I’ve been absent from blogging recently, and while I have no good excuse, I’ve been engrossed in the Netflix series Making A Murderer. Now, I know I’m late to the game here, but watching the series has made me furious.
After working in the legal profession for seventeen years now, I was excited to finally get the chance to watch this viral sensation and see what the buzz was about. If you haven’t watched it (which I highly recommend you do) here are the seven stages of emotion you will feel while watching the ten episodes:
- Pity
- Frustration
- Disbelief
- Horror
- Anger
- Helplessness
- Who Am I?
The documentary follows the legal trials of Steven Avery, a Wisconsin man who was falsely convicted of rape, later exonerated by DNA evidence, then convicted two years after his release of murder and sent back to prison. Steven’s defense attorneys uncovered many issues which when put together showed that Steven could have been framed by the Sheriff’s department. The same Sheriff’s department Mr. Avery was suing for millions of dollars when the murder victim went missing. (Strange, no?)
How could this happen? In America? In the legal system I’ve worked in? In the system we all have to trust and believe in to function as a society?
I’m not so naive as to believe the documentairians were able to show all the evidence in the trial. The trial lasted for a month and it would be impossible to cram all that information into a ten-hour documentary. However, based on what you are able to see, the legal status of reasonable doubt should not be that hard to reach.
I still have to have faith in the justice system. I still believe you can get a fair trial in this great country. I still believe that not all police officers are bad and out to get us. However, in the case of Steven Avery, those beliefs let him down.
If you watched the show, please comment and let me know your thoughts.
