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May 7, 2021

Corruption County — Manitowoc, Wisconsin Strikes Again; Targets Critic to Protect Old Wrongful Convictions

Manitowoc County Sheriff Uses Office to Silence Critic of Wrongful Convictions

Update III Sept 2, 2021: Supporters of Brad Dassey, step son of the infamous Barb Tadych, in Manitowoc County say the world's worse mother still wants her step-son incarcerated for criticizing her alleged abuse.
Corruption County, Manitowoc County, is reportedly offering a fine against Dassey for writing the truth about his step-mother.
The deranged mother who offers her children to Manitowoc County police to be incarcerated wants step-son, Brad, in prison because he defeated Tadych in a civil suit on First Amendment grounds.
Tadych says an unenforceable retraining order, now vacated, may have been violated. The Manitowoc County District Attorney's office is rightwing and out-of-control and is helping Tadych, who looks to the office to help incarcerate her step-son.
The next plea hearing is scheduled for October 15, 2021 at 11:30 am.

--

Update II: World's worst mother, Barb Tadych, who fed her innocent son, Brendan Dassey, alone in a room with two police tree jumpers resulting in a life sentence, now wants her step-son, Brad Dassey, in prison too. June 17, a judge will decide whether to imprison another innocent Dassey on unfounded criminal charges heard by the Manitowoc County judiciary, known for corruption and stupidity.

 Update: Analysis of the Manitowoc County District Attorney's ridiculous Summons, relying on the even more ridiculous reports of the Sheriff's Office and Barb Tadych reasons that since the TRO and petition for restraining order were denied May 3, the TRO is not enforceable on its face. Brad Dassey will prevail again, but the take-away is Barb Tadych, the DA and the Sheriff all worked together to get Brad arrested, convicted and imprisoned. Sound familiar?

Madison, Wisconsin — Manitowoc, Wisconsin is Corruption County USA.

For readers wondering whatever happened to the most corrupt county in America — Manitowoc County, Wisconsin — cops there are searching for new victims, and protecting wrongful convictions through the corrupt conduct of their office of public trust, under color of law.

One of the world's worst mothers, Barb Tadych, Brendan Dassey's mother, is featured in the Emmy-winning documentary, Making a Murderer.

Barb Tadych's Choice

Tadych is a major figure in the grotesque frame-up scheme against Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey.

In 2005, Tadych fed her 16-year-old son, Brendan, who has a severe language impairment and 70 IQ, to corrupt Wisconsin law enforcement [Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation investigator (Ret)) and Mark Wiegert, (current Sheriff of the Calumet County Sheriff's Office), who interrogated Brendan alone in a room], the better to elicit words that the cops could falsely state constituted a confession to murder of Teresa Halbach.

Law enforcement then used Brendan's so-called confession to convict the innocent Steven Avery.

Tadych publicly protested Brendan's innocence, but Tadych also remains under suspicion for her defense of Bobby Dassey, Brendan's brother, who implicated the once-exonerated Steven Avery as the State's star witness, (Ferak, Appleton Post-Crescent). 

Bobby Dassey is now a key suspect for the 2005 murder of Ms. Halbach, (for which Brendan and Avery were convicted in 2007), and a witness came forward last month attesting he saw Bobby Dassey planting Halbach's Rav-4 on Avery's property.

In April 2021, faced with compelling evidence Bobby Dassey may have been responsible for killing Ms. Halbach, and was responsible, in part, for framing Steven Avery, [a legal argument that "directly connects Bobby to the crime charged [against Avery Brendan Dassey]," (Avery Motion for Remand and Stay of Appeal, April 12, 2021, p. 5), Barb Tadych's response was not to condemn the odious Manitowoc County Sheriff Dept and other law enforcement for its actions after this spectacular new development.

