Wisconsin Gov. Evers' Political Grift on Commutations Aped by Media

Commentary

"I hate injustice. I guess that's about the only thing I really do hate."
Ben Shahn, anti-fascist artist, (1898–1969). 

Madison, Wisconsin — It's Easter 2026 and Gov. Tony Evers (D-Wisconsin) days earlier emitted typically deceitful posturing on executive clemency under the Wisconsin Constitution—pardons, (grants of forgiveness restoring civil rights); sentence commutations (roughly, shortening a sentence), and reprieves.

Last week, Evers penned two new April 2026 executive orders pertaining to Wisconsin commutations: Gov. Evers Executive Order #287: Relating to the Creation of the Governor's Commutation Advisory Board; April 3, 2026;   Gov. Evers Executive Order #288: Relating to the Creation of a Juvenile Life Sentence Commutation Process — April 3, 2026, some nine months after Evers' second term expires.

Evers' executive orders are misleading, as what passes for Wisconsin press misreports the legal power of executive orders and advisory boards (no legal power) vis a vis executive clemency in Wisconsin. 

This matters because wrongfully convicted in Wisconsin's corrupt criminal justice system—from Steven Avery, Penny Brummer to Brendan Dassey—are studiously avoided and deflected away by Tony Evers who infamously (at least among some circles) denied Dassey's 2019 pardon petition, falsely claiming an advisory board prohibited Evers from granting a pardon or commutation.

Commutations are only now available and restored after 25 years of not being available, falsely reports Evers' personal scribe, Frank Zefall in the Wisconsin Examiner, See, "Gov. Evers announces commutations will be available in Wisconsin."

My god, what is wrong with Zefall? Do he not research his topic?

Commutations have never in Wisconsin history been unavailable, there is no need to restore commutations as executive clemency which includes commutations remains an unchanged and exclusive Constitutional power of the Wisconsin governor. 

See, for example, Donald Leo Bach's work in the Wisconsin Lawyer, or better yet, read Article V, Section 6 of the Wisconsin Constitution.

Facts and Analysis on Commutation

Evers' predecessor, Gov. Scott Walker, refused to use his power of executive clemency and granted zero criminal sentence commutations, zero pardons and reprieves, in accordance with Walker's political commitments and wishes.

Gov. Tony Evers uses his power of executive clemency, but has granted zero sentence commutations, in accordance with Evers' political commitments protecting a corrupt criminal justice system, and blocking out even comment on wrongful convictions, much less commutations and pardons. 

Wisconsin Democrats do love their corrupt criminal justice system.

Advisory boards do not change Wisconsin governors' Constitutional power, but as in Evers' administration, advisory boards can serve as shields to protect political acts of cowardice and dishonesty on the part of the governor.

Evers has pardoned only those who have served full sentences-plus five years.

On commutations, Evers is aligned with Scott Walker, as both Walker and Evers granted zero commutations. 

Zero commutations differentiates Evers and Walker from Govs. Dreyfus, Earl and Thompson who together commuted 46 sentences between 1979-2001. 

I will never fathom the mania behind Wisconsin Democrats like Evers to posture and mislead.

Why did Evers set up his pardon regime in which applicants must wait years after serving a sentence, while simultaneously also refusing commutations?

Evers is offering political protection to the criminal justice system and law enforcement as he accepts as fact the system's findings, convictions and criminal sentencing. Evers effectively covers up for criminal justice system misconduct.

This, even as he attempts to accrue the political benefits of compassion that attend to an altogether weak and passive pardon and commutation regime that again has no force in law.

Not once has Evers called into question dishonest cops, crooked prosecutors, or intellectually dishonest judges.

Evers could stand up against small-town injustice, police corruption and the likes of Ken Kratz, the disgraced and manifestly unreliable prosecutor of wrongfully convicted Brendan Dassey and Steven Avery, of Making a Murderer, (Netflix, Inc), as well as myriad other cases of injustice.

Tony Evers owes no more fealty to the Wisconsin Judiciary and the criminal justice system than he does to the findings and integrity of the state legislature. 

Again, commutation and pardon advisory boards and guidelines have no more force in law than if Evers consulted Tarot cards or astrology. It's just cover. 

And it takes an obvious misstatement of fact about the governors' unchallenged executive clemency power to cover up Evers' cowardice.

Evers is offering political protection to the criminal justice system as he implicitly accepts as fact the system's findings, convictions and criminal sentencing choosing finality over truth. 

As a member of Brendan Dassey's post-conviction defense team, former U.S. Solicitor General, Seth Waxman, said in Oct 2019 in Madison, "I have never had a case that has troubled me more than this case, that has kept me awake at night, that makes me anxious and sad. And that's because I know that Brendan Dassey is innocent."

Tony Evers does not care, and he lies and misleads to hide this fact.

Wrongfully Convicted — Wisconsin Democrats Keep Innocents in Prison

Eugene Higgins, The Black Cloud, oil on canvas,
Smithsonian American Art Museum

Madison, Wisconsin —  Wisconsin Democrats continue their efforts to keep innocents in prison. 

The case is Manitowoc County Case Number 2005CF000381, Wisconsin vs. Steven A. Avery #122987, featured in the Emmy-winning Making a Murderer docuseries.

Steven Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, were convicted of first-degree homicide for the 2005 murder of a young photographer, Teresa Halbach. Both men are serving life sentences.

Most see this spectacle as revenge prosecutions in the most corrupt region of Wisconsin. Those for whom innocents in prison present moral problems want Dassey and Avery out.

In January 2023, (Ferak, Patch-Wisconsin), Steven Avery filed his Jan 24, 2023 motion as the Democrat-run state of Wisconsin and Dept of "Justice" continue its defense of this notorious police-organized frame-up, perhaps the second-most documented crime in modern Wisconsin history, Making a Murderer (Netflix), (Ricciardi, Demos). Avery wants a new trial.

Wisconsin and a respectable chunk of the world awaits the response of the corrupt Judge Angela Sutkiewicz. Corruption, it's Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, Brendan Dassey supporters keep up the campaign to free who used to be an innocent 16-year-old, preyed up by crooked cops. 

No credible observer doubts the innocence of Avery and Dassey, yet they remain in prison.

Further driving the Avery and Dassey cases down the sewer is the full awareness of Gov. Tony Evers (D) and Attorney General Joshua Kaul (D) that they are defending the work of perhaps Wisconsin's most reviled district attorney in modern times — Kenneth R. Kratz who prosecuted both the Avery and Dassey cases.

