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

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.

World's Worst Mother, Barb Tadych, Fed Innocent Son to Police Tree Jumpers

Billboard in Manitowoc Demands Pardon for
Wrongfully Convicted Brendan Dassey. Gov
Tony Evers (D) is vested with unlimited power
to grant clemency for any or no reason under
 Article V, Sec 6 of the Wisconsin Constitution.

Innocent Man in Prison — Everyone Knows

Update 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.

--

Happy Mothers Day 2021

The innocent Brendan Dassey doesn't have a good mother.

One Barb Tadych, in fact, is one of the world's worst mothers.
 
No matter, 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 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

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.
---
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

Brendan Dassey Awaits Freedom in Wisconsin as Gov Tony Evers Cowers

Billboard in Manitowoc Demands Pardon for
Wrongfully Convicted Brendan Dassey. Gov
Tony Evers (D) is vested with unlimited power
to grant clemency for any or no reason under
 Article V, Sec 6 of the Wisconsin Constitution.

Innocent Man in Prison — Everyone Knows, Afraid to Act

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.

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 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

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.

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.

Making of a Murderer Appellate Decision Shows American Police State at Work

Image -Kathe Kollwitz, (1867-1945). Kollwitz is a major
anti-fascist artist who lived in Germany.

Update: Judges David Hamilton, Frank Easterbrook, Michael Kanne and Diane Sykes of the Seventh Circuit are dishonest people. Hamilton in his rush to reverse the federal court decision that would have freed Brendan Dassey confused Bobby Dassey with his older brother, Brendan Dassey. JFC. Critical reading.
---
When Richard Posner announced his resignation from the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in September 2017, it was clear real people would get hurt in his absence from the bench.

Posner blew the whistle on the federal judiciary, telling Adam Liptak in the New York Times that judges are not-so-judicious and often vicious: "there are others who are just, you know, reactionary beasts. They’re reactionary beasts because they want to manipulate the statutes and the Constitution in their own way," said Posner.

Posner had people like the innocent-and-convicted-anyway Brendan Dassey in mind.

Dassey was railroaded by east-central Wisconsin human garbage and convicted of crimes of which the cops knew Dassey to be innocent. The case drew outrage after it was featured in Making of a Murderer.

The conviction was reversed this year in federal court. Now, reactionary beasts on the Seventh Circuit reinstated the conviction in (16-3397), Dassey v. Dittman last week.

There is almost never accountability for the inhumane infliction against the innocent. Police and prosecutors remain immune to virtually any crime they inflict.

In Dassey v. Dittman, Judges David Hamilton, Frank Easterbrook, Michael Kanne and Diane Sykes of the Seventh Circuit are reactionary beasts, dishonestly and indifferently snuffing out an innocent, young life.

I wish Posner had been around for just a few months more.

Writes James Warren:

It's ironic — maybe tragic — that Richard Posner, generally conceded to be perhaps the most influential judge-academic of his generation and the most influential judge not on the Supreme Court, suddenly and surprisingly quit the Chicago appeals court and retired in September at a still prolific 78. If he were around, the odds are that he would have voted with the dissenters, made it 4-4 and thus affirmed the earlier reversal of Dassey's conviction.

But no. Dassey will remain in prison, it would appear, until he dies. It might prompt you to download the Netflix series. And, as you watch, be reminded of the strengths of journalism — but how even the most meticulously detailed conclusions can lead ultimately to exasperation, not satisfaction, and precious little attention. 

So, an innocent life is extinguished, Dassey is gone, unless the United States Supreme Court accepts his case when it's appealed.

Exasperation, disgust, and revulsion are features thinking people note in examining the United States criminal justice system. These are not emotions in this context, they're a formless creature of malice and indifference that is the American criminal justice system that exudes what it inflicts.

Whether the victim is Penny Brummer, or Brendan Dassey, the perpetrators are cops and prosecutors, and we are mostly by-standers.

Making a Murderer Victim Is Denied Hearing from United States Supreme Court

The United States Supreme Court denies the petition of
Brandan Dassey, an innocent who will remain in prison for
life. Case is highlighted at the bottom of above Court image.

Wisconsin Republicans lead defense for wrongful convictions such as Dassey's

The United States Supreme Court will not hear the case of Brendan Dassay, who was coerced as a 16-year-old into uttering a false confession that is featured in the 2015 Making a Murderer documentaries.

The so-called confession is the sole basis for the conviction of Dassey. The interrogation was conducted by demonstrably corrupt and dishonest investigators who promised Dassey that he could go back to his high-school class if he could just clear up a question. This led to Dassey’s conviction in the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach.

Writes atty Jerome Buting in May:

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

The Court refused to grant cert in Dassey's petition, and its refusal came with a simple list of cases denied, a quiet snuffing out of a man's life, (highlighted at bottom of image, at right).

Wisconsin law enforcement, as with the rest of the nation, attracts Republicans and criminal personality types for whom prosecuting and imprisoning innocent people is seen a means to establish careers and gratifying a need to harm people.

The United States Supreme Court denies the petition of
Brandan Dassey, an innocent who will remain in prison for
life. Case is highlighted at the bottom of above Court image.

The Dassey case is featured along with another wrongful prosecution, Steven Avery, in the Making a Murderer series.

Len Kachinsky, Dassey's attorney, threw Dassey, a cognitively challenged 16-year-old, to two criminal investigators, Mark Wiegert, (sergeant at the Calumet County Sheriff's Office), and Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation investigator), who in 2005 weren't looking for the truth but trying 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, Fassbender and former District Attorney and sex offender Ken Kratz contrived a case against two men whom they knew to be innocent.

Republican-led state police organizations in 2008 awarded Wiegert and Fassbender actual awards for their work in railroading innocent people.

As noted here previously, in America there exists a hostile and deceitful domestic police force, a careerist, conviction-at-any-costs prosecutorial ethos, racism and taboo ethics in the criminal justice system, and a commitment of district attorneys to defend wrongful convictions irrespective of truth or any consideration of justice present conditions perfect for mass incarceration constituting a "leviathan unmatched in human history," (Glenn C. Loury, Boston Review).

We're there, people.

Consider if your daughter, brother, father or mother were wrongfully convicted. Who stands with you then?

Think it could not happen to you? It happened to Penny Brummer in 1994, a young military veteran wrongfully convicted by a Dane County jury because in part she is an out lesbian.

Ask the family of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska, 1968-2009) (1923-2010), (Cary, Rollcall). The reader will have a full-blooded understanding of a Brady violation.

Ask the mother of Madison, Wisconsin's Penny Brummer: Interrogated, defamed, arrested, convicted and sentenced to what amounts to a life sentence.

Contrary to popular wisdom we live in a land of the Sovereign (the people of the state and not the law) and bad faith and deceit on the part of law enforcement are a huge part of the problem.

I'm thankful for the Richard Posners, the Sidney Powells (there is a force of nature), and the Alex Kozinski for shining lights on not a democracy, but a brutal prison state. And am always mindful of I.F. Stone's admonition: "Every government is run by liars. Nothing they say should be believed." First read this quote in 1985 on a large poster that used to occupy a prominent place of the late Erwin Knoll's (NYT) wall at the Progressive Magazine, a journal carrying out this legacy and reporting the truth to this day.

The only route for Dassey now is a pardon from a new Wisconsin governor if one is elected in November. It's a long shot.

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.]