Post by Jax on Aug 7, 2018 12:06:47 GMT -6
By Bruce Fischer and Jax West
I am new to this whole Advocacy thing. I watched ‘Making a Murderer’ back in December 2015 and was instantly hooked at seeing these poor man so manipulated and framed. I can never forget watching Brendan’s interrogation and forced confession. Bruce introduced me to Dwayne and I asked him if he would be interested in doing an interview to talk about his thoughts on the documentary. He has a perspective most people can never understand. But more people have it than should as it is appalling how many people are falsely accused and incarcerated for crimes they didn’t commit.
Dwayne has been very affected by this case and wants to do anything he can to help the men. Especially Brendan. I sent Dwayne a bunch of questions to answer but he preferred just writing out his thoughts so without further ado, here’s Dwayne Dail’s Thoughts on “Making a Murderer”:
I appreciate the opportunity to express my thoughts and opinions on the documentary, “Making a Murderer.” I was skeptical to even watch it, because I had heard how biased it was. Much to the dismay of many of my colleagues and associates, I am a rather conservative-minded guy. I am not an advocate of the guilty. I am an advocate of the factually innocent and the factually innocent only. God knows there are enough of those to keep me awake at night so, like others, I did not watch “Making a Murderer” when it first came out.
I, like many others, I’m sure, immediately thought that the bias meant that the entire truth was not going to be told. I know the importance of the entire truth. What I found, though, while watching “Making a Murderer” was that nothing more was necessary to not only create reasonable doubt for Steven Avery, but to completely exonerate Brendan Dassey of any knowledge whatsoever of the crime. Videotape does not lie…and that video of Brendan being interrogated by both the detectives, as well as, his OWN “defense team” was just infuriating. I have not slept well since watching it. The pure evilness of the tactics they used to manipulate Brendan as a pawn to use against Steven is just incomprehensible to me. To think that they have an actual name for this kind of railroading, the Reid Technique, should scare us all to our very cores.
Although I am an exoneree, exonerated on August 28, 2007 after almost 19 years or wrongful conviction and incarceration, I cannot compare my case with Brendan’s. There are many parallels between my case and Steven Avery’s first wrongful conviction. I was not manipulated or interrogated the way Brendan was. Although I had no clue that an innocent person could be convicted and sent to prison for Life, I was never pressured to confess or anything like the horrible treatment that Brendan received.
I was offered 3 years of probation to plead no contest to a misdemeanor, which I refused before my court-appointed idiot attorney could get it out of her clueless mouth. I was innocent, and I was going to prove it. No worries. I had faith in the system that I had committed no crime and, therefore, I had nothing to worry about. My trial started on Monday. I was convicted on Wednesday, sentenced to 2 Life sentences plus 18 years on Thursday, and sent to Central Prison on Friday. My railroading was far different than Brendan’s. Every exoneration case is.
Much like Steven Avery’s first wrongful conviction, it is my opinion, that there were many people who knew who the actual perpetrator was in my case. His name was given to the local police and my court-appointed idiot attorney. Records show they were aware of him and his activities, yet they refused to even investigate. They had their guy, and that was it. Back to the donuts.
Watching Making a Murderer brought back many awful memories. Steven Avery’s mom just breaks my heart. I cannot see her face in my mind’s eye without crying. I lost my mother almost 2 years ago. I know what I went through during my false imprisonment, but I can never really grasp the full picture of how it affected my family. I caught a glimpse of how awful it must have been for my mother. And now, to have to go through this again is just unfathomable to me. Just as there is a special place in Hell for those who have committed these atrocities against this family, there is a special place in Heaven for Ms. Avery and all the family who have endured through this continuous travesty.
There were so many things so obviously wrong with this case and the way the entire ordeal was handled/mis-handled. I will start at what outrages me the most, so these will not be in chronological order. The email from Brendan’s own “defense team” saying that the Avery family tree only had one branch, etc…The videos of Brendan’s own “defense team” not at all even making a feeble attempt to defend or advocate for him. Their goal was to assist the state with the case against Steven Avery. Period. Len Kachinsky announced to the world that his client was guilty before he’d ever even met with Brendan! OUTRAGEOUS!