Ken Kratz was driven from office after Gov. Jim Doyle began removal proceedings in 2010 following assault and sexual harassment allegations leveled against Kratz by several women, (ABC News, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) about misconduct committed some two years after the Avery and Dassey disgrace. 

Kratz' defense? Kratz claimed he is a drug and sex addict and victim of a medically diagnosed Narcissistic Personality Disorder that made Kratz uncontrollably arrogant and malignant — transforming him into a "dick," as termed by Kratz in 2016, (p. 13, Supreme Court of Wisconsin, Huffington Post).

Two innocents in prison, an infamy supported by the Democrat Party of Wisconsin. This is America. This is Wisconsin.

17 yrs ago yesterday, 16-yr-old WI special ed student Brendan Dassey gave an error-riddled confession to a murder he didn’t commit, after being falsely told he’d avoid charges if he confessed.

Listen as @DrPhilPodcast, @DThompsonWZ, & I break down why we must bring Brendan home. https://t.co/TaBLJhmizU

— Laura Nirider (@LauraNirider) March 2, 2023

Counsel for youth during interrogations used to be a pipe dream. But evidence that youth are more vulnerable to police coercion & more likely to falsely confess has changed the equation. It's time for NY to join Cal.,i Md, & Ill. & give lawyers to youth BEFORE interrogation. https://t.co/ZqewrDsQ2Z

— Steven A Drizin (@SDrizin) March 2, 2023

Kids + lawyer = essential.

Parents, remember this like it’s etched onto your soul.

New York lawmakers, pass this bill (requiring lawyers for kids) like the child being wrongfully convicted is yours. https://t.co/btbRg7jaeg

— Laura Nirider (@LauraNirider) March 4, 2023

Wisconsin Criminal Justice System Performs Normally — and Insanely

The Flight of Moloch - by William Blake.
The significance of Blake's wok is the moment
when we stop using children as pawns to
sacrifice, rather as treasures to protect.

Commentary

Updated - Madison, Wisconsin — Any decent human being would decline to trick innocent people, especially children, into a false confession of a crime.

But how often have you heard of a cop or a politician speaking out against cops coercing false confessions, or framing innocent members of the public? Never, not in Wisconsin.

Who benefits by the persistence of false confessions? The victims do not; society at large does not; certainly not police-made victims; it seems the police and prosecutors are the only ones who pat themselves on the back for clearing their books of another crime while the perpetrators go free.

That's because the criminal justice and political systems act as authoritarians and have all the power when it comes to prosecuting crimes. 

The state, the sovereign, freely sacrifices innocent lives if it serves their purposes, rather than standing up for and calling out for righteous justice for the innocent.

There generally is no pre- or post-conviction review of the prosecutors and police cases, when misconduct is revealed, though there are isolated examples of this logical follow-up.

If I were a cop, and I even heard of this human rights atrocity of the police framing or coercing a false confession, I would state publicly and repeatedly, "You unbelievable coward, what is the matter with you?"

It's now routine to read of outrageous acts of police tricking children into false confessions. 

Several states have outlawed this unbelievable practice of tricking children.

But the reporting and child advocacy never take the logical next step — the condemnation of the police. We live in a politcal system in which criticism of the police almost never occurs, especially from elected Democrats and Republicans and especially in Wisconsin.

In Wisconsin, the most infamous case of police tricking and lying to children is Brendan Dassey.

After police lied, manipulated and tricked the innocent Brendan Dassey into an outrageous false confession, Wisconsin police gave the two police child molesters — Mark Wiegert (current Sheriff of the Calumet County Sheriff's Office) and Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation investigator (ret.) — the Meritorious Service Award from the Wisconsin Association of Homicide Investigators on May 2, 2008.

That's right. Police applauded Wiegert and Fassbender for terrorizing and destroying the life of an innocent kid.

Folks, we live in a society where police routinely prey on the innocent and gullible with the objective of sending them to prison for life. That's a problem, just ask Brendan Dassey and Steven Avery, and Penny Brummer.

What is the difference between what Wiegert and Fassbender did to Brendan Dassey and what child molesters do during the commission of their crimes? Children are lured in by false promises, assaulted,  and are oblivious to what hit them.

See John Oliver's segment on the use of the Reid Technique nonsense, police interrogations and false confessions are aptly characterized as junk science.

Said Oliver: "The problem with police interrogations right now is the same problem that we have with policing at large. They're emboldened to act however they'd like in a system where they hold an undue amount of power with very few protections for civilians, especially the most vulnerable, because there can be little to no consequences for extracting a false confession."

Act locally. In Wisconsin we need to vote out Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Joshua Kaul for protecting dirty cops and keeping those whom they know to be innocent in prison.

Meanwhile, stay current on the litigation of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey's crusade to shame Tony Evers into a pardon.

Brendan Dassey needed someone sitting with him in class to help him figure out what the teacher was asking him to do. But he had no help when interrogated. Even with help, police are trained to neutralize guardians. Lawyers can't be neutralized. @TheArcUS https://t.co/JqCn4Vgr89

— Steven A Drizin (@SDrizin) April 27, 2022

Attorneys Demand Brendan Dassey Pardon as Gov. Tony Evers Refuses to Free Innocent in Prison

Called Out — 'Cruel and Cowardly' Tony Evers 'Shifting and Ducking Responsibility'

Updated - Madison, Wisconsin — The innocent Brendan Dassey has now spent more than half of his life in prison, since being pulled from school by corrupt police, Mark Wiegert (current Sheriff of the Calumet County Sheriff's Office), and Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin DoJ, DCI investigator (ret)).

In an extraordinary development this week, former Steven Avery civil liberties attorneys Dean Strang and Jerry Buting, not Dassey's attorneys, have demanded Gov. Tony Evers (D) order the release of the innocent Dassey, citing Wisconsin police tricks, deceit and judicial intellectual dishonesty in a letter dated March 2, 2022, under the letterhead of Strang and Bradley, LLC, (WISC-TV, CBS58).

Strang and Buting represented Dassey's uncle, Steven Avery, featured in the Emmy-winning Making a Murderer docuseries depicting Wisconsin's notorious "Corruption County," Manitowoc County, in the state's east-central region known for small-town injustice.

