MANITOWOC, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – The Wisconsin Supreme Court should not review Steven Avery’s latest appeal seeking a new trial for the murder of Teresa Halbach, according to a brief filed Thursday by the Attorney General’s office.
Avery, 62, is serving a life sentence for the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach, a freelance photographer. Avery has maintained his innocence, but every appeal, to this point, has been denied.
The latest denial came last month, when a state appeals court rejected his arguments he should get to argue there is an alternate suspect responsible for the murder.
In the defense’s most recent filing, it asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to review the case.
The high court does not have to review it. If it votes to accept Avery’s appeal, written briefs would be submitted and oral arguments scheduled. If it votes not to take the case, the appeals court ruling would stand.
In the brief, the state argues there is no issue of law for the Supreme Court to address.
There is no novel, important, or conflicting law at issue and nothing worthy of this Court’s review raised by this case. As with his previous petition, Avery has ignored the fact that the only issue raised by this case is whether he met the postconviction pleading standard. Instead, he has again attempted to revive claims he forfeited in either the circuit court or the court of appeals; he makes nonsensical, circular arguments that have no support in the law; and he bases his claims on increasingly absurd conjecture untethered from the facts. The only legal principle at issue here is whether Avery sufficiently pled his Denny claim in his motion to warrant a hearing. The case law on which this claim relies has been established for decades, and both the circuit court and the court of appeals properly applied it. The petition should be denied,” wrote Assistant Attorney General Lisa E.F. Kumfer.
Avery’s nephew, Brendan Dassey, was also convicted. Dassey’s appeals have all been rejected, and he has none pending.
Their cases received worldwide attention with the 2015 release of the Netflix series “Making A Murderer.”