Instead, Barb Tadych reached out and colluded with the very Manitowoc County Sheriff Dept that has terrorized innocent people for decades. This time their target is Brad Dassey, half-brother of Brendan and Bobby. Tadych had already thrown one son to the wolves, so, she apparently reasoned, why not another?

Barb Tadych and the Manitowoc County Sheriff Dept remain close, even after Tadych's move to sacrifice Brendan caused Tadych to criticize the cops, in regret.

First, Tadych sought and obtained a Temporary Restraining Order, [Manitowoc County Case Number 2021CV000155, Barbara Tadych vs. Brad Anthony Dassey; April 19, 2021] against step-son Brad Dassey (for his criticism on social media of Tadych as an abusive parent and a possible destroyer of evidence implicating Bobby), days after the April 12, 2021 development of a new witness coming forward and attesting that the witness saw Bobby Dassey planting critical evidence on Steven Avery's property, (Patch. com).

After Tadych's ridiculous petition of a harassment injunction against Brad Dassey was dismissed on May 3, the Manitowoc County District Attorney mailed a criminal summons also dated May 3 to Brad Dassey, citing a polemical and sketchy Manitowoc County Sheriff Dept report alleging Brad Dassey violated the Temporary Restraining Order, though ultimately the TRO and Barb Tadych's harassment petition were denied on May 3.

Corruption County wants Brad Dassey for his criticism of the Sheriff and Barb Tadych, and it will not stop.

And there is nothing law enforcement can inflict that the Wisconsin Dept of Justice will not defend.

Brad Dassey has set up a legal defense fund. Readers are invited to contribute.

Phone calls to the Manitowoc County District Attorney's office this morning were not successful.

The cause of justice is not the cause of the Wisconsin Dept of Justice and other corrupt Wisconsin law enforcement.

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Jun 23, 2021

Wisconsin Dems Block Exoneration Seekers

Image is by Otto Dix, German anti-fascist artist
whose work was confiscated by the NAZIs and
displayed as degenerate art. "The Nazis labeled Dix a
'degenerate,' but the term is better applied to the society
he depicted—cannibalizing itself and hurtling toward
destruction," writes Alina Cohen in The Guardian.
Wisconsin today has veered into fascism, and literally no
elected official challenges the police-prison state which
sends innocents to their doom.
Justice Delayed in Making a Murderer Cases

MADISON, WIS — In a legal spectacle this Spring, Thomas Sowinski of Manitowoc swore in a statement that he saw the prosecution's key trial witness plant the murder victim's RAV4 vehicle on the property of the man convicted of homicide in 2007.

In other words, a credible resident swears he caught conspirators red-handed in a frame-up scheme in Wisconsin's infamous murder case drawing headlines in state post-conviction litigation.

Sowinski appears the stuff of movies — maybe, some mused, in response Wisconsin's new attorney general would seek to vacate two murder convictions, amid a vow to clean up law enforcement in east-central Wisconsin.

Movies are not political reality in Wisconsin.

The case is State of Wisconsin v Steven Avery, featured in the Emmy-winning Making a Murderer docuseries.

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 the spectacle as revenge prosecutions of innocents in Manitowoc and Calumet counties, an insular region of the state known for small-town justice — injustice.

DOJ delay strategy

The Wisconsin Dept of Justice quickly responded on April 16 to the Sowinski statement, filed by Avery attorney Kathleen Zellner.

The DOJ filing includes unfounded accusations challenging attorney Zellner's ethics, and a bizarre statement complaining about the fact that Avery spotlights more prosecutorial misconduct for allegedly withholding exculpatory evidence — a Brady violation.

The DOJ asserted that the sheer multiplicity of alleged Brady violations in the record should be read against the defense.

Avery's attorney, Zellner, reacted with restrained outrage.

Zellner replied to the Court on April 22: "It is a supreme irony that in one of the most blatant examples of a wrongful conviction the State's only response is to falsely accuse Mr. Avery's lead counsel of nefarious conduct for discovering a 6th Brady violation. Rather than seeking justice, the State wants to 'slay the messenger' by putting forth more false allegations, a skill that it has mastered over the last 16 years. The State turns a blind eye towards its past actions of withholding exculpatory evidence."

