Dec. 21 (UPI) — The Wisconsin pardon board declined an application from Brendan Dassey, the subject of Netflix’s “Making a Murderer,” on Friday.
In a letter to the 30-year-old’s lawyers, Gov. Tony Evers’ Pardon Advisory Board said Dassey wasn’t eligible for a pardon. Under Wisconsin law, it must be at least five years since he completed his entire sentence and he must register as a sex offender to be eligible.
The letter also said Evers wasn’t considering requests for commutations.
Dassey is serving a life sentence for the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach, along with his uncle, Steven Avery.
Dassey’s lawyers, in his clemency petition, said their client should receive clemency because investigators improperly questioned him when he was a minor.
“Brendan Dassey was a 16-year-old, intellectually disabled child when he was taken from his school and subjected to a uniquely and profoundly flawed legal process,” the petition said. “That process rightly sought justice for Teresa Halbach, but it wrongly took a confused child’s freedom in payment for her loss. Such a debt can never be justly repaid with the currency of innocence.”
In June 2018, the Supreme Court refused to hear Dassey’s appeal.
Dassey is the subject of two seasons of the Netflix documentary “Making a Murderer.” In the series, he said he was coerced into confessing that he helped his uncle rape and murder Halbach and then dispose of her body.
A jury convicted Dassey based on his statements to two sheriff’s office investigators, though no physical evidence linked him to the crimes.