Dassey and his uncle, Steven Avery, were convicted of first-degree homicide for the 2005 murder of a young photographer, Teresa Halbach. Both men are serving life sentences.

Wisconsin Democrats have backed the prosecution, and refuse to free Dassey in its politcal calculation to portray Democrats as tough on crime, no matter that Dassey and Avery are innocent. 

The Democrat political scheme also serves to protect the current Wisconsin Attorney General's mother, Peg Lautenschlager, for her work in courting and protecting corrupt Wisconsin police and aiding the prosecution of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey.

Dassey's case has spurred other states to ban police lying to juveniles as a means of tricking children into uttering false confessions, as deceptive police interrogation practices come under increasing fire, (Daily Herald). (See also LaVigne and Miles, Under the Hood: Brendan Dassey, Language Impairments, and Judicial Ignorance).

Tricking innocent children has defenders in Wisconsin: Police, Attorney General Joshua Kaul (D), every elected Wisconsin Democrat, and Gov. Tony Evers (D) singled out by Strang and Buting as a "governor ... of cruelty [and] cowardice."

 

Our message to Gov Evers: “By constitutional design, you can be a governor of grace, not of cruelty or cowardice. We urge you now to be exactly that,” Dean Strang & Jerry Buting wrote in a letter to the governor asking him to shorten Brendan’s sentencehttps://t.co/0SyfDnPDUe

— Jerome Buting (@JButing) March 4, 2022

As governor, Tony Evers has the unique and unquestioned authority to grant pardons and commutations under the Wisconsin Constitution, a power Evers has squirmed from in the Dassey case out of concern past Democrat politicians would be mired in scandal and corruption charges.

Strang and Buting join over 250 national legal experts and human rights activists in calling for a pardon or commutation for Brendan Dassey.

A member of Dassey's post-conviction defense team, former U.S. Solicitor General, Seth Waxman, said in Oct 2019 in Madison, "I have never had a case that has troubled me more than this case, that has kept me awake at night, that makes me anxious and sad. And that's because I know that Brendan Dassey is innocent."

Confidence in the integrity of Wisconsin's Judiciary can no longer be reasonably asserted in the face of the Dassey-Avery infamy. It appears Dean Strang and Jerry Buting have had enough.

In Wisconsin, it is the law itself that perpetrated the destruction of innocent life. And most everyone goes along as bystanders.

Waukegan, Illinois Police Give Kid Brendan Dassey Treatment — Tried to Induce False Confession with Lies, Tricks

Innocent teenager just 'wanted to go home'

Update: The interim Waukegan police chief publicly apologized yerterday to 15-year-old Martell Williams, who was wrongly charged with attempted murder, and said his department "must do better.," reports Lake and McHenry County Scanner, See also colossal clusterfuck at WGN.

Martell Williams is a 15-year-old teenager who was playing a high school basketball game during the exact time a crime, with which he no involvement, occurred in Feb. about a half-mile away, (WGN News, Newsweek, ABC7 Chicago, Chicago Tribune).

In the United States, being-innocent presents a dangerous set of circumstances because police have no remorse about tricking, lying and manipulating anyone, especially children, into uttering words presented as confessions. 

Police do not care if you are innocent in the United States.

Williams was charged with attempted murder and aggravated battery in a Feb 4 shooting at a local Dollar store. 

That Williams was completely innocent of any crime presented a problem for the Waukegan Police.

Waukegan Police pulled the freshman at Waukegan High School out of class and arrested him.

"Once I reached the office, there were two officers there," Williams told WGN News. "As soon as I got in, they didn't tell me nothing. They just said, 'you're under arrest.'"

Police offered Williams McDonald's food, and told he could go home in ten minutes, if he confessed (falsely) to being at the Dollar store, although, to be clear, Williams was not at the Dollar store, much less committing a violent crime at the Dollar General store in Waukegan.

Let's get this kid. Williams, to confess, was the order of the day of the Waukegan Police.

Happens. Every. Day. https://t.co/vWrmknrYu5

— Laura Nirider (@LauraNirider) February 22, 2022

"Happens every day," as Wisconsin's Brendan Dassey's attorney, Laura Nirider, pointed out in social media.

Police tricking innocent children is not supposed to happen anymore in Illinois because the state passed a law that bans police lying to innocent children to trick them into false confessions.

Illinois legislators cited the infamous Wisconsin case of Brendan Dassey in debate last year, an infamous injustice defended by Gov. Tony Evers (D), running for reelection this year.

Illinois Champions Brendan Dassey in Assuring Ban on Police Lying to Children to Obtain False Confessions

Wisconsin Gov Tony Evers Keeps the Innocent Dassey in Prison

Madison, Wisconsin — Illinois state legislators are so appalled at the police practice of lying to juveniles to trick children into uttering false confessions that the state is on the verge of passing a ban on deceptive police interrogation practices, (Daily Herald).

Reports Raymon Troncoso: "The Illinois House unanimously passed a bipartisan juvenile justice reform measure Saturday that outlaws the use of deceptive interrogation techniques on minors," (Daily Herald).

In fact, some legislators were incensed by the Brendan Dassey Wisconsin case that they say this grotesque injustice put their support for the ban over the top.

Reports Troncoso:

Rep Jim Durkin (R) said he was initially skeptical of the legislation but was moved toward supporting it after speaking to legal experts from the Innocence Project. According to Durkin, what finally put him over the edge to sponsor the bill was learning about the case of Brendan Dassey while watching the Netflix series 'Making a Murderer.'

'It was very clear to me that there was coercion and deception that was levied upon a 16-year-old Wisconsin resident, Brendan Dassey,' Durkin said. 'It became also very clear to me that this 16-year-old did not have the mental capacity to understand his Miranda rights, nor the capacity to waive these rights.'

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin Democratic and Republican law enforcement joined forces to use deception and lies to goad Dassey into uttering words presented as a confession in 2007.

And to widespread disappointment, Gov Tony Evers (D) denied Brendan Dassey' petition for a commutation and pardon in 2019.

Dassey was falsely convicted of murder in 2007 after being preyed upon by Wisconsin law enforcement in the persons of Mark Wiegert, (current Sheriff of the Calumet County Sheriff's Office), Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin DoJ, Division of Criminal Investigation investigator (Ret)), sex offender and disgraced prosecutor Ken Kratz and dozens of other collaborators in law enforcement.

So, Illinois is appalled by the Brendan Dassey injustice, but Wisconsin is not.

