By Bruce Fischer
This past week, Injustice Anywhere recorded a podcast discussing the Brendan Dassey case. I was pleased to have had the opportunity to discuss the case with Jax West and Jim Lovering. Jax is a wrongful convictions advocate who has taken a strong interest in the Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey case in Wisconsin. She contributes to the Injustice Anywhere website www.freebrendan.org and she also runs our Free Brendan Dassey Facebook page.
Jim Lovering is a staunch advocate for the wrongfully convicted. I met Jim back in 2010, when I was looking to get involved with the Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito case in Perugia, Italy. We ended up working closely on that case for several years and we have now gone on to work together on a number of cases including Jeff Havard and Brendan Dassey. Jim is on the Injustice Anywhere Advisor Board, and he is also on the Board of Directors for another outstanding organization called Judges for Justice.
Brendan Dassey
Brendan Dassey was wrongfully convicted of murder in 2007 on the basis of a coerced false confession to the rape and murder of Teresa Halbach in 2005. No other evidence supports his conviction, and physical evidence flatly contradicts the statements in which he incriminated himself. Dassey’s uncle, Steven Avery, was also convicted of murdering Halbach, but the two were tried separately.
The recent debut of the Netflix documentary “Making A Murderer”, which details the murder of Teresa Halbach and the controversy surrounding her death, has brought renewed attention to the decade-old case. In 2014, Dassey filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. A ruling on his petition is still pending.