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Originally Posted by Clodfobble
Okay, so I have this theory. The only good and smart people in the whole thing were Stephen Avery's trial lawyers, right? The shorter one with the full head of hair seemed to be slightly more in charge. And he said two things that really caught my attention, only because he proved himself in other places to be SO VERY careful with his words, as lawyers must be.
1.) In the closing arguments, they got into a weird back and forth where the prosecution was basically like, "Why would the police pick Avery out of nowhere to frame him?" And the defense responded with the logical argument that of course the police are not inherently evil, and they would only plant evidence if they believed him to be guilty and wanted a slam dunk, but that doesn't actually make him guilty... Except what he said was, "The police don't frame innocent people." And then he sort of elaborated into the point he actually meant. But that seemed like a really boneheaded verbal slip for a defense lawyer, to me.
2.) In the post trial discussion with all five lawyers in the room, he was the one who said that on some level he hopes that Avery did really do it, because otherwise the system is so depressingly broken, etc. Again, a relevant point, but not really the way one's own lawyer best phrases it.
Conclusion: I think he knew/believed Avery was guilty, or at least a terrible person (did you find the not-presented-in-the-documentary stuff online about Avery molesting Brendan Dassey when he was younger?) and didn't actually slip up at all, but instead showed the excellent, excellent control of language that he had in the rest of the series to very subtly make sure that he lost the case in the end.
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I don't remember his exact words in the closing arguments, but what I took away was "The police don't frame people
they believe to be innocent."
I was shocked when he said he almost hopes Steven is guilty, but I think he was trying to salvage something, anything, from the whole mess. He got choked up, which I think added to his show of frustrated indignation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clodfobble
The question being, I guess, does that strike you as plausible?
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I guess it's plausible, but I think he truly believed that Avery was mistreated.
I read a couple of articles about the "ignored" evidence. Unfortunately, it all appears to me to be hearsay. It would be nice if someone did the kind of investigation into those accusations as they did in the series. Still, if he was an evil guy early in his life, it doesn't mean he killed Halbach, any more than it meant he raped Beernsten in 1985. There was no indication, even by the cops, that he did anything bad after getting out of jail for the rape.
I think the most damning evidence against the cops is the tampering of the vial of Avery's blood that was in the police evidence room, in police custody.