail.

Madison, Wisconsin — Advocates working for the exoneration of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey are criticizing former Calumet County District Attorney (R) Ken Kratz for his possession of and Oct. 25 release of a video that appears to show illegal police surveillance of Avery meeting with his attorney in the Calumet County Jail on an unknown date believed to be between 2005 and 2007.

Kratz is now a private citizen. Kratz can no longer practice law in Wisconsin because his law license remains suspended following his sexual assault and harassment scandal that forced his resignation in 2010.

The YouTube video is posted by Kratz as part of a series of videos to promote an update to his book that was published in 2017.

In the bizarre video entitled "Sacrificial Lamb," Kratz appears to advocate for Brendan Dassey despite the fact Kratz prosecuted Dassey for the 2005 homicide of Teresa Halbach. Legal observers and human rights advocates regard the Dassey prosecution and conviction as a miscarriage of justice.

Law enforcement surveillance of the attorney-client meeting in the video begins at the five-minute, two-second mark. The law enforcement camera looks over the shoulders of attorney Buting.

The confidentiality of the attorney-client relationship is a hallmark of the American criminal justice system and of the American legal profession, (Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute).

Wrote Buting on social media on a pined (featured) Tweet on Oct 26:

This is first I have seen of surveillance video during atty-client jail mtg with SA. This was confidential mtg room reserved for attys, no camera was visible & no notice that we were being recorded. Thanks @Ken723Ken for deciding to #workwithKZ by releasing this. 🤗 @ZellnerLaw https://t.co/TiMMpOYJJQ

— Jerome Buting (@JButing) October 26, 2019

Buting's Tweet makes the point that Kratz inadvertently revealed more law enforcement misconduct in the video that could work in Avery's favor as he pursues post-conviction litigation.

Writes Buting in a follow-up:

@Ken723Ken disclosure on Friday that Calumet Jail secretly videoed SA’s atty-client mtgs is yet another explosive revelation in this case. Camera was pointed so SA’s lips could be easily read. All should be shocked at these unconstitutional tactics. #MakingAMurderer @ZellnerLaw

— Jerome Buting (@JButing) October 26, 2019

Questions raised by Kratz' video include:

How did Ken Kratz come in possession of this law enforcement video when he is now a private citizen?

How closely is Kratz still working with Wisconsin law enforcement?

Was the Avery legal team made aware of the existence of the surveillance video?

Observers believe the existence of the surveillance video may provide more grounds for appeal in Steven Avery's post-conviction litigation.

The Wisconsin Dept of Justice is currently defending the misconduct by law enforcement in the Avery case.

The case is State of Wisconsin v. Steven A. Avery, Appeal Number 2017AP002288.

For updated legal filing and explanations, see Work with KZ.

Wisconsin Wrongful Conviction Case Is Beyond Absurd; Ralliers Call for Evidence Examination and Trial

Drawing: Kathe Kollwitz, (1867-1945). Kollwitz is a major
anti-fascist artist who lived in Germany, and never recovered
from the death of her young son killed in World War I.

Madison, Wisconsin — Wisconsin law enforcement's framing of Steven Avery, and the ludicrous false confession imposed upon the cognitively challenged juvenile Brendan Dassey suffering from a language disorder is the work of humans — Mark Wiegert, (now sheriff of the Calumet County Sheriff's Office), and Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation investigator (ret)).

Both Avery and Dassey were framed, unjustly charged, unjustly prosecuted and unjustly convicted of murder in two different trials where two mutually exclusive tales of the murder were presented to the juries. [See WorkwithKZ for updated legal filings.]

God is not responsible. There was no rule of law. This injustice is the unlawful work of corrupt cops with a frightening capacity to prey on children. Read Michele LaVigne and Sally U. Miles' paper, Under the Hood: Brendan Dassey, Language Impairments, and Judicial Ignorance, and consider how Wiegert, Fassbender, and in a different capacity, one Judge David F. Hamilton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, can live with themselves.
 
Law enforcement is carried out by individuals for whom empirical rigor, rules of logic, social justice, civil liberties, human rights and intellectual honesty are seen as either barriers to overcome or academic pursuits irrelevant to their jobs.

Perverse will without the rule of law guided events leading to Avery and Dassey's conviction, and now the quest for freedom and exoneration.

The men and women of the Manitowoc County Sheriff Office, the Calumet County Sheriff Office, district attorneys, corrupt judges worked to convict innocent men, with no public dissent from cops.

The Wisconsin Dept of Justice led by Attorney General Joshua Kaul (D) has enlisted the help of corrupt prosecutors Mark Williams, Asst Attorney General and Special Prosecutor Thomas J. Fallon and Special Prosecutor Norman Gahn to keep Avery in prison, and to protect Wisconsin law enforcement.

"Despotism is a plan alone, without law and without rule, leading all its will and caprices," wrote  Montesquieu. Montesquieu's characterization of tyranny presages sex offender and prosecuting trial attorney Ken Kratz, Kratz' legal champion Joshua Kaul, Williams, Fallon and Gahn.

This weekend advocates for Dassey and Avery vowed to see Avery and Dassey exonerated. Only a fool would underestimate their determination.