The Democratic-led DOJ said nothing about the substance of Sowinski's sworn statement, or that the prosecution apparently failed to notify the defense about this witness after he contacted the Manitowoc Sheriff's department in 2005.

Dems stand with police

What is happening in Wisconsin?

Why is the Democratic-led DOJ defending the work of Kenneth R. Kratz, former Calumet County District Attorney, (1992-2010), who was forced to resign in disgrace in 2010 for outrageous conduct in 2009, just two years after prosecuting the Avery-Dassey cases?

Kratz is self-described as suffering from narcissistic personality disorder, sexual compulsion disorder and multiple drug addictions.

Kratz described himself a "dick" for his work as district attorney in which he claimed he could not help himself harassing crime victims because of his disorders for which he was undergoing professional treatment, amid an allegation he possibly assaulted a woman.

Wisconsin Democratic Party officials, Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Joshua Kaul, have made the political decision to work for law enforcement, even Kratz, against the wrongfully convicted.

This is political liberalism at its most vicious and irrational.

One month into his term in 2019, Kaul filed legal responses signaling the DOJ would stall Avery's  possible exoneration by filing procedural objections.

The strategy keeps Avery in prison and delays a hearing in County Circuit court, a move necessary before state appellate courts can rule.

In Wisconsin, January-February weather is colder than July-August, and the Democratic Party loves and supports its cops. It's the way it is.

This political climate is why cops feel free to frame Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey. 

It's why cops like Rusten Sheskey feels free to attempt to kill Jacob Blake; and why cops killed and gunned down Paul Heenan, Ashley DiPiazza, and Tony Robinson in Madison.

It's why the racist Wisconsin State Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) felt free to travel to Madison during the historic 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, pick a fight with protesters, fake a collapse, and then retaliate against marchers by pressing criminal charges against two women whom he knows to be innocent. Carpenter hates uppity women.

Carpenter told cops he was headed to the state Capitol around midnight on business before he encountered the Black Lives Matter protests.

Gov. Evers shoots down innocents

Gov. Evers joined Kaul in the delaying strategy with Brendan Dassey, convicted co-conspirator with Avery. Dassey petitioned for a commutation in 2019, after losing his Habeas petition 4-3 at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in a lambasted 2017 decision.

Dassey claims in his 2019 executive clemency petition that Wisconsin's criminal justice system perpetuated an injustice in which the state can have no "confidence."

Reads the petition:

In 2006, Brendan Dassey was a sixteen-year-old Mishicot High School special education student with no criminal history, an IQ of 74, and speech-language functioning in the bottom percentile. After undergoing four police interrogations in 48 hours, he found himself charged with involvement in one of the highest-profile homicides in Wisconsin history – and, subsequently, sentenced to life in prison – based on a videotaped confession about which state and federal judges, national police authorities, prosecutorial groups, and psychological experts have since expressed the gravest doubts.

A member of Dassey's 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."

Gov. Evers sent Dassey a form letter denying his petition in Dec 2019, stating in part that since Dassey did not wait five years after serving his life sentence, Evers would not consider the plea.

While Oregon and Illinois passed bans this year on lying to juveniles during police interrogations, with some state legislators citing Wisconsin resident Brendan Dassey's ordeal, Evers refuses to consider a pardon for Dassey that looks at the merits of his case.

Tony Evers retains the power to pardon Dassey with the stroke of a pen.

Problem is a pardon or commutation would blow into a political scandal implicating Democratic sheriffs, Kaul's mother, former Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager (2003-07) among other Democratic Party cops.

