Steven Avery from 'Making a Murderer' Is Appealing His Conviction

Steven Avery, the central character in the Netflix documentary series Making a Murderer, has filed another appeal of his conviction in the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach. According to People (opens in new tab), he's claiming a juror in his case was biased against him and bullied the rest of the jury into finding him guilty. 

He refers to the juror as C.W., claiming that he called Avery "fucking guilty," and asked jurors, "If you can't handle it, why don't you tell [the judge] and just leave?" C.W. might stand for Carl Wardman, a juror who was a volunteer for the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department, the same group Avery's defense lawyers claimed planted evidence at Avery's home. 

Avery also claims in his appeal that the multi-day search of his property was illegal because it exceeded the terms of the search warrant. And according to Fox 6 Now (opens in new tab), he claims that Halbach's Toyota wasn't sealed with tamper-proof tape, meaning that police could open and close doors and plant evidence, like Avery's blood. Overall, he's asking for the court to declare a mistrial.

Though Avery now has new legal representation, he filed the appeal himself before the new lawyers signed on to his case. He said in his papers that his lawyer incompetently represented him. Avery's new lawyer is Kathleen Zellner, who is working with Tricia Bushnell of the Midwest Innocence Project on the case. The lawyers of nephew Brendan Dassey, also imprisoned for the murder, are requesting his conviction be vacated because his constitutional rights were violated.

You can read the full appeal below.

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