Steven Avery is an innocent man, railroaded by the Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, Sheriff’s Office and sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. This is the only conclusion at which one could reasonably arrive after watching Netflix’s new true crime documentary series Making a Murderer, which debuted on December 18 and has already garnered the ultimate prize of television’s new world order: an explosive social media reaction.
First things first: Making a Murderer is great TV, with an almost-too-good-to-be-true hook: Avery, who was arrested for the rape and murder of Theresa Halbach in November of 2005, had, just two years earlier, been released from prison after serving 18 years for a crime he (really) did not commit. The theory presented in the show, and by Avery’s defense team, is that the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office framed him for Halbach’s murder to curtail a massive lawsuit stemming from his prior wrongful conviction.
That the show has generated so much buzz is no shock. Crime stories are among TVs oldest and most beloved formats, and this show has it all: class struggle, sex, crooked cops, shady lawyers, families torn apart. It is the stuff of fiction. And, upon closer inspection, it is fiction. Not, perhaps, in a sit-down-at-your-MacBook-Air-and-make-up-a-story sense, but more in a let’s-leave-out-all-sorts-of-pertinent-information-so-people-will-think-what-we-want kind of way.
In this respect, Making a Muderer differs from last year’s viral true crime podcast, Serial. For all of its hand-wringing over the state of the criminal justice system, for all of its heavy-handed relativism, and for all of its NPR-ishness, Serial at least gave listeners the space to figure it all out for themselves. Serial‘s creator Sarah Koenig, though highly sympathetic to her subject, Adnan Syed, constantly questioned herself and acknowledged there were many things in Adnan’s story that couldn’t be accounted for.
But Making a Murderer doesn’t just present the possibility that Steven Avery might not be guilty. Instead, it presents 10 hours of “documentary” evidence that purports to confirm his innocence. I’m no lawyer, so my opinion as to the procedural and ethical propriety of the investigating officers and prosecutors means little. And I can say with certainty that I have no idea if Steven Avery and his alleged accomplice, Brendan Dassey, are guilty. But after reading everything the filmmakers decided to leave out, I have to say, I feel a bit bamboozled, and a lot like a sap. It would have been helpful to know about Avery’s apparent fixation with Halbach, or that Avery’s DNA was found on the hood of her car, a point corroborated by Dassey’s allegedly coerced confession.
Such omissions were made, one can only assume, because the filmmakers believe Avery to be innocent, and because they hope their film will highlight the failings of our criminal justice system. Given the turbulent relationship between the police and the citizenry in the Ferguson era, many will find the solace of confirmation bias in Avery’s story as presented here. But what of the people who are actually wrongly imprisoned?
Steven Avery’s first conviction, for which he was exonerated on the basis of DNA, is a clear-cut failure of the system. His second conviction is not, and to assert that it is by playing fast and loose with the facts can only serve to increase distrust between citizens and law enforcement and undermine reasonable efforts at criminal-justice reform. The truth may or may not set Steven Avery free someday. In the meantime, despite what the makers of this series might believe, half-truths will do little to advance the cause of those languishing in prison under false convictions.
