What TV Have You Seen?

[MuckyFunster]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

I'm halfway through Making a Murderer on Netflix and it's a tremendous piece of documentary filmmaking, which is making me curious, angry, and sad at various points in every episode.

I watched making a murderer but was more or less fed up with it after episode 2 and only watched it till the end so I could join in the workplace discussions about it. I felt the documentary was so very one sided and only interested in painting some sympathetic picture of him that his defence counsel wanted to paint.

On a lighter note, me and the Mrs have been bingeing on New Girl, starring Zooey Deschanel. Top comedy stuff! We're midway through season 3 at the mo

[Frankenhooker]

Of who ? Stephen Avery or Brendan Dassey ? Neither got a fair trial, there were grave systematic flaws during both their trials, Dassey's especially. He was borderline mentally retarded, didn't understand the gravity of the situation, was led during questioning, was questioned without a parent, guardian and at times even without a solicitor. Regardless of whether you believe they were guilty or not, and I believe one of them was guilty, their trials were farcical and helped propagate the opinion that they were set up.

Everyone deserves a fair trial, even those who are guilty.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

So, are you enjoying it?

Very good so far, although on the whole it's not as good as Children of the Stones... at least so far.

[gag]

Originally Posted by Susan Foreman

Strange to think that it is 19 years since 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' was first broadcast on TV!

Original (US) airdate March 10, 1997

And ive never watched one whole entire episode.

[iank]

You've missed the best show genre show ever made after Classic Doctor Who.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by MuckyFunster

I watched making a murderer but was more or less fed up with it after episode 2 and only watched it till the end so I could join in the workplace discussions about it. I felt the documentary was so very one sided and only interested in painting some sympathetic picture of him that his defence counsel wanted to paint.

On a lighter note, me and the Mrs have been bingeing on New Girl, starring Zooey Deschanel. Top comedy stuff! We're midway through season 3 at the mo

Originally Posted by Frankenhooker

Of who ? Stephen Avery or Brendan Dassey ? Neither got a fair trial, there were grave systematic flaws during both their trials, Dassey's especially. He was borderline mentally retarded, didn't understand the gravity of the situation, was led during questioning, was questioned without a parent, guardian and at times even without a solicitor. Regardless of whether you believe they were guilty or not, and I believe one of them was guilty, their trials were farcical and helped propagate the opinion that they were set up.

Everyone deserves a fair trial, even those who are guilty.

I watched the episodes eight and nine last night, so have (I think) reached the end of the court cases. As you say, Brendan Dassey is not an 'average' 16-year-old (at the time of his arrest and questioning), and missing in the court that he didn't even know the difference between feet and yards after describing his uncle's house as being 200-300 yards away, before saying it was closer than the length of a football field.

Sadly, the American system doesn't have the equivalent of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (1984), so children can be questioned without parents or lawyers present in something which is accurately described as an 'interrogation' rather than, as in our system, an 'interview'. The cases of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey are far from unique and, thanks to the efforts of law students working pro bono for such organisations as the Innocence Project, numerous people have been exonerated, including a sizeable number who were on death row.

Whatever you believe about the cases in Making a Murderer, it is a troubling look into the American legal system and what courts are willing to overlook (such as tainted evidence, interrogation of juveniles and those with mental disabilities, falsified documents, 'expert' witnesses with very shaky credentials, such as in the case of David Camm) in the name of securing a conviction and putting a seemingly guilty person behind bars. I certainly don't believe the system in the US is unique and there are miscarriages of justice all over the world, but the presence of cameras in American courtrooms made that documentary series possible, which it wouldn't be in England and Wales.

[Justin101]

Originally Posted by MuckyFunster

On a lighter note, me and the Mrs have been bingeing on New Girl, starring Zooey Deschanel. Top comedy stuff! We're midway through season 3 at the mo

New Girl is great, season 3 is the weakest though, it gets pretty low but Season 4 is awesome, so keep going even if the gags are a bit crappy towards the end of the 3rd season.

[MuckyFunster]

I was thinking only of Steven Avery in my original post, but yeah of Brendan Dassey too. His intellect may be low, but crucially not low enough as far as his school and parents were concerned. So that by the by, at 16 years old he is an adult and old enough to be interviewed on his own. And it's legal for the police to interview a person without a lawyer or anyone else being present, including even (in the uk also, although social work are normally brought in) in the instance of a child where the presence of a parent may not be in the child's best interests, such as in this case where there is a familial connection to the accused.

Having read more about it since watching the show, before the first interview the police apparently offered that his mother could sit in with him during the interview because they were sympathetic towards him and also were aware that there was history of Brendan being sexually abused by Steven, but his mother had refused this offer. I think at the time of the first interview they were only interviewing him as a witness and during the interview he begins to go into detail which made him suspected of involvement.

The full transcript of the interview is available to read online (it was 4 hours long, I've not read it all, only the bullet points) and Brendan goes into loads and loads of detail about the crime and tells the police numerous things that they hadn't known. The defence apparently objected to details of the sexual abuse between Steven and Brendan to be given in court, and also objected to the police interview to be given in court, and hence the sexual abuse wasn't mention and neither was the majority majority of the interview.

The defence also objected to other things being heard in court, such as that Avery always specifically asked for Theresa Halbach whenever he phoned up the car magazine, and that Theresa Halbach had complained to her boss that she felt she was being stalked by Avery, that she was frightened of him, and that he had answered his door naked on one of the occasions she went to his property to take photos. None of these objections were included in the documentary series.

As to Dassey being interviewed without a lawyer after he was officially a suspect, well the police done so on his lawyers say so.

You can't deny the police and the prosecutors made some mistakes, but I felt the documentary was entirely on side with the defence and nowhere near impartial. That whole bit about the prosecution guy trying to have an affair with some woman...what did that have to do with anything? They showed you plenty of their objections that weren't upheld by the judge, but all of their objections that were upheld were not even mentioned. They made it look like the trial was outrageously unfair, but the defence got their way for a lot of it including plenty of crucial evidence that was left out at their request. They tried to create all this scandal to build sensation, cause if they hadn't it would've been a straightforward murder trial and pretty boring.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

I agree the series is not as balanced as it perhaps should be, and was unaware of some details until you posted them. However, the crime scene was really odd with none of Brendan's DNA found there, an area that was extremely clean considering someone was apparently shot there, showed no drag marks, showed the Toyota RAV4 was used to transport the body a tiny distance and then left where could see it instead of being crushed and disposed of when no one would ever find it, and then major inconsistencies when it was searched.

In terms of the suspects being innocent until proved guilty, that seemed to be the other way round, and it didn't seem as if the jury was exactly impartial and open-minded. I'm not sure if it's covered in the last episode, which I'm going to watch tonight, but I was stunned the defence didn't ask a child psychologist to examine Brendan (in terms of his emotional and intelligent age) and present their findings to the court.

One final thought: the documentary introduced enough doubt that I would have voted to acquit both Steven and Brendan.

[MuckyFunster]

Yeah, i thought the same, which made me think that they probably knew he wasn't as clueless as they were trying to make him out to be. I'm sure in Brendan's interview one of the things he told the police that linked him as being involved was to do with him and Steven not being able to get Theresa's car to drive, and that Steven had had to open the bonnet at some point to try and get it going.

I think because of the media circus surrounding the murder and all the press conferences they've struggled to get an impartial jury from anywhere.