From Kathleen Zellner, Avery's post-conviction attorney:

Steven's loyal supporters will never give up. We HEAR you and it gives us the strength and courage to fight on. #TruthWins #Makingamurderer #Onward pic.twitter.com/sCCoXyQKC0

— Kathleen Zellner (@ZellnerLaw) June 16, 2019

The Avery and Dassey injustices would not occur everywhere in Wisconsin. Not in Dane County today, for example. [Note in 1994-95, some of the major elements and dynamics in police misconduct were used to arrest, charge and convict an innocent woman, Penny Brummer, in Dane County though in Ms. Brummer's case she drew the attention of law enforcement because she is an out lesbian, hence suspicious in the minds of late 20th century law enforcement. Brummer remains in prison.]

But it remains convenient, good for a career in law enforcement, to frame innocent people in many jurisdictions in Wisconsin.

Writes John Ferak in the book, Wrecking Crew, Demolishing The Case Against Steven Avery (Wild Blue Press):

Being a sheriff's deputy in a small town means something. It means clout. It makes you somebody. You are given enormous power to mess with somebody's civil rights and freedoms. Want to harass somebody? Want to make somebody's life miserable? Want to intimidate someone? Want to rough someone up? Most cops who operate on the dark side of the law know what they can get away with. (Page 75. Chapter Nine, Shady Department)

Stay tuned. Steven Avery, Brendan Dassey, attorney Kathleen Zellner and millions of supporters worldwide are not going anywhere.

See WorkwithKZ for updated legal filings.

Innocent in Wisconsin — Advocates Fight for Wrongfully Convicted

The violence and malice of Wisconsin law enforcement
takes a toll on advocates working to free the innocent.
Many take solace from art, music and religion.
"I've done my sentence, but committed no crime" is
a lyric from Queen's We Are the Champions.

"It is too easy to convict an innocent person." — John Grisham, (Chicago Tribune)

Madison, Wisconsin — This afternoon at 5:00 p.m. (central time) advocates for two wrongfully convicted men will be out on social media (#WakeUpWisconsin and #NudgeTheJudge) in an ongoing effort to draw press attention to Wisconsin law enforcement  misconduct and one corrupt member of the judiciary, Sheboygan County Judge Angela W. Sutkiewicz.

The advocates work world-wide for the exoneration of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey, featured in the Making a Murderer docu-series.

Historically, American law enforcement is the preferred means to thwart citizen action and disfavored social movements.

In Wisconsin, the focus of police remains on black and brown people, but across the state, the increasingly wanton and capricious nature of policing imperils virtually anyone caught at the wrong time at the wrong place.

Citizen advocates, working to reveal police misconduct in the Steven Avery and Dassey cases, have uncovered numerous instances of misconduct.

Advocates just revealed another crime, felony perjury.

Two demonstrably corrupt members of Wisconsin law enforcement — Special Agent Thomas Fassbender of the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation and Manitowoc Lt. Detective James Lenk (ret) — are filmed together during the litigation of the civil right suit brought by Steven Avery that induced corrupt law enforcement to frame Avery for the murder of Teresa Halbach.

Lenk, now living on his police pension in a golf course community in Green Valley, south of Tucson, Arizona, is widely acknowledged to have planted key evidence framing Steven Avery (Appleton Post-Crescent).

Lie for the police force; stay with the program; get out and live on your pension. It's what many cops do.

Another fact coming to light to light reveals Fassbender lying under oath, (committing criminal perjury), about ever knowing Lenk.

Now that I know the names and faces. I can see things more clearly.

Like season 1, episode 1 at 49:24 in, when Fassbender is walking down the Manitowoc courthouse steps with Lenk..prior to Avery filing his lawsuit.

Then claiming under oath he doesn't know him?#DOJfromthestart pic.twitter.com/PHm8nkCGaw

— TickTockManitowoc (@TManitowoc) March 8, 2019

A reckoning is coming against Wisconsin law enforcement; it just doesn't seem that way.

End of the road for Gage County, Nebraska taxpayers, who owe Beatrice 6 wrongly convicted defendants $28 million. Manitowoc County taxpayers will owe much more than that to SA & BD, increasing each day.#meterisrunning@ZellnerLaw #MakingAMurderer https://t.co/vy1OgHWAiH

— Jerome Buting (@JButing) March 6, 2019

So let's add to the tally of suspicion...DOJ should answer some questions.

* Fassbender filmed in Manitowoc with Lenk at the time Avery files lawsuit
* Willeford on Avery's property 10 months prior, acting as AT employee
* Strauss calls before evidence found to offer to help.

— TickTockManitowoc (@TManitowoc) March 8, 2019

Attorneys Laura Nirider and Kathleen Zellner are depicted above.

New Motion in Making a Murderer Case Implicates Wisconsin Law Enforcement

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).
Numerous other Wisconsin law enforcement officials
have been implicated in criminal misconduct, uncharged
but not forgotten.

Framing innocents and conviction protection define Wisconsin 

Madison, Wisconsin — What do you call it when the police and prosecutors break the law to frame a man whom they know to be innocent?

Wisconsin, a state in which a disgraced ex-district attorney and sexual harasser Ken Kratz (who can longer practice law in Wisconsin) and his wife carry the public relations fight for wrongful convictions.

