Making a Murderer Defendant Files New Motion, Seeks Conviction Reversal

Illinois attorneys work to free two innocent men and
send them home to their families.

Motion: 'Stunning State Action and Admission Undermines Entire Theory at Trial Used to Convict Steven Avery'

Madison, Wisconsin — This Making a Murderer case should be over — Steven Avery's conviction vacated with the spectacle of Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) deciding whether to embarrass the state by standing with the sex offender Ken Kratz for the prosecution.

Notes the Feb. 25. 2019 state appellate court order:

"The State’s objection does not address the merits of Avery’s claimed statutory and constitutional violations, and it has not responded to Avery’s supplemental filings alleging the possible destruction of evidentiary items which, it appears, the parties previously agreed to preserve." (emphasis added)

Misrepresentations discovered in 2019 are among the legion
of misconduct, deceit and state criminality used to keep
an innocent man in prison. (p. 2. March 11, 2019 Supplemental
§ 974.06 Motion for Post-Conviction Relief Pursuant to
State's Violation of Wis. Stat § 968.205
and Youngblood v. Arizona)

The Wisconsin Department of Justice (DoJ) does not address the merits of Steven Avery's characterization of Wisconsin's post-conviction conduct  — DoJ bad faith, evidence destruction and suppression — because the DoJ cannot credibly do so.

Today, attorneys Kathleen Zellner and Steven G. Richards filed a supplemental (additional) motion for relief, asking for a court order "reversing the judgment of his [Avery's] convictions and sentence and ordering a new trial," (p. one. March 11, 2019 Supplemental § 974.06 Motion for Post-Conviction Relief Pursuant to State's Violation of Wis. Stat § 968.205 and Youngblood v. Arizona).

The new motion lays out the case for Sheboygan County Judge Angela W. Sutkiewicz to whom the case has been sent back for a likely late April-May hearing.

Avery's attorneys will be afforded the opportunity to effectively put the state of Wisconsin on trial for its conduct, per the Wisconsin Court of Appeals. Feb. 25, 2019 order.

This new motion is not shooting for the moon. It's asking for relief, likely to be granted or conceded to at some point, by presenting the factual record now directly in front of the judicial hearing that the Dept of Justice has worked to prevent from occurring.

Speculation continues to be the DoJ will agree to some sort of settlement to spare itself further embarrassment in the legal community. And Steven Avery will be a free man.

P. 4. March 12, 2019 supplemental (additional) motion for relief.

Advocates Sound Optmistic Note for Wrongfully Convicted Featured in Making a Murderer

In most states, the two wrongfully convicted men would
have already been released and exonerated, Twitter.

Update: Following are links to recent filings with the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, District Two.
 --
Madison, Wisconsin — Advocates of two wrongfully convicted men appear optimistic this weekend, primed for a major court victory that would lead to freedom and exoneration of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey, featured in Making a Murderer.

The state of Wisconsin admitted that law enforcement and prosecutors secretly gave the family of murder victim Teresa Halbach her bodily remains, a 2011 illegal scheme that the state variously claimed is either delivery of animal bones or human bones.

The COA can’t possibly ignore the fact that the state was disingenuous & misleading regarding the destruction of the bones. The Halbach & funeral home never even signed for the bones. Chain of custody is broken.

— 7 pairs-of-panties (@7pairsofpanties) February 23, 2019

Stay tuned.

NFL Player Targeted by Cops for Political Expression, Faces 10 years on Trumped-up Charges

Michael Bennett refuses to stand for ridiculous
ritual, police violence and racism. He faces
10 years in prison on trumped-up charges
brought by the Houston Police Department.

Land of the free, home of the brave? Bullshit

Dave Zirin has a column in Colorlines on the Houston police targeting of NFL star Michael Bennett in retaliation for Bennett's voicing his opinion on racism and the police violence.

Zirin's writing is his typically brilliant, piercing analysis.

His subject is a black man targeted by police in the age of the lunatic in the White House.

Michael Bennett faces 10 years, 10 years, in prison for a charge made up of whole cloth.

Bennett is also the victim of a premeditated character assassination project by the Houston Police Dept Chief, the odious Art Acevedo, (ThinkProgress).

From Zirin in Colorlines:

I co-wrote a memoir and manifesto with Philadelphia Eagle and outspoken political athlete Michael Bennett called “Things That Make White People Uncomfortable.” In the book, Bennett writes about being motivated by everyday injustices; food deserts in Black and Latinx communities, the tired eyes of the young people he visits in juvenile prisons, the fight against police violence, the need to link struggles against racism with movements to uplift women and stand up to gender violence.

