DUE TO CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The State of Wisconsin has been trying to keep Steven Avery's case from moving forward because they are fearful due to the mistakes they made that put Steven Avery away in prison not only the first time, but the second time as well. In his first case Avery spent 18 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, but was eventually released due to DNA evidence which proved him to be an innocent man!

This is a petition to bring justice for Steven Avery because he is innocent. In his first case, Steven Avery was targeted by the Manitowoc county officers because his family was not made of money and he had some minor runins with the law in the past. Since the police did not do a proper investigation, Avery was arrested in 1983 for the assault and rape of Penny Bernstein, and the real offender in the case, Gregory Allen, was not apprehended until several years later. Many people feel that the courts used Avery's other clrime of threatening a family member to sway the jury towards a guilty verdict of the rape. This family menber also happened to be married to a member of law enforcement. Avery was found guilty and was sentenced to several years in prison even though he was innocent of the assault of Bernstein. While Avery.was doing his time, another violent predator and real offender in the assault of Penny Bernstein, Gregory Allen, was able to continue terrorizing  more victims because of the poor police work in Manitowoc county. 

In 1995, Andrew Colburn received a call from a detective who told him that Gregory Allen was most likely the person who had commited the assault and rape of Penny Berstein.  Colburn did not respond to this nor did he conduct any further investigation of this important piece of information, except possibly relaying it to another officer.  In fact, Colburn did not make any note of it  until after Steven Avery was cleared by DNA evidence and then later exonerated. As a result, Avery continued to sit in prison until 2003 even though Colburn was holding on to this key piece of information. This bit of news could have possibly freed Avery as early as 1995.  Andrew Colburn was not  held accountable  for this either.

When Steven Avery was finally released in 2003, he was out for a short time and was hoping that the original officers who had arrested him for his first case would be held accountable, but instead they were not! In fact, they went on as if they did nothing wrong. Avery had also filed a lawsuit and was hoping to be compensated for spending all those years in prison as an innocent man. Thats when Teresa Halbach went missing, so Avery had to settle for a much smaller amount. He really had no other choice but to settle and then he had to spend almost all of it to hire attorneys for this new case against him.

Due to a conflict of interest, the officers that wrongfully imprisoned Avery the first time were not supposed to be involved in the  investigation of Teresa Halbach, but they were! How could they have allowed this to happen? Steven Avery was arrested again, and the police also interrogated his nephew who was a minor at the time, Brendan Dassey, without an adult guardian or attorney present. Its obvious that Brendan's confession was coerced by the detectives. This is almost the same type of wrong doing that happened to Avery when he was wrongfully imprisoned the first time for the assault of Penny Bernstein.

In 2015,  Steven Avery was able to acquire the help of Kathleen Zellner, who doesnt take many cases unless she truly believes that the defendant is innocent. Zellner found that Judge Angela Sutkiewicz had not read the briefs put before her in their entirety,  and had made several egregious errors regarding the statutes in this 2nd case against Steven Avery.

Steven Avery does have hope that an evidentiary hearing will be approved, but it appears as though it is being held back because the state is dragging their feet, again!

When will all the government officials that did this to Steven Avery and his nephew ever be held accountable for what they did to them? Why were they allowed to handle the investigation of Teresa Halbach, when it was known that they did this to Avery the first time? Why do the judges keep refusing to look at any new evidence and continue to let his appeal drag on? 

All of these people who are signing this petition want answers. They want Steven Avery and his nephew to be set free, they want to find the real person or persons who killed Teresa Halbach. They want everyone who was  involved to be held accountable so that this doesnt happen to other people who might get into the same situation as Steven Avery.  He has been wrongfully convicted not once, but twice. Steven Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, deserve justice.