TV Series Review: "Making a Murderer"

Making a Murderer (2015)

Netflix

TV-14

4 Stars out of 5

Documentary

Writer/Director                 Moira Demos, Laura Ricciardi

Steven Avery                     The Accused
Allan Avery                         Father to Steven
Dolores Avery                    Mother to Steven
Brendan Dassey                Nephew to Steven and accused co-perpetrator
Barb Tadych                       Mother to Brendan
Teresa Halbach                  Murder Victim
Dean Strang                       Attorney to Steven for Murder Trial
Jerry Buting                        Attorney to Steven for Murder Trial
Ken Kratz                            Prosecuting Attorney

 

Let me say right up front: I don’t like the True Crime documentary genre. The examples I can think of that have driven me away from this genre can be found on almost any episode of NBC’s “Dateline”. Each segment of the hour-long episode is written in cliff-hanger mode; but that is not the essential problem for me. Rather, it is the alternating and seemingly selective choice of material in each segment that tries to convict and then find innocent the accused. The viewer feels like they are being whip-sawed along a path; a path designed to manipulate and confuse the viewer’s emotions and sense of whether they are being shown all the evidence, let alone whether or not the accused is guilty or innocent. However, in 2014 when the public acclaim for the NPR broadcast of Sarah Koenig’s “Serial” podcast came out on the conviction of Adnan Sayed, I decided to make an exception. I was glad that I did. Koenig’s recitation of the events surrounding Sayed’s case was compelling without feeling manipulative. The listener had an opportunity to hear the evidence and the participants in the case to speak their minds, and since the program was twelve episodes, each roughly one hour in length, the listener likely came away from the “Serial” season one podcast with a sense that they have heard all the evidence. The listener can in that case draw a reasonably informed opinion on Sayed’s guilt or innocence. To comment further would ruin part of the enjoyment of Koenig’s well-crafted podcast.

Now in late 2015, there is again substantial public acclaim over another True Crime documentary. This time it is for Netflix’s broadcast of “Making a Murderer” by Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi. While still film school students at Columbia in 2005, they had learned of an Innocence Project in Wisconsin. This project had via DNA analysis cleared the conviction of one Steven Avery of a brutal rape in 1985 near his home in Manitowoc County, WI; a rape and conviction that had wrongly sent him to prison for 18 years. Demos and Ricciardi went to Manitowoc County to begin a 10 year project on Steven Avery that led them and Avery towards a future that it is almost certain none of them could have foreseen. They have recorded their 10 year journey in an excellent 10 part documentary that was released by Netlfix on 18Dec15. Like “Serial”, “Making a Murderer” is a program that has much to say and does a great job saying it.

As with the NPR podcast to reveal too much in this review would again ruin too much of the experience inherent in viewing “Making a Murderer”, but a brief sketch of the events is as follows. Following Avery’s release from prison for the rape charge, he began proceedings to file a civil case against the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s department and Justice System for wrongfully convicting him. Had Avery won his case, Avery could well have ruined the county financially and certainly would have ruined a number of officials professionally. As the depositions for the civil case are being taken, a young woman, Susan Halbach goes missing. The last person she is “known” to have seen is Steven Avery. As before, the eyes of the Sheriff’s department immediately focus on Avery. Search teams begin looking for Ms. Halbach, one of them finds her missing car on Avery’s property. The Sherriff’s department then begins an 8 day search of the Avery property. During the 8 day search, the Avery family is restricted from their property. The police eventually do find evidence: Ms. Halbach’s car key with Avery’s DNA, blood smears with Avery’s DNA in the Halbach car, Ms. Halbach’s bones in a burn pit, a bullet with Ms. Halbach’s DNA in the Avery garage. The evidence all appear to lead to Steven Avery. However, as damning as this evidence appears to be, it is but circumstantial and it is evidence that might have been planted. The authorities had only this circumstantial evidence until Avery’s young and clearly mentally-limited nephew confesses his own involvement and that of Avery in the death of Ms. Halbach.

Demos and Ricciardi pace the exposure in the documentary of each piece of evidence in a manner that seems consistent with their actual exposure to the police on-site in Manitowoc County. As a counter-point to the litany of evidence piling up against Avery, they also include multiple interviews with the various members of the Avery family and legal defense team. They do so in a manner that helps the viewer to see that for every piece of evidence against the accused, there is the potential for compelling counter arguments in defense of the accused. For example, the police had access to Avery’s blood from the rape case; was it used to plant evidence in the Halbach car. And why was the Halbach car key not seen in previous searches of Avery’s residence, and then when it was found, it was found by one of the police being sued in the civil case? There was also evidence that remains disturbingly un-discussed by the prosecution: why was the victim’s blood found in the back of her car, as if she had been transported in the car following an assault; why is there no blood from the victim found at the alleged sites of the victim’s rape and murder? These last two points conflict severely with the time line and crime scenario constructed by the prosecution. The most damning scenes in the entire 10 hour program though are those of the interview and “confession” by the sixteen year old Brendan; a young man with a 70 IQ. That he was led and fed a series of ideas that corresponded to what his interviewers wanted to hear seems incontrovertible to me, though apparently not to the prosecution, the judge, or eventually to certain members of the jury.

The value of “Making a Murderer” is not that the police might have framed Avery, or that the Prosecution and initial defense of young Brendan appear to be good examples of legal malpractice, or possibly even violations of the law. Rather it is contained in a comment by one of Avery’s defense team: “I am certain I will never commit a felony. But I am far less certain, I will never be accused of one”. It is the implications of this statement and the protections for the accused built into the US constitution that are the real issues at stake in this documentary. It is possible Steven Avery committed the murder of Susan Halbach (though from the evidence shown in this documentary, I do not think that it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt), and if he is the murderer, he should be punished to the full extent of the law. What seems extremely clear in this program is that Steven Avery was because of his past relations with the police, presumed guilty from the beginning. Did the police pad their case against Steven and with the full complicity of the local justice system try an innocent man for murder; or did they do so against a guilty man? Our constitution says it makes no difference during the trial phase. Whether guilty in fact or not, he is presumed innocent. The evidence against this man is gathered with this presumption, other potential perpetrators are sought and evidence against them is gathered, and this man and all others like him should not be tried by the authorities in the court of public opinion prior to his actual trial. None of these things were done in the Avery murder trial case. Guilty or not, Steven Avery was railroaded into his trial. Again regardless of his innocence or guilt, this is not the American way.

Under most circumstances, I will continue to maintain my personal aversion to True Crime documentaries. However, in the case of “Making a Murderer”, Demos and Ricciardi have done the American public a service in documenting this case. Yes, there are issues I had with them showing far too many scenes of snow-covered cars on the Avery property in order to set an emotional tone, of leaving out Avery’s apparent interest in Ms. Halbach prior to her death, and possibly the series could have been trimmed down in length. It is also possible, their critics may find their presentation too tendentious – their point of view is pretty clear, and the program reveals it. That being said, I watch every documentary with the idea that some things are left out of the film, and some things over-emphasized. It is surely true in “Making a Murderer”, but the discussion of how justice can be, not necessarily always is, meted out in the United States, is a discussion really worth having. Watching “Making a Murderer”, offensive superficial topic and title notwithstanding is an exercise also really worth performing.