I chose to work on this project because in 15 years of sports writing, I had never met an active athlete who was so able to critically examine his own sport and so willing to use his platform to speak for those silenced by violence. He’s a remarkable human being, the sort of person who if you know him, you understand the phrase, “ride or die.”

The book was released today (April 3), and we were set to embark on a multi-city tour together this week. Tickets had been purchased, venues were sold out. Especially exciting was the idea of going to Seattle, a city where Bennett won a Super Bowl ring and made three consecutive Pro Bowls, and is such a mainstay in the local nonprofit and activist worlds through his foundation that he earned the nickname Black Santa.

But all of that has been postponed, Bennett’s fearless voice temporarily muted, because he is fighting outrageous criminal assault charges out of Houston. I am not going to rehash the case. What’s important to me is that Bennett says he is innocent of these charges. That is enough for me. It’s also enough for many other people, both inside and outside the sports world who have signed a letter of support, including 1968 Olympian John Carlos, Angela Davis, Cornel West and Naomi Klein. ...

Wisconsin Anti-Due Process Bill Is Unhinged

Update: Bizarre Republican amendment would still cut out appellate deliberation, but would allow clerical paperwork by appellate courts, (WisPolitics). Equal Protection and Due Process problems remain.
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Madison, Wisconsin — Suppose you and friends in the legislature know someone from Taiwan and henceforth you would like $3 billion in public subsidies lavished onto your comrade.

Crazy, but legal.

But so enthralled are you with your Taiwanese friend, you propose special legal status of a class-caste power of privilege that would have made C. Wright Mills recoil in surprise.

And laws protecting the people and Wisconsin communities? Forget it, you say.

Equal playing-field in the marketplace. Cute.

The Wisconsin Republican-Peter Barca project in service to Foxconn Technology Co Ltd, aka Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd., now proposes perverse and privileged legal status for this single corporate actor along the lines described above.

Putting aside the fiscal and macro-economic cat-five disasters being courted, not much objection is voiced publicly from Wisconsin on the proposed abandonment of settled Equal Protection and Due Process doctrine, and state Judicial power and discretion establishing guarantees under which all litigants are equal in the eyes of the Judicial branch.

Notes Matt Rothschild:

When the Joint Finance Committee voted, along party lines, to give Foxconn the right to directly appeal any lower court order straight to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and to have that order suspended until the high court rules on it, the legislature was entering very dubious legal waters.

First of all, there is a separation of powers problem. The legislature is letting Foxconn skip the entire appellate court process. Where does the legislature get off telling the judiciary how it will function?

Secondly, there is an equal protection problem. Why should other businesses, or individuals, have to go through the potentially costly appellate process when Foxconn doesn’t have to? And why can only Foxconn get an instant and automatic stay on any lower court’s decision when every other party in the lower courts has to ask a judge for a stay?

The reason why the Joint Finance Committee carved out the exception for Foxconn is pretty obvious: The Wisconsin Supreme Court is reliably in the hands of a conservative and business-friendly majority.

This judicial exemption that the GOP-dominated Joint Finance Committee has carved out for Foxconn puts in sharp relief the utter corporatization of Wisconsin politics.

We don’t have a democracy in Wisconsin today. We have corporate rule.

That this abandonment of equality before the law is openly mused is an embarrassment for Wisconsin, much less seriously proposed in the Wisconsin Legislature's 2017 Special Session, Assembly Bill 1.

I doubt this anti-Constitutional legislative initiative will be included in the final Foxconn bill.

Yet, so unhinged and uneducated about Constitutional protections are Republicans and a couple of Democratic Party bed-fellows that this latest proposal could ring unfair and unjust around the state and become a political scandal, if only the Wisconsin Dems will begin strategic communications to this effect.

In any event, federal litigation will predictably commence with Gov. Scott Walker signing this legislation into law, so what Walker and Republicans are doing is betting they can present this madness as productive public policy better than critics can point out its numerous defects.

A Legal Challenge to a Wisconsin Voter Obstruction Law

After years of effort to enact laws obstructing non-Republican voters from the polls, Scott Walker and the Republicans may believe they have succeeded on one count: Wisconsin's Photo Voter ID law that could potentially keep some 300,000 voters away from the polls next year, (Posner, Frank v. Walker, On Suggestion of Rehearing En Banc).

Legal challenges to Wisconsin Act 23 (2011) are not over, (Associated Press).