Not Wisconsin Attorney General Joshua Kaul (D), not Wisconsin Gov Tony Evers (D), not one Wisconsin Democratic Party elected official.

Today, we demand Gov Tony Evers (D) pardon the wrongfully convicted Brendan Dassey in the interest of justice.

Below is a repost of a piece from 2020.

Madison, Wisconsin — There is a special place in infamy for the bystander.

Brendan Dassey is in a Wisconsin prison; he is demonstrably innocent, but lives in a state with many perpetrators and more bystanders ensuring the wrongfully convicted remain behind bars.

So, Dassey works for his freedom, his life.

Dassey and Steven Avery are featured in the Emmy-winning documentary series, Making a Murderer.

The series resulted in a worldwide campaign of supporters who work for exoneration of two clearly innocent men.

No judge who has heard Dassey's case believes he is guilty.

No cop believes in Dassey's guilt, though no Wisconsin cop will state this publicly — ever.

Two Wisconsin cops worked in bad faith — Mark Wiegert (current Sheriff of the Calumet County Sheriff's Office), and Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin DoJ, DCI investigator (ret)) — and ripped into a 16-year-old with an I.Q. of 70, and a severe language impairment, ultimately leading to the false conviction for first-degree intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse, and second-degree sexual assault in 2007.

The Flight of Moloch - by William Blake
Happy Mothers Day, as we remember
Barb Tadych for delivering her son to
Wisconsin law enforcement.

Dassey was easy prey for Wiegert and Fassbender.

The prosecutor, Ken Kratz, who called himself a "dick" in 2016 (for real), self-described as suffering from narcissistic personality disorder and multiple drug addictions, was driven from the district attorney's office in 2010 after multiple allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault came to light, after which he was driven from the Wisconsin legal profession altogether in 2019.

In the Dassey injustice, defense of Ken Kratz binds Democrats and Republicans here: A commitment to defend wrongful convictions at the hands of unethical and dishonest law enforcement.

Kratz' wife mocked and taunted Dassey's alleged conspirator, Steven Avery, in Feb 2019 in a tweet, now removed:

Writes Kratz:

Hey guys, Stevie’s still sitting in a jail cell 🙌🏻👏🏻🙌🏻👏🏻 #MakingAMurderer #MakingAMurderer2 Keep dragin ass, Kathleen. We love it! 😁😁

— Leah Kratz (@LeahMarieKK) February 16, 2019

One can garner much about the police culture of Wisconsin from this one tweet from an unhinged hick.

Consider this shared objective of destroying innocent life, a depraved devotion that cries out for constant challenge.

Last year a member of Dassey's defense team, Seth Waxman, advocating for a pardon or commutation for Dassey from Gov Tony Evers on Oct 2, 2019 in Madison, said, "I have never had a case that has troubled me more than this case, that has kept me awake at night, that makes me anxious and sad. And that's because I know that Brendan Dassey is innocent."

No word came from Evers before or after Oct 2019. 

Then, came Evers rejection of Dassey's bid for a pardon in Dec 2019, the news hidden in a press release just before Christmas, though Evers did manage to land a shot at Dassey, knowing he would get the news while retaining expectations about the holidays.

Ken Kratz and his ilk in the Manitowoc and Calumet County sheriff offices, have a friend they may not have counted on: Wisconsin's new Attorney General Josh Kaul (D).

Josh Kaul's office through co-counsels Mark Williams, Thomas Fallon and others is carrying on the crusade against Steven Avery and Dassey with the same lack of ethics and regard for law that defined the tenure of Kaul's three predecessors in the Wisconsin Dept of Justice.

---

In the medical profession, practitioners are expected to carry out the spirit of an oath that demands doctors be healers, not destroyers.

Among police and prosecutors, there are no such strictures governing police conduct demanding no innocent be harmed or harassed, assaulted, defamed, arrested and imprisoned. In the Dassey and Avery cases, Wisconsin law enforcement destroyed evidence, then defended destroying evidence.

Among police, and its civilian collaborators, mission-critical imperatives are to protect police. The public is a free-fire zone and in warped police culture, the police cult perpetrates predictable brutality.

The type of individual, double-high authoritarian and anti-intellectual, who wants and self-selects to be a cop is capable of anything.

And all of law enforcement and politicians remain complicit in their silence.

Evers could help correct a grotesque injustice with a stroke of a pen today.

The decent who fight for Brendan Dassey's exoneration will never quit.

We are live in Manitowoc on the corner of Washington & 25th street, which poignantly is the same road as the courthouse where Brendan's life was snatched from him. Webcam footage doesn't do it "justice" - more photos to come #BringBrendanHome #FreeBrendanDassey pic.twitter.com/KMTyJx8Znq

— Tracy Keogh (@TracyKeogh2) December 7, 2020

Criminal Injustice — Lies, Deception Stain Law Enforcement

Penny Brummer was wrongfully convicted
of murder in Wisconsin because she is a lesbian.
Brummer is also a victim of preposterous
false confession in 1994. See Penny Brummer,
Brummer-Mal Contends, Lueders-Isthmus,
Ricks-The Advocate, and the
Huffington Post, Wisconsin State Journal.

Madison, Wisconsin — Police routinely lie when they testify in court; it's called testilying. 

Police cook police reports, and omit exculpatory information.

Police lie in court declarations.

Police lie in interrogations.

Police lie to protect other cops' dishonest and crooked conduct, the infamous blue omertà known as the blue shield or the blue wall of silence.

Police lying is so institutionally pervasive that it's astounding anyone, much less courts and prosecutors, believe anything cops say and write.

Throw in malice, racism and other base motivations that those who become police commonly harbor and it's clear your local municipal police force resembles nothing so much as a pathological occupying gang.

But the cult of the police remains strong. 

Politicians and media forever triumph the noble intentions and alleged virtues of "officers." The Democratic Party is 100-percent behind the police as exemplified by events in Kenosha County concerning the racist cop Rusten Sheskey; and the racist killer, Kyle Rittenhouse, for example.

Police unions supportive of any crooked and dishonest action taken by police have turned into rightwing local political forces. 

In Madison, Wisconsin, the local police union rates the City Council members, based upon how Council members aid police in their dishonest and hostile conduct.

But with the growth of a new generation of human rights attorneys and activists like Black Lives Matter, along with the scientific exposure of the junk pseudoscience police often use to prop up their lies, there are success stories that hold police to conduct themselves as non-criminals.