The Kratz are human garbage. After former attorney general Peg Lautenschlager passed away last year, Leah Kratz made jokes about her death on Twitter. The Kratz also support Donald Trump and assorted rightwing causes.

Manitowoc County is not Milwaukee, so Manty Co police do not kick the shit of a prone man for a traffic stop with the knowledge Mayor Tom Barrett is ready to support police misconduct, including murder, mayhem and beating a handcuffed man into convulsions and fracturing his face.

But Manitowoc and Calumet counties are cesspools of police corruption.

Police misconduct in Wisconsin's legal and political culture is like cold in Winter — it's the way it is, and human rights and social justice work are not going to change the cops or the weather, it is widely believed.

A motion filed Jan 24, 2019 by attorney Kathleen Zellner —  who represents the wrongfully convicted Steven Avery featured in the Making a Murderer docuseries —  seeks post-conviction relief because the Calumet County Sheriff's Office secretly and knowingly transferred evidence of a murder victim, Teresa Halbach, to private custody in 2011, in violation of state statutes that govern preservation of physical evidence collected, subject to criminal investigations.

Plot, evade, hide and deny everything is the motto of Wisconsin law enforcement, and Zellner's client, Avery, is another victim.

The new Avery motion was made in the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, District Two as part of a post-conviction strategy demonstrating violations of Avery 's Constitutional rights by multiple jurisdictions of Wisconsin law enforcement.

The post-conviction news draws national headlines.

From Kelly Wynne in Newsweek:

Bones that could have been tested for DNA in the case of Steven Avery have been returned to Teresa Halbach’s family, though it’s unclear if the bones were hers. Wrongful convictions attorney Kathleen Zellner filed a motion to have the bones tested in December, but that motion was quickly denied.

Zellner filed a second motion Thursday, which asserts the state violated Avery’s 14th amendment rights by denying DNA testing and failing to inform Avery’s prior legal council that the bones would be returned to Halbach’s family. The motion argues this amounts to an attempt by the state to 'destroy evidence' in the case.

The motion claims the bones were returned to the Halbach family in September 2011 at the Wieting Funeral Home by the Calumet County Sheriffs Department. 

As seen on Making A Murderer, the bones in question were found in the Manitawoc gravel pit, off of the Avery property. Much of Avery’s conviction was based on forensic evidence found on his property, according to the motion. Zellner explained if Halbach's bones were found in another location, it would negate the state’s arguments about how and where Halbach was killed, possibly clearing Avery’s name. The bones have never been tested for DNA.

The decision to give the bones to the Halbach family is in violation of Wisconsin’s 'preservation statute,' Zellner told Newsweek.

'We are very curious to hear the State’s explanation for violating the Wisconsin preservation statute,' she said. 'No notice was given to Avery or his attorneys at the time. The State claimed at trial there was no evidence the quarry bones were human, so why were they given back to the Halbachs? Giving the bones to the Halbachs confirms the State’s belief that not only were they human—they belonged to Teresa Halbach. The State cannot have it both ways. The destruction of material evidence is a serious constitutional violation.' 

The trial of Avery was a feast of lies and perjury committed by cops.

The Appleton Post-Crescent reports:

The attorneys argued that the appeal should be temporarily halted so the case can be sent back to the circuit court to determine if Avery's due process rights were violated. The motion came a little more than a week before a deadline for Avery's attorneys to file a brief before the Wisconsin Court of Appeals.

A spokesperson with the Wisconsin Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to Avery's attorneys, the state violated the law by failing to preserve certain suspected human bone evidence and failing to notify Avery and his attorneys of the state's intent to destroy it.

At trial, the state told the jury that all of the incriminating forensic evidence was in close proximity to Mr. Avery's residence and that bones found in his burn pit were the most important evidence against Avery, they wrote in the motion.

Jerome Buting, one of Avery's defense attorneys at trial, countered that bones found in the nearby Manitowoc County gravel pit were also important, but were glossed over by then-Calumet County District Attorney Ken Kratz because they didn't fit with the state's theory of Avery's guilt.

Kratz dismissed defense attorneys' claim that those bones were human, saying it had not been scientifically verified, Zellner and Richards wrote in their motion.

However, by giving the bones back to Halbach's family, the state implicitly admitted that they were human and belong to Halbach, they wrote.

The identification of the Manitowoc County Gravel Pit bone fragments as Ms. Halbach's is material because it is apparently exculpatory and potentially useful in proving the murder and mutilation did not occur in a location tied exclusively to Mr. Avery, Zellner and Richards wrote. No reasonable trier of fact could conclude that, if Mr. Avery murdered and mutilated Ms. Halbach in the Manitowoc County Gravel Pit, he would move her bones from the gravel pit to his own burn pit and thereby incriminate himself.

If this latest motion were filed before an unbiased and rational state appellate court, this would be an explosive development shaking the foundations of Wisconsin law enforcement.

In Wisconsin, however, the judiciary is corrupt and acts as little more than a shield for corrupt public officials in law enforcement in criminal law cases.