Here I suggest another: A challenge based on violations of Due Process and Equal Protection including elements not seen, that should be contemplated by voting rights advocates.

This concerns the class of "permanent absentee" voters living in Wisconsin, and the inequitable treatment by the state of those who not members of this class—i.e. every other elector who is not an permanent absentee voter, excluding Permanent Overseas Absentee voters.

Federal law (and state law and regulations) demands reasonable accommodations - and rightfully so - for permanent absentee voters who are indefinitely confined because of age, illness, infirmity or disability. Permanent absentee ballot voters need only present a photo voter ID once (and fill out a short form with no supporting medical documentation) at their local municipality clerk's office to become a member of this class, and then receive a mailed absentee ballot in perpetuity before every election.

Currently, most other voters must present one of a range of restrictive photo voter IDs in every voting circumstance, (in-person early voting; voting at the polls and so on), despite the difficulties this poses as discussed in Frank v. Walker and other challenges.

Not all voters are not treated the same under the onerous photo voter ID regime.

This poses the question whether the inequitable treatment of classes by the state towards one class in not having to present a photo ID, and another class having to present such an ID is a violation of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment under the United States Constitution.

What makes this question different from recent other past challenges is that this line of reasoning argues for a facial challenge of the 2011 Wisconsin Act 23.

"Each eligible elector who is required to register under s. 6.27, who is not a military elector or an overseas elector, who registers by mail, and who has not voted in an election in this state shall, if voting in person, provide an identifying document that establishes proof of residence under sub. (3) or, if voting by absentee ballot, provide a copy of an identifying document that establishes proof of residence under sub.(3).," reads 2011 Wisconsin Act 23.

Neither Act 23 nor the Wisconsin Government Accountability (GAB) website notes a Photo Voter ID, proof of identification, as a condition to vote for permanent absentee voters.

In fact, the GAB notes "proof of identification must be provided only once with the application (unless the voter re-registers with a new name or address)" for absentee voters.

2011 Wisconsin Act 23 is of course a law crafted by Republicans to keep Republicans in power.

Few would argue a remedy for a Due Process and Equal Protection violation inconvenience the infirm or disabled, emphatically for a voter fraud problem that does not exist.

"As there is no evidence that voter impersonation fraud is a problem, how can the fact that a legislature says it's a problem turn it into one? If the Wisconsin legislature says witches are a problem, shall Wisconsin courts be permitted to conduct witch trials?" asks Judge Richard Posner in Frank v. Walker (p.26).

It is indisputable that permanent absentee voters are free to commit voter fraud under Republican and Act 23 theory, without any proof-of-identification check save an initial check by a municipal clerk.

In response to a query, the GAB reports that the "number of permanent absentee voters identified in the Statewide Voter Registration System (SVRS) is 46,419."

The GAB qualifies this figure, noting, "the total number of permanent absentee voters in Wisconsin is unknown. The reason is that only 351 out of 1,853 municipalities used SVRS to manage their list of permanent absentee voters at the most recent statewide election. However, those tend to be the state’s largest municipalities."

To conclude we have a class of approximately 50,000 permanent absentee voters who have no mandated proof-of-identification check, and some 3,018,000 voters [from 2102 Presidential and General Election data] who are burdened by Act 23, including the estimated 300,000 who would see their franchise destroyed, absent a federal injunction.

A federal lawsuit is called for seeking injunctive relief invalidating this unconstitutional law.

Scott Walker—Unintimidated Veers into Uninformed and Unprepared

Questions abound if Scott Walker is actually smart enough to run for president

Katie Glueck in The Politico reports from the campaign trail, citing Republicans speaking on background, ripping Scott Walker as a lightweight.

Glueck's sources offer ugly comments from Republicans for Governor Meltdown.

Writes Glueck:

'[Walker] can't seem to find his way on any given issue with a handheld GPS,' an Iowa Republican said of Walker. "He's been on all three sides of every two-sided issue. For the last two months hasn't made a single policy pronouncement that he or his staff hasn't had to clarify or clear up within two hours. When you're reduced to saying 'yeah' doesn't mean 'yes,' you're in trouble. 'Unintimidated' has given way to 'uninformed' and 'unprepared.'" ...

The GOP insiders' criticism of Walker was rooted in the sense that his positions on a number of policy issues, from immigration to abortion, have shifted repeatedly, and that he has recently attempted to pander to Donald Trump voters.

