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.