Reads Avery's motion in part, (with some links added):

STATE OF WISCONSIN, Plaintiff-Respondent, STEVEN A. AVERY, SR., Defendant-Appellant.

DEFENDANT-APPELLANT'S MOTION TO STAY APPEAL AND REMAND THE CAUSE FOR PROCEEDINGS ON CLAIMS FOR RELIEF IN CONNECTION WITH THE STATE'S VIOLATION OF WIS. STAT. § 968.205 AND YOUNGBLOOD V. ARIZONA

Defendant-Appellant, Steven A. Avery, Sr., ("Mr. Avery'') by his undersigned attorneys, Kathleen T. Zellner and Steven G. Richards, moves this Court to stay this appeal and remand the cause for a hearing on a claim for re ... [links added]

Supporters across the world look to Wisconsin with appropriate disgust.

Funny thing is, we're talking about bones the Halbach's received..like that's the worst part of it.

The worst part is the state WILLINGLY withheld this information from Avery's public defenders during appeals. Same as if they had hid GA pubic hair from 1985 and got caught later.

— TickTockManitowoc (@TManitowoc) January 26, 2019

'Making A Murderer': New motion claims bones denied DNA testing are in possession of the Halbach family https://t.co/7dD5D17ne2

— Kathleen Zellner (@ZellnerLaw) January 25, 2019

KZ's motion has given the state nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. They have to answer the important questions now, and naming the people she wants to cross examine is even sweeter. Especially with new current sheriff Wiegert listed. I almost DARE the court to try to deny this one.

— TickTockManitowoc (@TManitowoc) January 26, 2019

The jury heard that the quarry bones were not TH and likely not human so they weren’t part of the story to the jury, yet they give the family these bones back, & fail to alert the defense attorneys under active appeals. They HID fact they were a part of the story!!

— 7 pairs-of-panties (@7pairsofpanties) January 25, 2019

The Constitutional violations are blatant; stay tuned.

To paraphrase Archibald Cox: Whether we shall continue to be a state of laws is now for ultimately the Wisconsin people to decide.

This would be easier if a handful of Wisconsin jurists acted in good faith.

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.
---
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.

Former Steven Avery Counsel Urges Open Discovery Process in Manitowoc Co's Deputy Sheriff's Defamation Suit

Corrupt Manitowoc County officials like Deputy Sheriff
Andrew Colborn are portrayed in Making a Murderer (1,2)
as a bumbling, dishonest and corrupt pieces of human
filth, as indicated in criminal legal filings. Colborn has
filed a civil suit, Colborn v. Netflix, Inc, et al

Madison, Wisconsin — Corrupt Manitowoc County officials like Deputy Sheriff Andrew Colborn are nervous.

They have cause to be desperate as attorney Kathleen Zellner closes in on not only exonerating her client, Steven Avery (and by logic Brendan Dassey), but also in a spectacle not seen in this medium, the docu-series: Implicating corrupt, crooked law enforcement in real time.

But desperate people like Colborn make mistakes, and Manitowoc County's Colborn just made a huge mistake: Colborn filed a defamation suit 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).

To game out a likely scenario: Even in corrupt Manitowoc County: Colborn's suit will be tossed with attorneys' fees paid to defendants.

However, if Colborn v. Netflix, Inc, et al survives a motion to dismiss, then Colborn's case can be used as a vehicle to gather information, sworn testimony, massive discovery of evidence of the Avery frame-up, as Zellner continues her post-conviction defense of Avery.

Deputy Andrew Colborn: Corrupt, malicious and stupid is no way to through life.

From Steven Avery's former co-counsel, Jerome Buting, featured in Making a Murderer:

Hope suit survives motion to dismiss & goes to wide open civil discovery. @MCGriesbach please do depos of AC & KK on #payperview Millions will watch. Definitely won’t repair any Manitowoc Co reputations, but will help retire taxpayers debt from SA’s coming suit.#makingamurderer https://t.co/tUYylYDT7G

— Jerome Buting (@JButing) December 18, 2018

Wrongful Conviction—Missourian David Robinson Walks Free

From left, Jennett McCaster, David Robinson and Pat Jackson
embrace after Robinson's release from the Jefferson City
Correctional facility May 14 in Jefferson City, Missouri.
Photo: Kassi Jackson, Southeast Missourian

"David Robinson walked away a free man Monday night, after nearly 18 years of being incarcerated for a murder he did not commit," writes Bob Miller in the Southeast Missourian.

David Robinson is another victim of police-prosecutor-prison state America. Innocence doesn't matter in a system that is simultaneously mindless and malicious.

Without the work of the Southeast Missourian newspaper bringing this injustice to the attention of the state, Robinson likely would remain in prison for life for a crime he did not commit.

From the AP:

Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley reviewed a judge’s ruling in February that found a police detective was 'lacking in candor or competence, or both.' That detective’s investigation helped send Robinson to prison for life in the fatal shooting of Sheila Box in Sikeston in 2001. The detective has resigned.

Hawley also evaluated the evidence available for a retrial. Since Robinson’s sentencing, another man has confessed to killing Box and two witnesses have recanted.

So, we have a system of dishonest cops, dishonest prosecutors, indecent Dept of Corrections bureaucrats in a country of by-standers. The deliverables are obscene.

