CHILTON, Wis. — A former Calumet County district attorney who convinced a jury nearly a decade ago that the nephew of the man convicted in the murder of a 25-year-old photographer also was involved in her murder is very surprised that the nephew's conviction has been overturned.
Ken Kratz was the special prosecutor in the 2007 homicide case against Brendan Dassey and his uncle, Steven Avery, both of whom were convicted in the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach of St. John, Wis.
"It is so unusual for a magistrate to go out of his way to suppress evidence which had been allowed in a state prosecution," Kratz said.
He disagreed with U.S. Magistrate Judge William Duffin's decision, issued Friday.
"It is without question that this was an incredibly important public decision, and I think it will remain that for the foreseeable future. This isn’t the end of the Brendan Dassey case.”
Kratz said he was surprised that Duffin's decision focused on an issue already addressed in circuit court and in a Wisconsin Court of Appeals decision.
"When the federal magistrate found that not only did he disagree with the Wisconsin state courts but that he determined that it was completely unreasonable, the position and decision that they came to, it is a very bold statement and something that you almost never see in any court case or court system," Kratz said. "Also, a 91-page written decision at the federal district court level is almost unheard of. That’s an incredibly long, detailed decision.
"It shows the seriousness of the case and certainly the magistrate understood the impact of what he was doing," Kratz said.
The special prosecutor pointed out that Duffin said police used calm tones and were not confrontational with Dassey, who told officers in March 2006 that he had helped Avery rape, torture and kill Halbach then burn her body.
"He attributed what he called 'no ill will' towards the officers' behavior themselves but believed that the combination of saying that they already knew what happened and that Brendan would be OK afterwards combined to be akin to a promise of leniency," Kratz said. "I, of course, disagree with the magistrate’s decision. I think to come to that conclusion and at the same time say there wasn’t any statement that the officers made that would make Dassey’s confession involuntary just shows the length that the magistrate had to go to come to this decision."
Don't assume the state has no case remaining against Dassey if the officials decide to seek a retrial, Kratz said.
Only one of Dassey's statements, his confession, was thrown out in the decision. But other statements remain from him and others plus citizen observations of him standing next to a fire in which Halbach's body was burned, according to Kratz.
Halbach was last seen alive on Halloween 2005 with Avery outside his Manitowoc County trailer in Two Rivers, Wis., about 30 miles southeast of Green Bay.
"There's a lot of other inculpatory — which means a lot of other statements against his interests telling what he did, telling what happened — that are still available to the state of Wisconsin if they want to use those," Kratz said.
He declined to say whether he thought prosecutors would be enough evidence without the confession to build a case on.
Duffin's decision states not a single incident during the interrogation rendered Dassey's statement involuntary, but a combination of officers' statements and Dassey's intellectual limitations overwhelmed the defendant, Kratz said. At the time, Dassey was a learning-disabled 16-year-old with no police record.
The statements investigators made to Dassey "are statements that are made every day to people that are interviewed," Kratz said. "Imploring a suspect to be honest or imploring a suspect to tell the truth is just fine. There isn’t anything coercive about that at all.”
Duffin wrote that he did not believe the officers tried to get an involuntary statement from Dassey, and the jury decided it believed Dassey's statement, Kratz said.
"The state couldn’t help it that Brendan Dassey had an IQ in the low 70s," Kratz said. "They didn’t do anything to cause that. That just happened. They didn’t cause that Brendan was socially awkward or that he didn’t have a lot of communication skills. … But then again, the state didn’t ask Brendan Dassey to be involved in a rape and a murder either.”