Dems and win-at-any costs cops

Democrat Kaul's DOJ team includes a who's who of dubious state DOJ attorneys — Mark Williams, Thomas J. Fallon, and Special Prosecutor Norman Gahn — all of whom have demonstrated misconduct in their work, either destroying evidence or lying about destroying evidence.

After years of Republican Party rule in Wisconsin, people around the world who believe it's immoral to imprison innocents had waited for how the new Democratic attorney general and governor would handle Dassey and Avery's battle for exoneration in 2019.

Next steps

Today, Avery is awaiting the appellate court decision whether to send his case to County Circuit court to hear the Thomas Sowinski statement and other evidence, and the resolution of pending motions.

At a time when our country is questioning law enforcement, Wisconsin Democratic leadership is working against the people . . . for the police.

"We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated. An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, a nation," writes Bryan Stevenson in Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption.

The quality of mercy towards the innocent appears to be exhausted under the warrant of Wisconsin Democrats.

[Michael Leon has written for The Progressive, In These Times, CounterPunch and others. Leon is covering the Making a Murderer cases, and has advocated for the release of Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey.]
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Apr 12, 2021

Making a Murderer — Avery Attorney Names Apparent Murder Suspect; New Eyewitness Comes Forward, Ids Planting of Victim's RAV-4


Avery Motion Directly Implicates Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office, Bobby Dassey and an Older Unidentified Man in Spectacular Development

Updated - The exonerated Steven Avery was made internationally famous in the Emmy-winning documentary, Making a Murderer, for his exoneration, and subsequent apparent frame-up by crooked Wisconsin law enforcement, resulting in his 2007 conviction for the murder of Teresa Halbach in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

Today, Steven Avery's attorney, Kathleen Zellner, named Bobby Dassey and "an unidentified older male" as the individuals who planted Ms. Halbach's dark-blue RAV-4 auto in the Avery auto salvage yard, citing a witness who came forward April 11, 2021.

Writes Ms Zellner on Twitter:

Post-conviction litigation is being pursued by Avery's attorneys, Kathleen T. Zellner and Steven G. Richards, in the Wisconsin court system (State of Wisconsin v. Steven A. Avery, Appeal Number 2017AP002288). The case was awaiting decision in state appellate court (Work with KZ).

This morning on April 12, preceding the announcement, Zellner filed a motion in state appellate court asking for a remand [to County Circuit Court] and a stay of the appeal.

The motion to remand the case is a spectacular development that chronicles two people moving a murder victim's car onto the Steven Avery property after an eye witness, Thomas Sowinski, a motor-route driver for Gannett Newspapers, Inc. came forward on April 11, 2021 (pp 1.2).

After Sowinski witnessed the planting of Ms Halbach's RAV-4, he called the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office and was told by a female employee that the Office "already knew who did it," the motion's affidavit reads.

Sowinski said in his affidavit, that not only did he witness Bobby Dassey "suspiciously pushing" the victim's vehicle down Avery Road, but that Bobby attempted to block Sowinski from leaving the property. The second older man ducked down below an open passenger door upon encountering Sowinski.

Sowinski said, "I know that Bobby Dassey and the older individual were doing something creepy." (Affidavit).

As Mr Sowinski's call was not communicated to the Avery defense, the omission by disgraced ex-District Attorney Ken Kratz is a glaring Brady violation.

Zellner told Patch. com (Ferek): "This is an evidence bombshell in the Avery case. We consider it the most significant witness evidence ever in the case, and it's an objective, non-biased witness who notified police in 2005 and he was ignored."

I think Steven Avery never would have been convicted had this evidence been known during his trial, and it destroys Bobby Dassey's credibility and links him to the crime."

The community behind Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey expects a complete exoneration and a criminal probe of Calumet County and Manitowoc County law enforcement, and top officials in the Wisconsin Dept of Justice.

Tips are now coming in to attorney Zellner on the identity of the second person.

The Wisconsin Dept of Justice, let by Attorney General Joshua Kaul, appears to be shielding the rampant corruption and criminality of law enforcement in east-central Wisconsin.