The local Missouri paper freed this man against every crooked cop, prosecutor and prison bureaucrat for whom taking a human life is a game.

Would you help imprison a man you knew to be innocent? Most people would not, but the fact is we say nothing about those who perpetrate such crimes on routine basis in Missouri, Wisconsin, every state where cruel injustice and lies are objectives.

On May 5, 2018, the Southeast Missourian writes in its lead editorial after the Missouri Supreme Court "ruled that Robinson's constitutional rights had been violated when police and the state prosecution, led at the time by the Missouri Attorney General's Office, unfairly procured and presented testimony they knew to be false.":

Scott County Prosecutor Paul Boyd on Thursday said effectively that Robinson was not exonerated, because the state could continue to hold him and try him again without violating double jeopardy. While technically correct, the Supreme Court has in effect declared Robinson innocent and will now require the state to prove his guilt. With the court's approval of his habeas claim, Robinson no longer has to prove his innocence. Meanwhile, the evidence of the stunningly unjust way the Sikeston Department of Public Safety and the prosecution treated Robinson is there for everyone to see in court documents and this newspaper's extensive reporting on the case. Perhaps some introspection of how the county dispenses justice is in order, or even some contrition toward Robinson and his family are more prudent now than the parsing of the definition of the word exoneration. Maybe it's time for leadership in the county or the city of Sikeston to acknowledge the injustice that has been done. For now, the city of Sikeston has asked for a federal investigation into its past police practices regarding this case, only stating that it respects the Supreme Court's decision. As if it could do anything but.

Robinson's case is a reminder the role our police and prosecutors play in upholding our constitutional principles, and the importance of an impartial appeals system.

It also highlights the importance of attorneys who care about truth and justice. The Bryan Cave Law firm took on Robinson's case pro bono. Congratulations to them for carrying Robinson's torch.

Meanwhile, the Missouri Attorney General's Office has defended the jury's conviction at every turn, perhaps as expected. An exoneration shouldn't come easily, because a jury's decision is essential to our justice system. But it seems like a system that uses our tax dollars to defend a bad conviction for the sake of doing so is not a healthy system.

Judge Darrell Missey, in his scathing review of the handling of this case, quoted a previous ruling, Strickler v Greene, in his report to the Missouri Supreme Court:

"A prosecutor must seek truth rather than victory, 'because the prosecutor is considered the representative of not an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done.'"

We couldn't agree more. It's time for the State of Missouri to let Robinson go.

Will anything change in Missouri's 'justice' system? No.

How about around the country where wrongful convictions abound from the same brand of sub-human cops, prosecutors and bureaucrats? No.

We live in a country where state-committed injustice is every bit as unchallenged as in Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran, pick a monarchy or theocracy.

In Wisconsin, we have innocents Penny Brummer, Branden Dassey, Steven Avery for starters who remain in prison.

You can be sure there are many more. Every jurisdiction needs a Conviction Integrity Unit or a human governor to commute and pardon as in the Penny Brummer, Branden Dassey, and Steven Avery cases.

So WI Department of "Justice" doesn't care about justice in Brendan's case. They want him to rot in prison because they can't admit they went after innocent 16 yr old boy to convict his uncle.#makingamurderer#cjreform https://t.co/hLxeFy3MfC

— Jerome Buting (@JButing) May 10, 2018

Wrongful Confession Dassey Case Goes to Oral Argument This Morning Before Full Fed Court

Oral argument this morning in 16-3397; Brendan Dassey v. Michael Dittmann

Oral argument before the full, (en banc) United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, will be held this morning on the coerced confession of Brendan Dassey of Wisconsin, featured in Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos' documentary series, Making a Murderer (on Netflix), (16-3397; Brendan Dassey v. Michael Dittmann).

The coercive questioning, dubious confession by the young and cognitively challenged Dassey, arrest and conviction of Dassey shows the Wisconsin criminal justice system as a vicious leviathan run by liars, criminals and jackals, and the Wisconsin Dept of Justice officials who will go to any lengths to protect the conviction of innocents.

The Wisconsin Dept of Justice en banc petition was granted by the federal appellate court on August 4.  

A named litigant in (16-3397; Brendan Dassey v. Michael Dittmann) is Michael A. Dittmann, the warden at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin.

Dassey's outrageous conviction was overturned in federal court by U.S. Magistrate Judge William Duffin on Aug. 12, 2016. But Dassey remains in prison while the Republican-dominated Wisconsin DoJ continues its work to protect Dassey's conviction for the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach, (Thompson, USA Today, Wisconsin).

A definitive ruling would expose the Wisconsin criminal justice system to widespread ridicule. The case is expected to be appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

Protest in Manty Co. Friday, New Trial for Avery-Dassey Demanded

Manitowoc County in east-central Wisconsin
(blackened in image) is located deep in Republican
territory, a region notorious for corrupt police
and law enforcement. 'Where did all that cocaine
from the evidence room go?' National reporters should ask
sources surrounding Manitowoc County about an
array of open secrets not flattering to police. Local
Wisconsin journalists certainly will not.

WBAY-TV (Green Bay) reports protest groups will gather in Manitowoc Friday, Jan 29 at 10:00 a.m (Central) at the Manitowoc County Courthouse, (Schuster, WBAY-TV).

