Brendan Dassey, one of two men convicted of homicide in the 2005 murder of photographer Teresa Halbach, was ordered released from federal prison on Monday, according to NBC News.
Dassey’s conviction has been subject to national scrutiny since the case was profiled in Netflix’s Making a Murderer. Dassey initially confessed to having committed the murder with his uncle Steven Avery, but his lawyers later argued that the confession had been forced out of him by police officers. He was 16 at the time of the murder and was sentenced to a lifetime in prison.
In August, U.S. Magistrate Judge William Duffin overturned the conviction after concluding that Dassey’s confession was made involuntary. The judge cited “repeated false promises,” “Dassey’s age [and] intellectual deficits,” and the “absence of [a] supportive adult” as reasons for overturning the conviction.
The state of Wisconsin has appealed the judge’s decision, but as of Tuesday, Dassey is free to walk free. So, yeah, he’ll be home in plenty of time to see Wrestlemania next April.
Update: No so fast. The state’s attorney general has filed an emergency motion asking a federal appeals court to stay the release order, according to the Post-Crescent.
Presumambly Dassey’s successful appeal, as long as his uncle’s ongoing legal fight, will be documented in the forthcoming second season of Making a Murderer, which Netflix green-lit back in July.