Of course, the obviously planted key, with Steven Avery’s DNA on it ONLY, which is absolutely impossible. There was NO DNA from the victim in that trailer. NONE. Impossible to rape, cut her hair, slit her throat and shoot her in the head without there being DNA all over that room. No marks on the bed from ropes or chains. IMPOSSIBLE. I do not believe for one nanosecond that the “Good Lord” led that lady to the victim’s truck on the Avery property. I believe that the detective was reading that license plate off of the victim’s vehicle. In my opinion, when there is so much obvious mishandling and planting of evidence, then there can be no verdict but Not Guilty. The police, themselves, created more than reasonable doubt.
I had only heard of Steven Avery through the many newspaper articles that I read while in prison about his exoneration. His case was one of many that inspired me along the way to continue my own battle against wrongful conviction. I was only vaguely aware that he had been charged, tried, and convicted for the murder of Teresa Halbach, as I was still languishing in prison for a crime I did not commit. 5 months and 10 days after Steven Avery’s conviction for the Halbach murder, I was exonerated by DNA after almost 19 years of wrongful imprisonment.
For a defendant to take the stand in his own defense is a lose/lose situation, in my opinion. If you take the stand and say you did not do it, more than half the jury is not going to believe you. If you don’t take the stand, more than half the jury is going to think you’re dodging difficult questions; hence, you are guilty. I truly believe that it is just a double-edged sword.
My only real opinion on plea bargains is that ones like that were offered to me should never be made. I view cases objectively all the time. If anything, I am the toughest one to convince of a person’s actual innocence. I would no more want a wrongful exoneration as I would a wrongful conviction. Neither a wrongful conviction nor a wrongful exoneration serves the safety of the public, as there is no justice either way. I believe the punishment should fit the crime, but I also believe that we must be sure to find the truly guilty.
My civil suit was settled in December 2013, I believe. In total, it took 6 years. I was originally compensated by the state of NC after I received my Pardon of Innocence in October 2007. We changed the compensation rate in NC from 20K/year to 50K and made it retroactive so that I and a few other exonerees would receive more money from the state, up to 750K.
After my exoneration, I immediately moved to Florida with my family. I did not want to be in NC, and I certainly did not want to be in Goldsboro. There was a myriad of reasons, not least of which, I was afraid of the police.
Without question, what was most upsetting to me was the complete and utter inhumanity of the treatment of Brendan Dassey.
I had no options when it came to court-appointed attorneys. I was assigned one by the judge, and that was it. It was my understanding that if I was ever released, that I would owe for her “services.” My best advice to anyone who is ever called in for questioning by the police is to say NOTHING, exercise your right to remain silent because everything that you say WILL be used against you. Get an attorney and let them do their job.
The canteen system in NC must be a bit different than in Wisconsin. In NC, basic toiletries are supplied to those inmates who do not receive a certain amount of money each month. No doubt, though, that the prisons are run for-profit here. In NC, inmates (when I was in there) had ID cards that were also like debit cards. Canteen cards. Money that was in your account was accessed with that card up to $40/week.
If someone was to want to help someone who is incarcerated, I would say to never forget them in your most fervent prayers. None of us are promised tomorrow, but the odds are a lot worse in there than they are out here. Write letters, send cards, just to let them know you are thinking about them and that they have not been forgotten. If they are a reader, send them books. If they like artwork, send them art supplies, if they are allowed. There’s a delicate balance of helping someone in prison with material things and putting a target on them. That balance must be maintained on both sides.
My advice to Steven and Brendan and anyone else who is battling a wrongful conviction would be to never give up, always keep hope alive in your hearts and minds, and know that God has the last say. Let the innocence you know you own give you peace. Know that people love you and care. The Truth has a way of coming to the light.
I cannot honestly say that I had any choice in continuing to seek my freedom year after year, brick wall after brick wall, rejection after rejection. I was innocent, and I was not about to lay down and die. I focused on survival. I tried to educate myself through books. Books were educational and an escape for me. They kept me civilized, I believe. I read a lot about the Holocaust and Nazi Germany during WWII. These true stories in some weird way made me thankful, reminders that my conditions could be much worse. They motivated me in a way that if someone could survive all of that, then surely I could survive my plight.
I am now a board member at the NC Center on Actual Innocence, the non-profit organization that fought for my freedom. I have been honored to take part in 4 exoneration cases here in NC. I look forward to seeing Johnny Small, Mark Carver, Ronnie Long and other wrongfully convicted in NC come home this year.
The Also Complete and Innocent Dwayne Dail
Bruce and I would like to thank Dwayne for not only writing this but letting us in to get a glimpse of how he sees MaM. I wouldn’t blame him if he never wanted to talk about this stuff ever again. Just enjoy his life. But it is a testament to his character that he can’t just sit by and watch what happened to him happen to anyone else.