As false confessions and wrongful convictions are revealed across the nation, some honest prosecutors fight back against crooked prosecutors and police.

While actual prosecutions against crooked prosecutors and police remain rare, at least some innocent people are being exonerated.

The New York Times reports this morning on the "a wide-ranging inquiry by the Bronx district attorney into whether the detectives’ tactics had tainted guilty verdicts in 31 homicide cases that relied on confessions."

Police interrogations are not about searching for the truth.

Police interrogations are about getting the police victim to utter words that can be falsely presented as a confession, as in the Wisconsin case of Brendan Dassey, grotesquely targeted by Mark Wiegert, (current Sheriff of the Calumet County (Wisconsin) Sheriff's Office), Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin DoJ, Division of Criminal Investigation investigator (ret)), sex offender and disgraced ex-prosecutor Ken Kratz and dozens of other police collaborators. Or, to take another Wisconsin case, the wrongfully convicted Penny Brummer, who was arrested and convicted because she is a lesbian, a problem for many bigoted Wisconsin hicks. Police and prosecutors portrayed a nod to a vague question during an interrogation as a confession to a murder.

In the Times piece, Jan Ransom writes:

The [police misconduct] inquiry highlights how a new generation of prosecutors in New York and elsewhere is delving deeply into whether deceptive police interrogation tactics might have warped the criminal justice system through false confessions and wrongful convictions.

The examination comes after the emergence of hundreds of cases across the country in which people were sent to prison only to be exonerated later through the use of DNA or the discovery of new evidence.

In case after case, even after innocence and police misconduct are proven to a moral certainty, prosecutors often oppose freedom for the wrongfully convicted.

Standing in the way of freedom of the wrongfully convicted is sick, to most people.

But this demented pursuit is an enterprise taken up by prosecutors, police and cowardly politicians such as Wisconsin Gov Tony Evers (D).

What's wrong with these people?

Junk Science and Lying Cops

Kathleen Zellner derided police orthodoxy when she scoffed at law enforcement's notion they are trained "human lie detectors," a delusion exemplified in the notorious conduct of Wisconsin cops who preyed on an innocent and cognitively challenged 16-year-old to help frame her client, Steven Avery, featured in the Emmy-winning Making a Murderer.

A still-flourishing junk science field is exacerbating law enforcement's dogma they have become lords of truth, even as police self-consciously lie, mislead and cover up as standard conduct in support of the American police cult.

Put another way, junk science does not help liars.

A report by Jordan Smith in The Intercept on junk science training in the police-prison-industrial complex reveals how deeply law enforcement zealots are inculcated with trash. 

Smith leads with Wisconsin law enforcement's participation in a typical junk-science class:

The training session was billed as 'cutting edge,' and dozens of law enforcement professionals signed up to learn about 'New Tools for Detecting Deception' from a human lie detector who calls herself 'Eyes for Lies.' Her real name is Renee Ellory, and she claims that she’s one of just 50 people identified by scientists as having the ability to spot deception 'with exceptional accuracy.'

A flyer for the event, hosted by Wisconsin’s High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area — a federal program that supports law enforcement drug interdiction work — was included among a trove of law enforcement documents that were hacked and posted online in June under the title BlueLeaks. The promo copy leans heavily into Ellory’s skill at ferreting out deception in others. She is 'exceptional at pinpointing a liar and can tell you why she doesn’t trust someone on  the spot,' it reads. Training participants would learn how to 'identify anger, contempt, and disgust before words are even spoken.' Course objectives were broad: Learn to differentiate between 'real' and 'fake emotional displays'; 'recognize hidden emotions'; identify the 'ways our subconscious brain leaks information when we lie'; 'analyze body language that indicates deception'; gain tips to use when interviewing a psychopath; 'identify the key features of expressions that reveal danger for you!' ...

Participants spanned the law enforcement spectrum and included the chief of a small police department, corrections officers, university cops, state troopers, various members of the Milwaukee Police Department as well as individuals from the U.S. Probation Office and the FBI. ...

[Blue Leaks] documents offer a window into how various training methods perpetuate myths — subjective, hunch-based approaches to interpreting human behavior that are unreliable and have been discredited by leading psychologists — that police are then encouraged to use in crime solving.

The civil liberties attorney Zellner is right.

And junk science disciples congregate where garbage is useful — Joy Reid defaming Bernie Sanders because of body language, for example, and fulfillment of police predilections: Killing, arresting, detaining, defamation, character assassination, harassing, abusing, all manner of police violence.

Junk science perfectly describes police capabilities, people who tend to be dishonest, racist and intellectually lazy to begin with.

Law enforcement are not rational seekers of truth, possessing broad knowledge of people, society and history.

So, it's not really surprising that junk science is still used to train and instruct this ignorant and malicious bunch. 

But why are the Wisconsin people for example, not up in arms demanding this fraud stops?

Because Wisconsin folks don't know about this expensive fraud. 

This is changing thanks to Black Lives Matter, Blue Leaks, the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences and other liberation work, (Wired).

Junk science purporting to be an instrument to ascertain truth will eventually go the way of phrenology, eugenics, racilogy and 19-centuary notions of anthropology.

As for detecting when cops lie, today there is actually a failproof method to determine if law enforcement is engaged in deception: They open their mouths, scribble their reports and testily.

How we expose and challenge this danger is a testament to our fellows, right here and right now.

Gov Tony Evers on Defensive in Dassey Pardon-Commutation Petition

:We write this letter to express our sincere hope that you
will extend executive clemency, in the form of either a
pardon or a commutation, to Brendan Dassey."

Each person who signed this letter brings a different
perspective. Some of us are lawyers who practice
variously in the state and federal courts, including in trial
courts, appellate courts, and the United States Supreme Court.
Some of us are psychologists, including leading experts in
the psychology of interrogations and confessions.
Some of us are experts on juvenile justice;
some of us are disability experts. Some of us are academics
who study miscarriages of justice in Wisconsin and abroad.
Some of us are exonerees who have ourselves been convicted
of crimes we did not commit and who were later cleared
by DNA evidence. Still others simply wish to lend our
names and voices in support of Brendan. 
- Center on Wrongful Convictions.

Madison, Wisconsin — News that over 250 national legal experts and human rights activists are calling for a pardon or commutation for Brendan Dassey has put Gov Tony Evers (D) on the political defensive.