Kaul, who assumed office in 2019, has conspicuously failed to launch any DoJ investigations into law enforcement, including his own department, despite the widespread criticism of police, Ken Kratz, Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation investigator (Ret)) and Mark Wiegert, (current Sheriff of the Calumet County Sheriff's Office).

Kratz prosecuted both the Avery and Dassey cases before resigning in disgrace in 2010 after sexual assault and harassment allegations against him came to light and Gov Jim Doyle began removal proceedings.

Gov Doyle (2003-11) and Kaul's mother, former Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager (2003-2007) were bitter political enemies.

The Wisconsin Dept of Justice for now is keeping with its strategy on post-conviction litigation by pleading procedural arguments as evidence of law enforcement misconduct mounts.






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Jan 12, 2016

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.
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Dec 26, 2015

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.
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Sep 9, 2021

Making a Murderer — Dark Cloud Hangs over Wisconsin Judiciary Amid Corruption Concerns

The once exonerated Steven Avery faces
his most malicious enemy in the
Democratic Party and a corrupt
Wisconsin Judiciary that has abdicated
its duty to act with impartiality. Damage,
destruction are the aims against Avery
and his nephew who have committed a
mortal sin in Wisconsin: Fighting back
against state violence and corrupt cops.

Avery Seeks New Trial and Evidentiary Hearing in a Corrupt State Court System

Commentary

Update II: Rebuttal to State's Response in Opposition of Mr. Avery's Petition. This is a devastating public explanation that the DOJ undoubtedly will misrepresent amid its posturing that there is nothing to see here.

Updated: Madison, Wisconsin — Steven Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, were convicted of first-degree homicide in Wisconsin in 2007 for the murder of a young photographer, Teresa Halbach. 

Both men are serving life sentences following much criticized investigations and trials held in east-central Wisconsin, known locally for small-town justice and police corruption.

Avery is appealing to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in post-conviction litigation, seeking a new trial and an evidentiary heating in his August petition.

The case is State of Wisconsin v Steven Avery, featured in the Emmy-winning Making a Murderer docuseries.

But the once-exonerated Steven Avery faces a vendetta from multiple foes, including the Wisconsin Democratic leadership, corrupt law enforcement and the Wisconsin Judiciary which has largely abdicated its role as protector of individual Constitutional rights in favor of covering for police misconduct.

Yesterday, the Wisconsin DoJ filed a response opposing Steven Avery's petition for a hearing before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Avery seeks a public evidentiary hearing on new evidence that was hidden by the prosecution for the purpose of blocking material facts pointing to Avery's innocence. He also seeks a new trial, reasoning that the non-existent case for his guilt combined with the clear law enforcement misconduct would make the spectacle of another guilty trial verdict impossible.

Notes attorney Jerome Buting: "State’s response to Avery’s @ZellnerLaw petition opposes SCOW review, claiming SA was not treated differently because his case was 'the subject of a television show.' Really? In no other case has WI fought so desperately to avoid any evidentiary hearing."

At each point is his post-conviction litigation, the State DOJ has blocked, delayed, deterred and opposed Avery's quest for his second exoneration.

A reader ought consider this whole affair is not akin to sick, ole-boy Louisiana corruption. Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Oklahoma and Missouri have nothing on Wisconsin police-prosecutor corruption, more insidious than any conduct our fellows to the South can conjure.

Few believe in the impartiality of the Wisconsin Judiciary which is capable of doing anything in service to a corrupt police force.

Wisconsin has a nefarious cast of characters in law enforcement, but the Avery and Dassey cases approach the demented.

Kenneth R. Kratz, former Calumet County District Attorney, (1992-2010), was forced to resign in disgrace in 2010 for outrageous sexual misconduct in 2009, perhaps earlier, just two years after prosecuting the Avery-Dassey cases.

