Late last night I watched episodes six and seven causing me to change me feelings on a few things.
Initially, I had a pretty strong feeling that Steven Avery was framed, however I don't believe it was just the Police. However, the major issue is that there is no concrete evidence to prove this. At the moment, all we have to go on is circumstantial. The prosecution relied heavily on the testimonies of Bobby Dassey and Scott Tadych, who both provided matching alibis, and placed Teresa Halbach on Avery's property at the time of her disappearance. However, I felt their testimonies were a little strange. It's plainly clear that Scott Tadych really dislikes Avery, painting him as a terrible person at every opportunity. His testimony also seemed strange, he seemed uncomfortable and not completely sure of his timeline that day. The only thing he really remembers clearly is seeing Bobby Dassey on the road. In contrast to Tadych, I found Bobby was surprisingly calm during his cross examination, he seemed like he was pretty sure of his story. Again, he was most sure of seeing Tadych on the road, relying on the fact that Tadych would somehow remember the exact time. In my own opinion, I found both men very suspicious. Again, the problem is that there is no concrete evidence to suspect them. The Police never really investigated either of them even though they were both around the "crime scene" at the time of Halbach's disappearance. Considering the fact that they both had their alibis worked out, conveniently knowing exactly what time they passed on the road, seems strange to me. No one else can corroborate this information, and it is heavily relied upon by the prosecution.
I believe this speaks to a greater issue of a systemic bias in the American criminal judiciary system. The prevailing ideology is that the defendant is innocent until proven guilty, however, it seems like the system is set up to favor the prosecution. It seemed to me like the prosecution and the judge basically figured this trial was just a formality, just another positive statistic. The prosecution and the Police are biased in that they seem more interested in getting their conviction as soon as possible rather than pursuing the actual truth. The prosecution built a case based on what they think would allow them to win, rather than what was the truth. This is an issue you see across the whole American judicial system, they're more interested in results rather than ensuring true justice. The judge similarly wants the process to go smoothly, not having to deal with mistrials, etc, risking putting a dangerous person back on the street. They have no interest in a long, drawn out trial, because that just takes too much time. Judge Willis also makes some interesting decisions in that he allows all this evidence to be used even when it shouldn't be allowed under normal circumstances. The DNA test was contaminated, normally we'd say it's inconclusive, but we're going to allow it as definitive proof. The EDTA test is widely known to be unreliable, no one uses it anymore for this purpose, but oh, I will let the prosecution use the test because it will help their case.
Speaking of the evidence, I find it unbelievable that the court would allow the prosecution to submit all their tests even though all their experts said they were done improperly. Starting with the investigation of the burn sites, it was very clear that the Police made critical errors in procedure when collecting the ashes and bone fragments. These errors should have made it impossible for them to determine what really happened to Teresa's body and where she was burned. They really destroyed their own evidence, making impossible to determine whether the body was moved, or if the bones were damaged during processing, but the court didn't throw it out. Next to that you have the DNA evidence from the bullet, which was presented by a very smug and arrogant looking Crime Lab Technician. She admitted to basically ruining the test, and the sample, but yet they were still allowed to submit it as evidence when it would have been ruled inconclusive under normal circumstances. What use are all of these protocols for ensuring accuracy when the court is going to disregard them? Then there is the EDTA test, which was regarded by all experts as being unreliable, being used as a concrete definitive truth. What is worse is that the court did not even allow the defense to run their own test, neither could they have access to anyone to run that test for them. Either way, it should never have been included as evidence because of the tendency to give false negatives.
Another major issue I have with the procedure of the trial as a whole is the fact that they deemed it necessary to hold the trial in Calumet county because of the conflict of interest and fears of bias but yet they still used a jury from Manitowoc... Shouldn't they have assembled a jury of people from a different county as well?
Ultimately, I still feel like this case should have been ruled a mistrial by judge Willis from pretty early on, considering all the procedural errors made during the investigation. However, I'm not completely surprised he didn't. I think my thinking has definitely changed in that I don't necessarily believe this was a set up by the Police to begin with. I'm leaning more towards that someone else killed her, perhaps Bobby and Scott, and then the Police aided in pinning it on Steven Avery. Either way, I don't really think Steven or Brendan really had anything to do with it, at least they didn't kill her. However, I feel like if Steven hadn't actually killed her, but was somehow involved that he would have admitted to it. It wouldn't have hurt his defense if he had, and likely would have helped.
No comments:
Post a Comment