Evers along with Wisconsin Attorney General Joshua Kail (D) lead state democrats is their collective refusal to advocate for the wrongfully convicted, and to actively oppose exoneration for innocents.

Evers is known for his halting approach to public policy and profound ignorance of Wisconsin's corrupt criminal justice system.

Brendan Dassey is an innocent man in prison, falsely convicted of murder in 2007 after being preyed upon by Wisconsin law enforcement in the persons of Mark Wiegert, (current Sheriff of the Calumet County Sheriff's Office), Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin DoJ, Division of Criminal Investigation investigator (Ret)), sex offender and disgraced prosecutor Ken Kratz and dozens of other police collaborators.

Reports Andy Thompson in the Appleton Post-Crescent:

Brendan Dassey’s bid for clemency in the Teresa Halbach murder has been bolstered by a show of support from national legal experts, social justice advocates and high-profile exonerees.

In a letter released Thursday to Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, Dassey’s legal team listed the backing of a wide-ranging list of nearly 250 individuals, including Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, co-founders of the Innocence Project.

'We call upon you ... to use your sovereign powers of executive clemency, whether in the form of a pardon or a commutation, to end the incarceration of Brendan Dassey,' the letter says.

Scheck, who was among those who signed the letter, called it “an extremely important case.”

The letter also received the support of more than two dozen exonerees, a number of retired senior U.S. government officials, 45 current and former state and federal prosecutors, leading psychological experts and directors of more than 20 national justice organizations.

Dassey's bid for a pardon is an implicit statement that Dassey is innocent and Wisconsin law enforcement is so corrupt that it conspired to convict a teenager to help convict Dassey's uncle, Steven Avery.

Dassey and Avery are featured in the Emmy-winning Making a Murderer docu-series.

Law enforcement pursued Dassey as a child to help frame Steven Avery who filed a civil action against Manitowoc County in east-central Wisconsin for its first wrongful conviction of Avery for which he was exonerated, (LaVigne and Miles, Under the Hood: Brendan Dassey, Language Impairments, and Judicial Ignorance).

The Oct 24, 2019 letter reads in part:

Dear Governor Evers:

We write this letter to express our sincere hope that you will extend executive clemency, in the form of either a pardon or a commutation, to Brendan Dassey.

Each person who signed this letter brings a different perspective. Some of us are lawyers who practice variously in the state and federal courts, including in trial courts, appellate courts, and the United States Supreme Court. Some of us are psychologists, including leading experts in the psychology of interrogations and confessions. Some of us are experts on juvenile justice; some of us are disability experts. Some of us are academics who study miscarriages of justice in Wisconsin and abroad. Some of us are exonerees who have ourselves been convicted of crimes we did not commit and who were later cleared by DNA evidence. Still others simply wish to lend our names and voices in support of Brendan. 

Each of us feels called upon by our conscience to sign this letter. Many of us believe Brendan Dassey to be wrongly convicted and his statements, which constitute the primary evidence against him, to be unreliable. Many of us believe that the process that led to the conviction of this sixteen-year-old special education student was indefensibly flawed, characterized by egregious defense attorney misconduct. And many of us believe that Brendan’s sentence – life in prison, with no chance of parole until 2048 – is wildly inappropriate. All of us agree that, after serving more than thirteen years in prison and accumulating an exemplary prison record, it is time to bring Brendan Dassey home. 

We call upon you, Governor Evers, to use your sovereign power of executive clemency, whether in the form of a pardon or a commutation, to end the incarceration of Brendan Dassey.  You are an educator; you are a reformer; and you are a believer, like us, in justice, mercy, and redemption.  After you review this case, we believe your conscience will compel the conclusion that Brendan is worthy of the exercise of your clemency power.  We respectfully urge you to pardon Brendan Dassey or commute his sentence.

Gov Evers Remains Mush on Pardons

Madison, Wisconsin — News that Gov. Tony Evers (D) will issue four pardons on October 7 belies the scope of Wisconsin's criminal injustice system, (AP).

Reports Scott Bauer, AP:

Gov Evers plans to pardon Eric Pizer, Kevin Sorenson, Mwangi Vasser and Steven Nichols on Monday, Oct 7.  ...

The pardons come less than a week after Evers received a request from Brandon Dassey, one of the subjects of the 2015 Netflix series 'Making a Murderer.' Dassey is serving a life sentence in the 2005 slaying of Theresa Halbach. Evers had said he would consider the application, even though Dassey does not meet the qualifications Evers set for pardons. His rules call for instantly disqualifying anyone who’s still serving their prison sentence.

Evers as governor is vested with the constitutionally unqualified power to grant pardons, Article V, Section 6 of the Wisconsin Constitution. This is Evers' decision alone. So, don't let Evers fool you, rules and procedures are advisory.

Evers could correct the grotesque injustice of the Brendan Dassey's conviction Monday as well with a stroke of a pen.

Evers could begin a major program of deincarceration, ala Philly District Attorney Larry Krasner on Monday.

From CBS News:

'The oath is to seek justice,' Larry Krasner said. 'When somebody sits in a jail cell for a crime they did not commit, that is an injustice.'

The former public defender assumed the top prosecutor job in 2018. One of his first missions was to beef up the Conviction Integrity Unit to investigate legitimate claims of wrongful convictions.

'There was a culture at various times of win at all cost,' said Krasner. 'And if that meant that you were gonna take the document that suggested there was a different suspect, a document that the Constitution requires you, as a prosecutor, to turn over to the defense, and you were gonna shred it, you did. And then there was a separate issue with certain detectives, and everybody who was in the system knew about it.'

In his first week in office, he fired 31 employees.

'I did not enjoy it, but it was necessary to do,' he said. 'Especially as I see these exonerations happen, and guess whose names just keep coming up for having been involved in convictions of innocent people?'

Tony Evers' window dressing on the obscenity of wrongful conviction, police corruption, and mass incarceration is an insult.

Wisconsin Gov and Atty General Side with Sex Offender — Ex-DA Ken Kratz

Updated - Madison, Wisconsin — Reaction to the Brendan Dassey clemency petition filed this week with Gov Tony Evers (D) reveals much about the Democratic Party of Wisconsin's refusal to stand up against wrongful convictions.

Every Democratic Party of Wisconsin elected official — every municipal, county, state and federal elected official — is silent to the wanton state cruelty inflicted upon the innocent.

