How The US Midterms Could Help 'Making A Murderer' Convicts Steven Avery And Brendan Dassey
The tumult of the American midterm elections has shifted the balance of power in the House of Representatives, and the ramifications of the vote go all the way down the regional arms of government.
Weirdly enough, the vote might have thrown a lifeline to Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey, the two men convicted of the murder of Teresa Halbach and followed by Netflix's Making A Murderer.
Wisconsin's governor, Scott Walker, and attorney general, Brad Schimel, both lost the races to keep their jobs in the midterms. Avery's lawyer Jerry Buting has described the pair as "the top two elected officials most determined to keep [Avery] and [Dassey] convicted", and you'll recall that Schimel was instrumental in keeping Dassey in prison while fighting the ruling that Dassey's confession was coerced.
Walker, hilariously, has been prevented from demanding a recount because of a law he introduced himself, which limits recount calls to the results of races where two candidates are within one percent of each other. Walker lost by 1.2 percent.
There's no clear indication that new broom attorney general Josh Kaul will reverse or reopen any decisions, but Walker and Schimel certainly caught a lot of flak from fans of Making A Murderer for their handling of the case and it's not completely outlandish to think that it helped to get them turfed out of office.
It could reignite hope for Dassey, who has used up all of his appeals and will stay in prison for the 2005 murder, while Avery is just at the beginning of his first appeal.
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