Kratz is self-described as suffering from narcissistic personality disorder, sexual compulsion disorder and multiple drug addictions.

But the Wisconsin DoJ has defended the work of this same repulsive figure Kratz in Avery's post-conviction litigation, instead of launching an investigation into Wisconsin law enforcement, Kratz and other prosecutors' subsequent conduct to determine the reliability of convictions.

"The State ... conveys an attitude of impunity for its past actions of withholding exculpatory evidence and its current action of continuing the concealment of its destruction of potentially exculpatory or useful evidence," writes Avery attorney, Kathleen Zellner in 2019 in a legal filing in appellate court.

The State of Wisconsin DoJ did worse in post-conviction litigation than convey an attitude of impunity. The DoJ has chided the defense for bringing multiple Brady violations to the attention of the Court, so strong is the prosecution's confidence that the Court will sustain the DoJ's positions.

Avery's attorney, Zellner, reacted with restrained outrage this posture.

Zellner replied to the Court on April 22, 2021: "It is a supreme irony that in one of the most blatant examples of a wrongful conviction the State's only response is to falsely accuse Mr. Avery's lead counsel of nefarious conduct for discovering a 6th Brady violation. Rather than seeking justice, the State wants to 'slay the messenger' by putting forth more false allegations, a skill that it has mastered over the last 16 years. The State turns a blind eye toward its past actions of withholding exculpatory evidence."

On July 28, 2021, the Court of Appeals (Dist II), delivered a results-oriented decision and opinion so blatant in adopting the State's errors that lay parties revealed the decision to be rife with misstatement, and misinterpretation of evidence (Reddit). Avery's attorney, Kathleen Zellner, followed up with a petition to the Wisconsin Supreme Court some four weeks later.

On Sept 8, 2021, when the DoJ filed its response opposing Avery's petition for a hearing before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and the large pro-Avery community around the world reacted with gasps and disgust.

This DOJ posture, haughty and disingenuous, raises the question, if the State is so certain that its conviction of Avery and Brendan Dassey are on the level, why does it oppose bringing the case to light before the State high court, an evidentiary hearing, and a new trial?

Avery advocates have noted that the DOJ failed to even challenge Avery's arguments in its response, instead taking on the tone of how dare you challenge the integrity of this conviction?

Attorney Zellner, who has seen every type of State depravity in her practice around the country freeing dozens of wrongfully convicted persons, seemed shook by the pathological tone of the Democrat-led Dept of Justice's latest filing that reads more like a politcal document subtly calling for Party loyalty that a legal filing made in good faith.

Zellner sent out three tweets, deleted two, before she noted: "If we had wanted to re-read the same error filled COA decision again we could have. The State’s Regurgitation Response addresses none of the errors —it just repeats them. Justice delayed again for Steven Avery."

If we had wanted to re-read the same error filled COA decision again we could have. The State’s Regurgitation Response addresses none of the errors —it just repeats them. Justice delayed again for Steven Avery. @MakingAMurderer

This is Wisconsin.

This is where Martin Lipske, a contemptible District Attorney in Iron County in northern Wisconsin, was driven into retirement just before Lipske fronted for child trafficking schemes.

So, the Wisconsin District Attorney Association named Lipske Prosecutor of the Year for the Department of Justice in 2016, and awarded Lipske the E. Michael McCann Award from the DA Association. 

The Wisconsin Judiciary cannot be counted on to police corrupt law enforcement, certainly not an odious figure like Kratz and the Democrat-led Wisconsin Dept of Justice.

Behind the scenes, the DOJ's attempt to rewrite the state's Brady doctrine will figure into this case.

The four Republicans on the Wisconsin Supreme Court are Avery's hope as Wisconsin Democrats will do their worst to protect wrongful convictions of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey.

The DOJ dismissal of a Brady violation claim is preposterous, for instance, that even the DOJ notes features the defense failure to raise an issue of omission to which the defense was never alerted.