After repeated efforts by WISC TV (Madison) asking Evers for comment on the Dassey petition, Gov Mush finally allowed that "We give every pardon application careful review and consideration."

Wow. That's progress.

But nothing from Evers about the grotesque interrogation of a cognitively and linguistically challenged 16-year-old Dassey thrown to two tree jumpers doubling as Wisconsin law enforcement. Nothing about the prosecution perpetrated by the sex offender, serial liar, the disgraced ex-district attorney Ken Kratz.

Evers as governor is vested with the constitutionally unqualified power to grant a pardon and commutation with the stroke of a pen for any or no reason, (Article V, Section 6 of the Wisconsin Constitution). Whatever criteria Evers may think "proper" are all that drive legal consideration of petitions. Pardons and commutations are Evers' decision and Evers' alone.
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Evers is in bad company with Wisconsin Attorney General Joshua Kaul (D).

Kaul is actively defending the conviction of Steven Avery, alleged to be Dassey's conspirator by the sex offender Kratz.

Kaul even defends the work of Calumet County Sheriff Deputy Jeremy Hawkins, Sheriff Mark Wiegert, and DoJ attorneys Thoman Fallon and Norman Gahn who illegally conspired to destroy evidence that they claimed is the biological remains of a murder victim. [That state appellate case is State v. Steven A. Avery, 2017AP002288. For updates, see Workwith KZ.]

Wisconsin puts on a sad show in it routine destruction of lives by corrupt law enforcement. But thanks to the work of four women, Evers, Kaul and every other Democratic Party do-nothing cannot say they didn't know about the sick pursuit of and crimes perpetrated against the innocent.

"This gentle human being is Brendan Dassey, he does not have a violent bone in his body." Katerina Majerczak

Brendan's supporters were not swayed by a movie. MAM was a point of entry but many used it to dig deeper into the case. Others like me, @lauranirider, Seth Waxman, Dr. Sally Miles, 4 federal judges, et al. dug deep & found injustice in the record. Dig deep, Gov. Evers. Dig deep.

— Steven A Drizin (@SDrizin) October 4, 2019

Brendan humbles every person who is fortunate to know him. We care, because he is innocent, we care because of who Brendan is #BringBrendanHomehttps://t.co/etTsviPqys

— Tracy Keogh (@TracyKeogh2) October 4, 2019

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

To read the petition and other extensive documents related to the Dassey case, see Laura H. Nirider, Robert J. Dvorak, Steven A. Drizin and Seth P. Waxman.

Emergency Clemency Petition Filed in Brendan Dassey Wrongful Conviction

Madison, Wisconsin — Brendan Dassey is an innocent man in prison, falsely convicted of murder in 2007 after being preyed upon by Wisconsin law enforcement in the persons of Mark Wiegert, (current Sheriff of the Calumet County Sheriff's Office), Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin DoJ, Division of Criminal Investigation investigator (Ret)), sex offender and disgraced prosecutor Ken Kratz and dozens of other collaborators in blue and black.

Law enforcement went after a child to help frame Steven Avery who filed a civil action against Manitowoc County in east-central Wisconsin for its first wrongful conviction of Avery for which he was exonerated, (LaVigne and Miles, Under the Hood: Brendan Dassey, Language Impairments, and Judicial Ignorance)

Not one Wisconsin cop has ever stood up and said, 'Wait a minute. This former kid didn't do anything. We as the state of Wisconsin are destroying the life of this innocent in plain sight, and we have sanctioned the police molesting a child, and we have forever traumatized Brendan Dassey. This has to stop — right now.' 

Stopping this sickening injustice right now is what Dassey's attorney, Laura Nirider, is calling for in an emergency application for clemency filed this week with Wisconsin Gov Tony Evers (D), and reported by CBS This Morning moments ago.

Reports CBS:

Dassey's legal options have been exhausted. But now, his attorney Laura Nirider is turning to Wisconsin's new Democratic governor, Tony Evers. "We're filing a petition for executive clemency with Governor Tony Evers of Wisconsin," Nirider told "CBS This Morning" co-host Anthony Mason.

In 2007, Dassey and his uncle Steven Avery were sentenced to life in prison for Halbach's murder. The burned remains of the 25-year-old photographer were found on the Avery family property, along with her key and car. Avery, whose blood was found in that car, has claimed he was framed.
 
At the time of Halbach's murder, Avery was suing Manitowoc County and its former sheriff. He'd been released from prison in 2003, after DNA evidence exonerated him of a rape charge for which he'd served 18 years.
 
Dassey's case became a sensation when Netflix released "Making a Murderer." Amid the murder investigation, Dassey, who is intellectually limited, was interviewed by police four times in 48 hours without a lawyer or parent present. The 16-year-old eventually confessed to helping his uncle rape and kill Halbach, but Nirider said Dassey was fed information by investigators.
 
Dassey quickly recanted his confession -- first, to his mother, while still in the interrogation room. "They got to my head," he told her.

In a podcast episode released Wednesday, Dassey spoke from prison with Jason Flom, host of the podcast "Wrongful Conviction." It's his first interview since going to prison.

Flom is a music executive who's behind the careers of starts like Katy Perry and Lorde. But as a member of the board of the Innocence Project, he also fights for criminal justice reform – and he told Mason that he's "absolutely certain" that Dassey is innocent.

"I just wanted it all over with, so I said whatever they wanted to hear, you know?" Dassey told Flom on the podcast.

"Most people grow up, as I did, with believing that the law enforcement are out to help us, right? They're the people you call when you need help. Did you have that same idea when you went in there?" Flom asked.
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The silence from Wisconsin law enforcement is a shrieking injustice.

The silence from every elected local and state official in Wisconsin is worse.

Now, Tony Evers is thrust into the spot-light of truth. What will Evers do?

I don't believe in Tony Evers as a man, as an intellect, or a human being with a moral center.

But as the years and life-blood of Brendan Dassey slip away, we must try to help free the innocent; we must speak the truth in a state where police celebrate the destruction of innocent children. Note Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen (R) (2007-2015) announced on May 2, 2008, Wiegert and Fassbender, received the Meritorious Service Award from the Wisconsin Association of Homicide Investigators, for their work against Dassey.

Most people do grow up believing that law enforcement are out to help us.

In Wisconsin, this is a dangerous belief.