I am new to this whole Advocacy thing. I watched ‘Making a Murderer’ back in December 2015 and was instantly hooked at seeing these poor man so manipulated and framed. I can never forget watching Brendan’s interrogation and forced confession. Bruce introduced me to Dwayne and I asked him if he would be interested in doing an interview to talk about his thoughts on the documentary. He has a perspective most people can never understand. But more people have it than should as it is appalling how many people are falsely accused and incarcerated for crimes they didn’t commit.
Dwayne has been very affected by this case and wants to do anything he can to help the men. Especially Brendan. I sent Dwayne a bunch of questions to answer but he preferred just writing out his thoughts so without further ado, here’s Dwayne Dail’s Thoughts on “Making a Murderer”:
I appreciate the opportunity to express my thoughts and opinions on the documentary, “Making a Murderer.” I was skeptical to even watch it, because I had heard how biased it was. Much to the dismay of many of my colleagues and associates, I am a rather conservative-minded guy. I am not an advocate of the guilty. I am an advocate of the factually innocent and the factually innocent only. God knows there are enough of those to keep me awake at night so, like others, I did not watch “Making a Murderer” when it first came out.
I, like many others, I’m sure, immediately thought that the bias meant that the entire truth was not going to be told. I know the importance of the entire truth. What I found, though, while watching “Making a Murderer” was that nothing more was necessary to not only create reasonable doubt for Steven Avery, but to completely exonerate Brendan Dassey of any knowledge whatsoever of the crime. Videotape does not lie…and that video of Brendan being interrogated by both the detectives, as well as, his OWN “defense team” was just infuriating. I have not slept well since watching it. The pure evilness of the tactics they used to manipulate Brendan as a pawn to use against Steven is just incomprehensible to me. To think that they have an actual name for this kind of railroading, the Reid Technique, should scare us all to our very cores.
Although I am an exoneree, exonerated on August 28, 2007 after almost 19 years or wrongful conviction and incarceration, I cannot compare my case with Brendan’s. There are many parallels between my case and Steven Avery’s first wrongful conviction. I was not manipulated or interrogated the way Brendan was. Although I had no clue that an innocent person could be convicted and sent to prison for Life, I was never pressured to confess or anything like the horrible treatment that Brendan received.
I was offered 3 years of probation to plead no contest to a misdemeanor, which I refused before my court-appointed idiot attorney could get it out of her clueless mouth. I was innocent, and I was going to prove it. No worries. I had faith in the system that I had committed no crime and, therefore, I had nothing to worry about. My trial started on Monday. I was convicted on Wednesday, sentenced to 2 Life sentences plus 18 years on Thursday, and sent to Central Prison on Friday. My railroading was far different than Brendan’s. Every exoneration case is.
Much like Steven Avery’s first wrongful conviction, it is my opinion, that there were many people who knew who the actual perpetrator was in my case. His name was given to the local police and my court-appointed idiot attorney. Records show they were aware of him and his activities, yet they refused to even investigate. They had their guy, and that was it. Back to the donuts.
Watching Making a Murderer brought back many awful memories. Steven Avery’s mom just breaks my heart. I cannot see her face in my mind’s eye without crying. I lost my mother almost 2 years ago. I know what I went through during my false imprisonment, but I can never really grasp the full picture of how it affected my family. I caught a glimpse of how awful it must have been for my mother. And now, to have to go through this again is just unfathomable to me. Just as there is a special place in Hell for those who have committed these atrocities against this family, there is a special place in Heaven for Ms. Avery and all the family who have endured through this continuous travesty.
There were so many things so obviously wrong with this case and the way the entire ordeal was handled/mis-handled. I will start at what outrages me the most, so these will not be in chronological order. The email from Brendan’s own “defense team” saying that the Avery family tree only had one branch, etc…The videos of Brendan’s own “defense team” not at all even making a feeble attempt to defend or advocate for him. Their goal was to assist the state with the case against Steven Avery. Period. Len Kachinsky announced to the world that his client was guilty before he’d ever even met with Brendan! OUTRAGEOUS!
Of course, the obviously planted key, with Steven Avery’s DNA on it ONLY, which is absolutely impossible. There was NO DNA from the victim in that trailer. NONE. Impossible to rape, cut her hair, slit her throat and shoot her in the head without there being DNA all over that room. No marks on the bed from ropes or chains. IMPOSSIBLE. I do not believe for one nanosecond that the “Good Lord” led that lady to the victim’s truck on the Avery property. I believe that the detective was reading that license plate off of the victim’s vehicle. In my opinion, when there is so much obvious mishandling and planting of evidence, then there can be no verdict but Not Guilty. The police, themselves, created more than reasonable doubt.