They want a new trial for Steven Avery and Brenden Dassey, and a federal investigation, (few trust the Wisconsin Republican Party's Dept. of Justice).

The American criminal justice system is coming under renewed and sustained criticism for corruption and its convictions-at-all-costs mentality across the nation.

Most prosecutors see their position as a stepping stone for legal careers. Wisconsin is among the worst.

Among the groups expected are groups organized through Facebook, Justice for Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey and the Steven Avery Project.

Other press reports note hotel rooms are filling up in Manitowoc County, and many protesters are flying in from out-of-state.

Manitowoc County is located in east-central Wisconsin, not northeastern Wisconsin.

The region—including Sheboygan, Fond du Lac, Manitowoc, Calumet, Winnebago, Outagamie, Kewaukee and Brown counties—is appallingly racist, white, corrupt and Republican. See also the stories on the openly corrupt Vince Biskupic, former Outagamie County district attorney appointed to a judgeship by Scott Walker.

Misconduct in Manitowoc: Police Induced False Confession, Say Expert and Attorney

Manitowoc County in east-central Wisconsin
(blackened in image) is located deep in Republican
territory, a region notorious for corrupt police
and law enforcement. 'Where did all that cocaine
from the evidence room go?' National reporters should ask
sources surrounding Manitowoc County about an
array of open secrets not flattering to police. Local
Wisconsin journalists certainly will not.

Updated - In Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos' documentary series, Making a Murderer (on Netflix), the cast of uncharged criminals wear a badge or have sworn an oath. They all work for law enforcement.

The prosecution's most damning witness, Brendan Dassey, had an IQ below 70 and was 16-years-old.

Police investigators played Dassey's condition to the hilt, working with a corrupt Manitowoc County Sheriff Dept. and District Attorney's office to wrongfully convict two innocents, Dassey and Steven Avery, featured in the film series.

After [Brendan Dassey] confessed to helping his uncle rape and kill the photographer, [Brendan] Dassey asked police if he could go back to school to make his 1:30 class; amid a similar admission, [another innocent cognitively challenged Clarence] Burcham asked if he could go on a family camping trip.

'To me, that's pretty clear evidence that they don't really understand what's going on here,' [Lawrence White, a psychology professor at Beloit College in Wisconsin,] said. The men maybe thought, "I'm not going to go to prison for this, because I'm innocent. It'll all get straightened out." And they're very naive to think that.' (Lyden, InForum)

That law enforcement investigators induce false confessions (and lie about confessions) comes as no surprise to retired public defender, Reesa Evans.

Ms. Evans is a retired attorney who in 1999 referred Avery to the Midwest Innocence Project (MIP) just after the University of Wisconsin-Madison established an Innocence Project chapter in 1998.

Ms. Evans had been appointed by the Court to represent Avery in 1985. MIP Legal Director Tricia Bushnell is now assisting as local Wisconsin counsel for Steven Avery.

In December 1985, Steven Avery was convicted of a vicious rape, prosecuted by many of the same unsavory bunch of Manitowoc County officials who evidence shows later framed Avery for the murder of Teresa Halbach, as asserted in the 2005-06 trial, after Avery was exonerated and after he served 18 years in prison.

Freed in 2003, Avery filed a $36 million federal civil suit against Manitowoc County, naming several law enforcement officials as defendants.

The law enforcement officials exacted their revenge on Avery.

In an exclusive interview, Avery's 1985 attorney, Reesa Evans, says "bad faith" and systemic breakdowns in law enforcement in the criminal justice system lead her to the conclusion that part of the oath of office prosecutors take is often ignored, the commitment to see justice done.

Evans said also she is sympathetic to Brendan Dassey's false confession.

"It's difficult to understand false confessions. They happen more than people realize. Unless you have been through it, you do not realize the pressures involved," said Evans. "Interrogations involve an isolated situation with multiple cops, you can understand people would start feeling guilty when they are innocent. Investigators lie, they often will say, 'tell us this, and you can go home,' right before making an arrest."

Evans was invited last year to the premier of Making a Murderer in New York. She made the trip, viewed the first two episodes and said the series is "amazing."

Still, Evans found the series upsetting. "It was very difficult and most of all emotionally upsetting. All the feelings of powerlessness and frustration, [Dassey and Avery] went through," Evans said.

Evans is living in central Wisconsin. She did an interview with Newsweek, but said she is declining future interview requests about the documentary series.

"Laura and Moira interviewed me for about 15 hours. It's an amazing accomplishment. The series is looking at the flawed criminal justice system, as much as this particular case," said Evans.

In the 1985 case in which Avery was proven innocent, Evans notes likely prosecutorial misconduct, specifically possible Brady violations, the duty of the prosecution to disclose materially exculpatory evidence in the government's possession to the defense.

"There were possible exculpatory house-to-house results of police interviews that were not disclosed before [the 1985 trial and conviction of Avery for which he exonerated after serving 18 years]," said Evans.

In the second 2005-06 case against Avery in which Evans was not involved, Evans said she had not ever heard of a "preventative detention" and other misconduct to which Avery was subjected after he filed his civil suit.