Call Tony Evers right now and demand justice for Brendan Dassey:

Madison Office: 608 266 1212
Milwaukee Office: 414 227 4344

Brendan Dassey co-counsel former Solicitor General of the United States Seth Waxman speaks to this profound injustice & how we all felt when first watching Brendan’s interrogation #bringbrendanhome pic.twitter.com/tnNNkAwMWS

— Tracy Keogh (@TracyKeogh2) October 2, 2019

@GovEvers , Time to grow up, face the world. The Dassey interrogation and prosecution are what happens when pols avert their eyes from molestation of innocent children. Are you so committed to sticking your head in the sand while the life-blood of a now 29-year-old drips away? https://t.co/d9xOSvvS51

— Michael Leon (@mal644) October 3, 2019

Tree Jumpers, Wisconsin Law Enforcement and the Grotesque Injustice Inflicted onto Brendan Dassey

Madison, Wisconsin — There is for the worst of human beings a curse reserved for a category of human garbage — the tree jumper.

A tree jumper is a child molester; a soulless creature who preys upon the innocent for his gratification and repulsive purposes.

In Wisconsin, tree jumpers wear military black-and-blue, and they work in law enforcement. I have lived in Wisconsin all my life, and I do not believe the political culture is capable of accessing and absorbing this fact.

But meet Mark Wiegert, (current Sheriff of the Calumet County Sheriff's Office), and Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation investigator (Ret)).

They preyed upon an innocent, cognitively challenged 16-year-old with the purpose of inducing an innocent child into muttering words disingenuously portrayed as a confession.

For their work, Wiegert and Fassbender received the Meritorious Service Award from the Wisconsin Association of Homicide Investigators on May 2, 2008.

Tree jumpers often seek out each others' company and celebrate each others' work, as FBI profiler John Douglas and Mark Olshaker reveal in their Journey Into Darkness, (Gallery Books; (May 1, 2010).

This is Wisconsin law enforcement, and no cop speaks out against the false confessions, wrongful convictions, police frame-ups, harassment and character assassination that follow police dehumanization and objectification. Wiegert and Fassbender's careers in law enforcement were enhanced since the tree jumpers' despicable work used to help frame another innocent man, Steven Avery.

What Wiegert and Fassbender did to Brendan Dassey, featured in the Emmy-winning Making a Murderer, appears too vile a truth to stain the editorial pages of your local paper and TV station in Wisconsin.
 ---
Not so for scholars Michele LaVigne and Sally U. Miles

In their paper, Under the Hood: Brendan Dassey, Language Impairments, and Judicial Ignorance, (full paper) LaVigne and Miles present work explaining the implausibility of the police lies that inflicted a "grotesque injustice done to Brendan Dassey."

Judge David F. Hamilton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit should read their findings. This man's deciding vote to overturn Habeas relief for Dassey condemned an innocent child to prison for life, put there by tree jumpers — Mark Wiegert and Tom Fassbender.

"[O]ur job as a federal court reviewing a state conviction under § 2254(d) [application for a writ of habeas corpus] is not to consult scholarly literature in search of new best practices," intoned Hamilton in his dismissive opinion that overturned a federal district court and a three-judge ruling granting habeas relief to Brendan Dassey, (p.111, Dassey v. Dittman), ( Making a Murderer, Part Two;  (Episode 8; 24 minutes, 45 seconds).

Best practices? Scholarly findings explain how and why innocent children, and in Dassey's case a child with severe communication and language impairment, do not stand a chance against tree jumpers.

Below is the Abstract to LaVigne and Miles' paper (full paper) revealing what sick police and obtuse judges can inflict onto children.

Perhaps the esteemed Judge David F. Hamilton can edify himself.

Abstract

Making a Murderer, the Netflix documentary sensation, introduced the world to two unlikely protagonists, Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey of Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Both were convicted of a 2005 homicide and received life sentences. Avery was the main focus of the series, but it was Brendan, a developmentally-delayed sixteen-year-old, who won the heart and outrage of viewers.

The primary piece of evidence against Brendan was a “confession” cruelly extracted by law enforcement. The voluntariness of that confession was litigated in state and federal courts for over a dozen years. Tragically, most of the courts, including the final Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals en banc majority, were completely oblivious to fact that Brendan’s had the kind of severe communication and language impairment which would have left him helpless against the out-of-control interviewing style used by law enforcement. This article examines what the courts overlooked.

In order to fully assess the interviews and their impact, the co-authors had to do an under the hood analysis of Brendan’s language and communication skills as well as the communication of law enforcement. The co-authors, a clinical law professor and a speech language pathologist, suspected that Brendan suffered from a language impairment (disabling deficiencies in oral language competency), and we were right. The court file contained school records and assessments that placed Brendan’s language and communication skills in the lowest percentile of all sixteen-year-olds. This impairment had a profound impact on all aspects of Brendan’s functioning.

The other part of the equation was more complicated, but equally revealing. With the assistance of a language transcription company we closely analyzed law enforcement communication, and how that communication would affect someone like Brendan. The results were alarming. Almost everything the two officers did in the course of interrogating Brendan violated the most minimal standards for interviewing any juvenile, but especially one with underdeveloped language and communication skills. By the time we finished our review, we were confident that the verbal behavior of law enforcement throughout the interrogations of Brendan, coupled with his poor ability to linguistically cope and his age, made him a prime candidate for unwillingly—and unwittingly—confessing to a crime he did not commit.

This article describes our findings. It shows how law enforcement essentially abused Brendan with a chaotic mess of verbiage. And how, up against such a relentless verbal torrent, Brendan never stood a chance. The article also analyzes the myriad ways that the courts were simply wrong in their assumptions about Brendan, communication, and human behavior.

On a larger scale, we believe that this article, and the process that created it, can provide a prototype for future cases. Brendan Dassey’s impairment is not unique, and within the criminal justice system, it is not even unusual. Nor, unfortunately, are egregious police interviewing “techniques.” The use of speech-language expertise and discourse analysis could be useful to prevent the kind of grotesque injustice done to Brendan Dassey.
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JEL Classification: K14

Suggested Citation:

LaVigne, Michele and Miles, Sally, Under the Hood: Brendan Dassey, Language Impairments, and Judicial Ignorance (April 29, 2019). 82 Alb.L.Rev. ____ (2019) (in annual Miscarriages of Justice issue, Forthcoming); Univ. of Wisconsin Legal Studies Research Paper No. 1473. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3379727 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3379727