‘Making a Murderer’ shocker: Federal judge overturns Brendan Dassey conviction

A murder conviction featured in the hit Netflix documentary “Making a Murderer” has been overturned by a Wisconsin judge.

Brendan Dassey was found guilty for the 2005 killing of photographer Teresa Halbach. The 26-year-old was only a teenager when he and his uncle, Steven Avery (who is also serving a life sentence) were charged with first-degree intentional homicide, second-degree sexual assault, and mutilation of a corpse on their Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, property.

The ruling by Magistrate Judge William Duffin of the U.S. District Court in Milwaukee will free Mr. Dassey within 90 days unless prosecutors decide to retry him, Business Insider reported. A previous appeal by Mr. Dassey’s legal team  was rejected by state courts.

Mr. Dassey’s lawyers have always maintained that prosecutors violated his constitutional rights to obtain the confession needed for a June 2, 2007, conviction. They maintain that Mr. Dassey’s low IQ was exploited during the interrogation process, which also took place without the teenager’s mother in the room.

“Repeated false promises [during questioning], when considered in conjunction with all relevant factors, most especially Dassey’s age, intellectual deficits, and the absence of a supportive adult, rendered Dassey’s confession involuntary under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments,” the judge wrote.