Notes John Ferak in the Appleton Post Crescent:

Manitowoc County Sheriff's Lt. James Lenk and Sgt. Andrew Colborn were suspected of becoming aware of evidence during the 1990s that Avery did not commit the 1985 rape and ignoring the information, while Avery remained in prison. In October 2005, less than three weeks before Teresa Halbach is murdered, Lenk and Colborn were questioned during a sworn deposition connection with Avery's $36 million lawsuit against Manitowoc County. After Halbach disappeared, Lenk and Colborn thrust themselves into the investigation, focusing on Avery. Colborn interviewed Avery the same night Halbach is reported missing. Lenk interviewed Avery the next morning. Lenk approached Halbach's vehicle after it was found. Lenk found the keys to Halbach's vehicle inside Avery's bedroom in plain view after officers from Calumet County, the state Division of Criminal Investigation.

One hopes for criminal justice reforms revolutionary in nature in the face of the putative and defective system Robert Jackson warned us about in 1940.

In the meantime, trust in law enforcement is misplaced. You want to walk, don't talk because police lie.

Juror in Avery Case: Feared for 'Life" and Voted 'Guilty,' Believes Avery Was "Framed"

Wisconsin fiends make national news,
they wear a badge.

Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos appeared on the Today Show (Stump) yesterday and announced a juror had contacted them after viewing the film series, Making a Murderer (on Netflix), and said she or he had cast a guilty vote because out of fear “for their own safety.”

Said co-exec producer Ricciardi: "(The juror) told us that they believe Steven Avery was not proven guilty. [The juror] believe(s) Steven was framed by law enforcement and that he deserves a new trial, and if he receives a new trial, in their opinion it should take place far away from Wisconsin."

Amen.

Reports Scott Stump:

There was behind-the-scenes vote-trading going on during the trial,the juror told the filmmakers, and the verdicts on each count were 'a compromise.'

'That was the actual word the juror used and went on to describe the jurors ultimately trading votes in the jury room and explicitly discussing, "If you vote guilty on this count, I will vote not guilty on this count," Ricciardi said.

One hopes the wrongfully convicted and the police-prosecutor state become the topic of news reports repeatedly.

Juror misconduct of this nature is grounds for a new trial, experts say.

The series also shows multiple instances of prosecutorial misconduct by law enforcement personnel, not pointed out, under Wisconsin Supreme Court rules governing attorney ethics.

For example: Wisconsin Supreme Court Rule [SCR 20:3.6 Trial publicity], stating: "(a) A lawyer who is participating or has participated in the investigation or litigation of a matter shall not make an extrajudicial statement that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know will be disseminated by means of public communication and will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding in the matter."

And more broadly, Misconduct in Public Office:

Any public officer or public employee who does any of the following is guilty of a Class I felony:
946.12(1)
(1) Intentionally fails or refuses to perform a known mandatory, nondiscretionary, ministerial duty of the officer's or employee's office or employment within the time or in the manner required by law; or
(2) In the officer's or employee's capacity as such officer or employee, does an act which the officer or employee knows is in excess of the officer's or employee's lawful authority or which the officer or employee knows the officer or employee is forbidden by law to do in the officer's or employee's official capacity; or
(3) Whether by act of commission or omission, in the officer's or employee's capacity as such officer or employee exercises a discretionary power in a manner inconsistent with the duties of the officer's or employee's office or employment or the rights of others and with intent to obtain a dishonest advantage for the officer or employee or another; or
(4) In the officer's or employee's capacity as such officer or employee, makes an entry in an account or record book or return, certificate, report or statement which in a material respect the officer or employee intentionally falsifies; or
(5) Under color of the officer's or employee's office or employment, intentionally solicits or accepts for the performance of any service or duty anything of value which the officer or employee knows is greater or less than is fixed by law.

Stay tuned. Ken Kratz and these other lousy bastards in Manitowoc County may get what's coming to them.

Film on Police Frame-up in Manty, Wisconsin Drawing National Attention

Update: Making A Murderer: Anonymous claims to have evidence that Netflix documentary’s subject, Steven Avery, is innocent, (Griffin, The Independent).

It would appear a significant chunk of the American people have had enough of the routine police and prosecutorial misconduct.

From Chicago to the coasts to Ferguson and up to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, the forces preying on the public wear a badge or represent the state. They are a grave threat to the citizenry, (Schilling, The Guardian).

Nowhere is this anti-American dynamic captured more poignantly than in the new film series, Making a Murderer (on Netflix) by Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos.

"When the prosecutor is at his best is one of the most beneficent forces in our society, when he acts from malice or other base motives, he is one of the worst," warned the great jurist and public intellectual, Robert Jackson, (U.S. DoJ). Jackson's worst fears, made famous in his 1940 address as U.S. attorney general, are a fact of life today.

CBS News has a segment this morning.

WISC-TV (Madison, Wisconsin) is airing another piece today and tonight in which Madison attorney Dean Strang is interviewed.

Strang is featured throughout the Making a Murderer series fighting corruption and betrayals by the Manitowoc Sheriff's office and multi-jurisdictional prosecutors and unscrupulous criminal investigators.

