Brendan Dassey asks to be released while Wisconsin appeals his overturned conviction

By Danette Chavez | September 16, 2016 | 2:17pm

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Brendan Dassey, one of the subjects of Netflix’s Making A Murderer docuseries, recently had his conviction overturned by a federal judge. But Dassey—who had been serving a 41-year sentence for first-degree murder, second-degree sexual assault, and mutilation of a corpse—is still far from being a free man. The state of Wisconsin announced just last week that it would appeal the judge’s decision, arguing that it is “wrong on the facts and wrong on the law.” No court date has been set for the appeal, which the Wisconsin Attorney General’s office has already filed, which means that Dassey’s overturned conviction has left him in pretty much the same place as his conviction 11 years ago.

Dassey’s lawyers are looking to remedy that, though—BuzzFeed reports they’ve filed a motion for his release while the state’s appeal is considered. Their argument is “based on the judge’s finding that the court has ‘significant doubts’ about the reliability of the confession that Dassey gave to investigators in 2006 implicating himself in the murder of Teresa Halbach.” The attorneys also cite U.S. Magistrate William Duffin’s statement that this possibly ill-gotten confession comprised the state’s case against Dassey.