Making A Murderer Analysis

Making a Murderer The Netflix series “Making a Murderer” is a documentary series that follows the life of Manitowoc County, Wisconsin resident Steven Avery. He was charged with rape and assault in 1985 and was sentenced to 32 years without parole. After serving 18 years of his sentence, he was exonerated by new DNA evidence in 2003. Shortly after, he was again, arrested for the murder of Teresa Halbach in 2005. These two cases have different complications and misconduct regarding the way it was handled by the police and by the court system. Due to the status of the suspects in the community, there were many instances of police misconduct, poor investigation techniques, and situations of bad court room decisions. Steven Avery’s family wasn’t

They only pursed Avery because his family was looked down upon in the community. They were poor and had multiple run-ins with police. This is an example of how the police react differently to crime in the case of a person’s economic status. This is a great example of the radical conflict model discussed in Chapter 1 of “Criminal Justice Theory” by Roger Burke. This model tells how the social classes are divided and how the police act differently towards these social classes showing favoritism towards the upper class. The police showed favoritism towards Beerntsen and believed her over Avery because her husband was wealthy and was considered an “elite” in that community while Avery was poor and was lower on the social and economic scale. The police also disliked Avery because he had a confrontation with Sandra Morris who was close friends with employees of the Sheriff’s office and was even married to one of the Deputies. She was also Avery’s cousin. They could have been driven by personal hate to convict Avery which is another example of how a person who is looked at higher in society can have an influence on a case involving a person lower on society’s scale. The conflict theory discussed in Chapter 8 of the Macguire book, “Criminal Justice Theory”, also explains how the elites influence courtroom decisions. Members of the Sheriff’s

There were many accusations of police misconduct in this case. She was last known to be visiting Avery before she went missing which led police to believe he was responsible. Avery’s blood was found in Halbach’s car and her keys were found in his room under a pair of shoes. Avery believes that all the evidence found as planted by police. It was found that blood from Avery’s previous case was tampered with and was believed that the blood was taken from the previous case to the Halbach crime scene. Due to Avery’s civil suit with Manitowoc County, the sheriff’s office was not allowed to take lead on the case and neighboring county of Calumet was assigned it. Manitowoc County was allowed to help but was to be strictly supervised. This was not the case. Officers from Manitowoc were allowed to search Avery’s property many times. Lt. James Lenk of the Manitowoc County found the keys and was not being supervised when he was searching the house. Lenk was also named in Avery’s civil suit. This all could be the result of the police trying to get back Avery for the civil suit and for the case in 1985. This is related to the 4th principle of Ashworth’s 12 principles. The 4th principle explains how there is the right to be treated fairly and without discrimination (Burke 131). Avery was not treated fairly in this case because the police didn’t follow the rules given to them because they had personal