Strang has had plenty of experience defending the public against prosecutors gone wild.

From his footage in Making a Murderer it's clear Strang has had enough.

Film Series Show Wisconsin Criminal Justice as Systemic Scandal

Wisconsin fiends make national news
again. This time the fiends wear a badge.

Routine Police-Prosecutor Misconduct Highlights Need for Independent Conviction Integrity Unit

In Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos' documentary series, Making a Murderer (on Netflix), the Wisconsin criminal justice system is exposed as a leviathan run by liars, criminals and jackals (and the judges who protect them), a lawless system of unethical men and women in two infamous cases.

Everyone went along for the ride in the Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey wrongful convictions, from liberal officials in the Wisconsin Department of Justice to the Green Bay press to the progressive daily, The Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin) (March 14, 2007 editorial).

The unindicted criminals and most repulsive actors are Wisconsin local law enforcement—abetted by the state attorney general's office, the FBI and Wisconsin judges—in the case of the innocent-but-convicted Avery and young Mr. Dassey, human beings who were "ground up and spit out by this 'system,'" as described by attorney Dean Strang, one of the few rays of light in this spectacle.

Making a Murderer chronicles the 1985 wrongful conviction of Steven Avery who "spent 18 years in prison for a sexual assault that DNA evidence later proved he did not commit. Avery was released from prison in 2003 after his conviction was overturned, but two years later he was charged in the horrifying murder of a young photographer named Teresa Halbach. At the time, Avery had filed a $36 million civil lawsuit against Manitowoc County for his wrongful conviction," (Butler, Washington Post).

Avery and Dassey are the victims of the retaliatory framing scheme, revenge perpetrated by the Manitowoc County, (Wisconsin) Sheriff's office and the multi-jurisdictional malicious prosecutions begun because Avery was about to expose the ugly realities of law enforcement in his $36 million civil lawsuit. Both are serving life sentences.

What is illustrated so vividly by Ricciardi and Demois is the extent to which prosecutors and the police enjoy a license to lie, slander and destroy the lives of innocents, without any integrity checks on their misconduct.

Making a Murderer maps the dystopian landscape in which the state, the 'Sovereign,' arrests, prosecutes and secures the convictions of as many 'offenders' as possible and locks them away in a huge complex of 'correctional' institutions either subsidized by the citizenry or publicly traded in the securities markets, a disgrace that Scott Walker and Tommy Thompson inflicted with their work on behalf of for-profit prison companies such as the Corrections Corporation of America (CXW), (New York Times), (ALEC Exposed, PRWatch) (Mal Contends).

The Avery-Dassey documentary is a masterpiece of journalism begun after Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demo read a piece in the New York Times.

It's critical to note some of the perpetrators.

Special prosecutor Kenneth Kratz, a deceitful piece of human garbage who is now the apparent recipient of death threats after the airing of Making a Murderer since Dec. 18, 2015 (Purl, WGN). Krats is in private practice now in Superior, Wisconsin.

Source: State Bar of Wisconsin

There's Brendan Dassey's attorney, the despicable Len Kachinsky, who with his investigator plotted against and ridiculed his own client, an offense that draws no objection from the toothless Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation.

Kachinsky is hiding out today in Outagamie County in Appleton and his name has been scrubbed from the law offices of Robert J. Sisson website.

Law Offices of Sisson and Kachinsky

The State Bar of Wisconsin indicates Sisson's firm as "Sisson Kachinsky Law Offices."

Kachinsky threw Dassey, a cognitively challenged 16-year-old, to two investigators, Mark Wiegert, (sergeant at the Calumet County Sheriff's Office), and Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation investigator), who weren't looking for the truth but trying (successfully) to get Dassey to mutter words portrayed as admissions of guilt and supporting a lurid, contrived tale of guilt of Avery in the revenge prosecution (Ferek, Appleton Post-Crescent).

Wiegert and Fassbender were on Dassey like jackals in interrogations, a display of the whole disgrace that the Wisconsin criminal justice system has become.

On a final note, former Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen (R) (2007-2015) announced on May 2, 2008, these human garbage, Wiegert and Fassbender, received the Meritorious Service Award from the Wisconsin Association of Homicide Investigators, (Wisconsin Dept. of Justice).

Not that Van Hollen's predecessor performed any better in the Avery affair.

"Peggy Lautenschlager, Wisconsin's Attorney General in 2003, directed the Wisconsin Department of Justice to investigate the merits of the 1985 wrongful conviction of Steven Avery. The DOJ released an 18-page report on Dec. 17, 2003, finding 'there is no basis to bring criminal charges or assert ethics violations against anyone involved in the investigation and prosecution of this case,'" (Ferak, Appleton Post-Crescent). Lautenschlager did what was politically expedient.

Except for the families of the wrongfully convicted and the defense attorneys, Dean Strang and Jerome Buting and the Innocence Project, few emerged from this affair appearing anything but indecent and corrupt.

In the Avery-Dassey scandal, Wisconsin law enforcement, the Wisconsin press, and the Wisconsin judicial system resemble nothing so much as benighted fools and corrupt betrayers of the public from Alabama.

Wonder if anything reformist in nature will become of this indecency as a result of the film. Revolutionary change is needed.