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Oct 2, 2019

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
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Mar 4, 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."

 

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.

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Nov 28, 2018

Making a Murderer Part 2 Is a Brilliant Light Cast upon Depraved People — Wisconsin Cops and Prosecutors

Wisconsinites should watch Making a Murderer, Part 2,
and bear witness to the crucifixion of human beings by
Wisconsin at its most-depraved.
If it were in my power, I would make viewing both series
of Making a Murderer obligatory for Wisconsin
public school students and staff.

Revenge and malicious prosecutions — State terror in the Badger state

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

Madison, Wisconsin — We finished Making a Murderer, Part 2 (Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos) with critical minds and open hearts.

Lifelong Wisconsinites, both my life partner and I felt we were bearing witness. Such is the power of this pioneering documentary.

Making a Murderer, Part 2 shows attorney Kathleen Zellner's dismantling another wrongful conviction of Steven Avery, and a second, equally dedicated defense team led by attorney Laura Nirider, working for the other wrongfully convicted victim, Brendan Dassey, (induced into a wild, false confession of sorts), in this account of the Wisconsin criminal justice system.

Step-by-step, piece-of-evidence by piece-of-evidence, Zellner offers not just a compelling case of Avery's innocence, but an equally compelling case of criminal guilt by Wisconsin cops and prosecutors.

Wisconsin is not equipped, not wired, to expose, challenge and change its hellacious criminal justice system. We need help.

This documentary series brings viewers a spectacle of brutality and state violence, what we did to Steven Avery and Brenden Dassey and their families, victims of a framing scheme perpetrated by the Manitowoc and Calumet County (Wisconsin) Sheriff's offices and multi-jurisdictional prosecutions in kangaroo federal and state courts.

Bearing witness in viewing a series is assuming a duty to speak out and state, this is what happened and this is not done in our name.

It means asking the Wisconsin people to consider that having prosecuted and convicted innocent people for horrific crimes, it follows that the guilty are free and likely not leading lives in the tradition of Bertrand Russell and 20th century radical pacifists.

Avery was framed for murder because he was about to expose the ugly realities of Wisconsin law enforcement in his $36 million civil lawsuit for his first wrongful conviction.

I don't know how these County cops live with themselves. Then again I don't think I really understand killers and those who would lie with the objective to destroy lives.

Making a Murderer Part 2 is a brilliant chronicle, showing viewers the moral equivalent of murder committed twice against Avery, and once against Dassey in east-central Wisconsin.

The murderers are Ken Kratz (disgraced former district attorney and sex offender); Mark Wiegert, (sergeant at the Calumet County Sheriff's Office); Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation investigator); Gene Kusche, the Manitowoc County chief deputy sheriff under Sheriff Tom Kocourek; Manitowoc County Sheriff's Lt. James Lenk; and Sgt. Andrew Colborn, all of whom acted in their official capacities to imprison the innocent, and inflict the psychological and physical deterioration of Mrs. and Mr. Avery, and Barb, Brenden Dassey's mother. Dozens more.

What horrific human garbage. 

This visual presentation of torture inflicted on the Avery and Dassey families is critical to understanding what a few dozen yahoos in Wisconsin are capable of — a state crucifixion of ordinary people in Wisconsin, a pleasant place to live, a great place to grow up, but a region full of by-standers, ignoramuses, and cowards.
 ---
I know. I grew up in east-central Wisconsin in Fond du Lac, about 45 miles southwest of Manitowoc.

I loved what for me was a privileged first 19 years amid nigger jokes, Jew jokes, and a population steeped in committed ignorance. But none of it touched me, though on more than one occasion I felt like I was bearing witness to a region steeped in stupidity and racism, and every public official bar none who failed to speak out.

The same dehumanization and madness behind racism are at play in Manitowoc and Calumet counties.
  ---
There is plenty of footage in Making a Murderer Part 2 on Attorney General Brad Schimel (R), a typical Wisconsin Republican sadist who has kept the torture going.