'[That] plunge [in the polls] has come as a result of his inability to articulate where he stands on a single issue,' an Iowa Republican said. 'Authenticity matters in Iowa. Big time. In fact, it's the only thing that matters. Scott Walker advocated building a wall between the U.S. and Canada. How do you NOT lose the summer with a statement like that?' ...

Walker [also] left Granite Staters unimpressed.

'He's lost his lead in the make or break Iowa caucuses. He has alienated donors with his pandering to the base of the party. He is woefully unprepared in interviews. He has cemented his reputation as a shameless flip-flopper, and worst of all he has raised questions about if he is actually smart enough to run for president,' said a New Hampshire Republican.

---
Running for home on rightwing radio, Walker answered the question if he were actually smart enough to run for president. He's not.

Writes Trip Gabriel in the New York Times:

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin appeared less clear on his position [on a Kentucky clerk defying the U.S. Supreme Court and a federal judge on marriage equity]. Asked by the radio host Laura Ingraham on Thursday if Ms. Davis should be compelled to issue marriage licenses, Mr. Walker said:

'It’s a balance that you’ve got to have in America between the laws that are out there, but ultimately ensuring the Constitution is upheld. I read that the Constitution is very clear, that people have the freedom of religion. That means you have the freedom to practice your religious beliefs out there.' 

In Walker's jurisprudence, any public official can practice his or her religious beliefs in refusing performance of civic duties—denying due process and equal protection to individuals because, for example, a county clerk's religion does not allow for blacks and whites to marry, same-sex couples to marry, Jews and Gentiles—Walker reads in the Unites States Constitution.

That the United States Supreme Court has ruled definitively in June "that no longer may this liberty [to marry] be denied" in direct opposition to Davis and Walker's position is of no consequence "out there."

For Scott Walker's edification, Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court:

"No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right."

Scott Walker Implies He'll Try to Repeal Fourteenth Amendment

Even as couples cheer the historic Supreme Court win for marriage equality (Opoien, the Capital Times), Gov. Scott Walker said he's calling for a Constitutional Amendment that would repeal the right to marry acclaimed by the Court yesterday.

"The states are the proper place for these decisions to be made, and as we have seen repeatedly over the last few days, we will need a conservative president who will appoint men and women to the Court who will faithfully interpret the Constitution and laws of our land without injecting their own political agendas," Walker said in a statement. "As a result of this decision, the only alternative left for the American people is to support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to reaffirm the ability of states to continue to define marriage." (Opoien, The Capital Times)

The statement provides more evidence that Scott Walker knows virtually nothing about the United States Constitution, an interesting state of affairs for a man who wants to be president.

The claims of equality by marriage equity advocates are so overwhelmingly supported by the Court in Obergefell v. Hodges, it is inescapable that the right to marry is now a fundamental liberty. (It was before.)

Scott Walker or anyone else cannot now wish away the fundamental liberties of marriage protected by the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, cited by Justice Kennedy, without repealing the Fourteenth Amendment, a protector of individuals' rights against bigoted state government.

Walker's Constitutional Amendment would of course never pass.

But Walker's animus towards gays is the very irrational societal and state force from which Obergefell v. Hodges protects individuals' liberty.

Walker's proposed Constitutional Amendment, (I would love to read the language), is posturing for the bigoted vote, but Walker's proposal also reveals him as a rube on the eve of his announcement for his run for the Republican Party's nomination for the presidency

Such an Amendment would have to repeal the protections in the Fourteenth Amendment, namely the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses that as noted shield individuals from states and bigoted forces that would ban interracial unions and same-sex marriages. In fact, whole sections of the Constitution would have to be rewritten for Walker to achieve his stated objective to take away citizens' liberty and give it to the states.

"A first premise of the Court’s relevant precedents is that the right to personal choice regarding marriage is inherent in the concept of individual autonomy. This abiding connection between marriage and liberty is why Loving invalidated interracial marriage bans under the Due Process Clause," writes Kennedy.

Its no accident Justice Kennedy cited Loving v. Virginia (1967) numerous times throughout Obergefell.

In the sweeping win in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses cited by Justice Kennedy make clear that the Constitution's fundamental rights apply with equal force to same-sex couples as for different-sex couples.

This fundamental right to marry cannot be destroyed by a state because political interests in the state hate gays, anymore than racists can anymore stop black folks from marrying.

"No longer may this liberty be denied," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority in the historic decision. "No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were." (Liptak, New York Times)

Don't look for Scott Walker's idea of a Constitutional Amendment to advance, but Walker did manage to reveal himself an ignoramus from Wisconsin.