I had only heard of Steven Avery through the many newspaper articles that I read while in prison about his exoneration. His case was one of many that inspired me along the way to continue my own battle against wrongful conviction. I was only vaguely aware that he had been charged, tried, and convicted for the murder of Teresa Halbach, as I was still languishing in prison for a crime I did not commit. 5 months and 10 days after Steven Avery’s conviction for the Halbach murder, I was exonerated by DNA after almost 19 years of wrongful imprisonment.
For a defendant to take the stand in his own defense is a lose/lose situation, in my opinion. If you take the stand and say you did not do it, more than half the jury is not going to believe you. If you don’t take the stand, more than half the jury is going to think you’re dodging difficult questions; hence, you are guilty. I truly believe that it is just a double-edged sword.
My only real opinion on plea bargains is that ones like that were offered to me should never be made. I view cases objectively all the time. If anything, I am the toughest one to convince of a person’s actual innocence. I would no more want a wrongful exoneration as I would a wrongful conviction. Neither a wrongful conviction nor a wrongful exoneration serves the safety of the public, as there is no justice either way. I believe the punishment should fit the crime, but I also believe that we must be sure to find the truly guilty.
My civil suit was settled in December 2013, I believe. In total, it took 6 years. I was originally compensated by the state of NC after I received my Pardon of Innocence in October 2007. We changed the compensation rate in NC from 20K/year to 50K and made it retroactive so that I and a few other exonerees would receive more money from the state, up to 750K.
After my exoneration, I immediately moved to Florida with my family. I did not want to be in NC, and I certainly did not want to be in Goldsboro. There was a myriad of reasons, not least of which, I was afraid of the police.
Without question, what was most upsetting to me was the complete and utter inhumanity of the treatment of Brendan Dassey.
I had no options when it came to court-appointed attorneys. I was assigned one by the judge, and that was it. It was my understanding that if I was ever released, that I would owe for her “services.” My best advice to anyone who is ever called in for questioning by the police is to say NOTHING, exercise your right to remain silent because everything that you say WILL be used against you. Get an attorney and let them do their job.
The canteen system in NC must be a bit different than in Wisconsin. In NC, basic toiletries are supplied to those inmates who do not receive a certain amount of money each month. No doubt, though, that the prisons are run for-profit here. In NC, inmates (when I was in there) had ID cards that were also like debit cards. Canteen cards. Money that was in your account was accessed with that card up to $40/week.
If someone was to want to help someone who is incarcerated, I would say to never forget them in your most fervent prayers. None of us are promised tomorrow, but the odds are a lot worse in there than they are out here. Write letters, send cards, just to let them know you are thinking about them and that they have not been forgotten. If they are a reader, send them books. If they like artwork, send them art supplies, if they are allowed. There’s a delicate balance of helping someone in prison with material things and putting a target on them. That balance must be maintained on both sides.
My advice to Steven and Brendan and anyone else who is battling a wrongful conviction would be to never give up, always keep hope alive in your hearts and minds, and know that God has the last say. Let the innocence you know you own give you peace. Know that people love you and care. The Truth has a way of coming to the light.
I cannot honestly say that I had any choice in continuing to seek my freedom year after year, brick wall after brick wall, rejection after rejection. I was innocent, and I was not about to lay down and die. I focused on survival. I tried to educate myself through books. Books were educational and an escape for me. They kept me civilized, I believe. I read a lot about the Holocaust and Nazi Germany during WWII. These true stories in some weird way made me thankful, reminders that my conditions could be much worse. They motivated me in a way that if someone could survive all of that, then surely I could survive my plight.
I am now a board member at the NC Center on Actual Innocence, the non-profit organization that fought for my freedom. I have been honored to take part in 4 exoneration cases here in NC. I look forward to seeing Johnny Small, Mark Carver, Ronnie Long and other wrongfully convicted in NC come home this year.
The Also Complete and Innocent Dwayne Dail
Bruce and I would like to thank Dwayne for not only writing this but letting us in to get a glimpse of how he sees MaM. I wouldn’t blame him if he never wanted to talk about this stuff ever again. Just enjoy his life. But it is a testament to his character that he can’t just sit by and watch what happened to him happen to anyone else.