Schimel was just defeated in his bid for reelection last November by a young Democratic candidate, Josh Kaul, another native of east-central Wisconsin and my hometown—Fond du Lac.

In the campaign for attorney general, crucifying the innocent was never an issue. It remains unclear how Kaul and the new governor, Tony Evers, also from east-central Wisconsin, will perform in their offices to put a stop to these obvious-to-any-rational-observer wrongful convictions.

With respect to Tony Evers, I don't think the man is equipped in intellect, character or inclination to correct an injustice through commutation or pardoning. Evers is just another by-stander, a bureaucratic non-entity.

When it comes to criminal justice and human lives, Wisconsin's political and legal cultures range from numb to malicious. Evers is numb.
---
That addresses a question implicit in Making a Murderer Part 2: How did the Avery and Dassey crucifixions happen?

How do depraved criminals like Ken Kratz and the Calumet and Manitowoc County Sheriff's office get away with framing innocent people?

We in Wisconsin let them.

The injustice inflicted upon Avery and Dassey evokes Sacco and Vanzetti.

The innocent Sacco and Vanzetti were targeted, tortured and killed.

The killers murdered them because they could and because they would.
This is the role of the police in American society: To carry out injustice.

What our role as citizens becomes is precisely what we make of it.

Viewing Making a Murderer, Part Two, it's clear that we as citizens gave cops and assorted killers a free pass to seek revenge against Avery and Dassey.

Avery was about to publicly display Manitowoc County as stupid and malicious, and Dassey was available.

It's the way it is here for killer cops, for Penny Brummer, and so many innocents to list.
Watching Making a Murderer, Part 2 is to experience an ongoing hope that at some point, surely some decent force, some authority with a regard for liberty and humanity, is going to put a stop to this madness in Manitowoc.

After-all, the state and governmental authority are mere instruments to assure the liberty and happiness of the individual.

There is the writ of habeas corpus petition, the great writ, the last-chance for the innocent — weakened in 1996 in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). [Thank you, Bill and Hillary Clinton for that.]

There's two broad methods judges can employ in considering post-conviction, habeas petitions in federal litigation.

Judges can consider the wisdom of Richard Posner (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, (1981-2017)), on judicial opinion writing in federal appellate court: "Be sure to read every case, statute, regulation article, treatise, etc., [case documents]," (p. 257, Reflections on Judging (Harvard University Press. 2013)).

Alternatively, an appellate judge such as David F. Hamilton can effectively stick his head in a hole, dismissing facts and understanding of police and judicial action against a prisoner of the state.

Hamilton and appellate judges Frank Easterbrook, Michael Kanne and Diane Sykes of the Seventh Circuit chose the head-in-hole approach to habeas jurisprudence.

"[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 astonishingly dismissive opinion that overturned a federal district court and a three-judge ruling granting habeas relief to Brendan Dassey, (p.111, Dassey v. Dittman).

Avery's attorney, Kathleen Zellner, was clearly appalled at this Dred Scott of Habeas litigation.

Reading Hamilton's opinion on intentional ignorance of scholarly literature, Zellner replies, icy and incensed: "Really? Why not? Why would you not be availing yourself of what experts have determined about false confessions?" (Episode 8; 24 minutes, 45 seconds).

Steven Avery is demonstrably innocent. Avery's case will become a wrecking crew of injustice. We're that close.

When Avery wins his legal fight, Brendan Dassey will be released. He cannot be an accomplice to a crime that did not occur.

But have we come to public crucifixions in Wisconsin? Has Wisconsin really come to that?

"It 'came to that' the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent."

The quote is from Spencer Tracy as a composite character of Robert H. Jackson and other jurists in Judgement at Nuremberg (1961), a film worthy of the topic.

Wisconsin does not have the death penalty, but the bodies are piling up.
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