Netflix's 'Making a Murderer' Makes a Star

series Making a Murderer. The show is set in Wisconsin and follows the case against Stephen Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, who were arrested and subsequently convicted for the murder of a local woman, a photographer named Tersa Holbach. If you saw the series, you are well acquainted and perhaps a bit smitten with my guest to day, Dean Strang,

the unlikely breakout star. Strang and Jerry Being Avery's original defense attorneys, are now on a nationwide tour called a Conversation on Justice to discuss the larger implications of the case. When he entered college in the late seventies, Dean Strength wasn't hatching his plan to start a national dialogue about the flaws in our judicial system. He was singularly focused on being a political cartoonist. I was interested in politics before I had a particular political point of view, if

that makes sense. As a kid, and I graduated with a degree in government, and when you got out you were cured of your editorial cartoony. Yeah, you know, my my junior year, I ended up making one of the most mature decisions I've ever made my life to date, still ways to go, which is deciding. As much as I loved cartooning, it wasn't going to be a good career as much as I love and still you know, if I sat down and started drawing regularly now it had been like an alcoholic with a bottle. I mean,

you know, in the end, it's not collegial. It's very solitary. It's not constructive in the sense of all you're ever doing is pointing out a problem, you know, scaring people and and and and I don't find a problem is an important first step, but you're never part of a solution for it. As a cartoonist. If you don't mind asking,

what was your family's politics? Your dad, your mom was a My dad was a Republican is what you would think of as a business Republican now, and you know, and my mother, uh, what her politics where she really did keep to herself. She did. I was so hoping you'd say she was a communist. No, she wasn't. Grew up in this weekly fractured house. I doubt it, but I doubt it. But she was, by nature in the very best way of bleeding heart she was. So you're

more your mother than your father in many ways. Yeah, you made a comment in an interview. I'm going to quote a couple of things from an interview that you did. You made a comment to Slate that you were the world's worst federal prosecut cuter. Yes, I think so. We'll describe how only eleven months on the job for one, thankfully for one society for society. Yeah, I lasted only eleven months. I didn't have the spine for it. I just did not have the spine for it. Um sentence

seems tore me up. What do you think it takes to do that job? I think it takes, you know, sort of a greater a need, a greater need or a greater centrality of h orders as a as a first value just order. First of all, you're you know, you're working for a huge organization, the US Department of Justice, So you can't just be freelancing you know, there's eleven volumes of the United States Attorney's Manually you've got to follow.

And second, you know, um, when you're prosecuting, what you're trying to do, it invariably is maintained the status quo. Keep the evidence the cops have found or the agents have found, keep it from being suppressed. You know, assert the rectitude of existing social order. You know, carry out an idea of applying part of a you're part of a huge you know what I mean, part of the sovereign. What makes a good prosecutor to you when if you sat in the courtroom and said, man, this guy or

this woman, they're good. Real connection with victims of crime, a real understanding of the human situation, an ability to empathize with a defendant. Know you what you're What you're saying then, is that, if I'm right, is it beyond them genuinely having an empathy for the victims at least conveying that effectively to a jury to pass on to the jury, look what happened to these people? And put yourself in there, and a passion about it, a sense

of passion about an articulated passion from your side. As a defense attorney whether people to come in and they sit down with you when they want your firm to defend them and you tell them no, how do you what's what's the process by which you choose the firm and you individually you choose who you will and won't

defend if it's a good fit, and they're sure. There are plenty of people we tell no, or in the end, you know, walking thinking they want us and walk out saying, you know, you may be the right lawyer for the next guy, but not for me. So it looked for me. You know, an initial client meeting is to three hours long, sometimes longer than that, and it's just feeling out and

are we gonna be able to work well together? And some component of that is the facts of the case or was that even kind of down the list of what's down the list? Why it's interesting, Well, because you know the facts. I have no way of knowing the facts. When the client's walking in, I haven't seen the first

police report, I haven't you know, seeing anything. The other side is saying, I have only a client's version, and he may have a very fragmentary, very fragmentary understanding even you know the facts as he even he doesn't know what happened, right, or what other people are saying or you know. And the less involved he was, the less he can possibly know about what the accusation is. Right, Um, if he's truly innocent, it wasn't that doesn't know anything,

doesn't know anything. Um, or if he was you know, if he was drunk or you know whatever. And that's often you know a lot of arrests, look some drugs or alcohol and one or two or three or ten sides. Um. So more of it is, is this gonna be a good working relationship without giving any details obviously or names obviously? Do they welcome Sometimes when you have that first meeting and it goes fairly well, but as time goes on, you sit there and say, this guy did it, this

person did it. Well. Sure, but if you've the yeah, if you've gotten off on a really good start when that comes, I mean, they've had situations where somebody's trying to sell me on I didn't do it, and then you know, as time goes on, it becomes pretty clear

they did and ad it to you. If you've if you've if you've picked the right client and they've picked the right lawyer, and you've worked on the relationship, they absolutely do so at the moment in that relationship when that person reveals that they did do it, what's that like for you? What do you do? You just I'm already there, generally, you know, generally, this is a conversation

that I've started. I'm waiting for you to say with them, and then and then and then we we simply revisit objectives, because if they've done it and the relationship is good, no longer is the objective. Why you know, I want to be acquitted at trial. I've never had a client say I did it, but I want to be acquitted at trial. That's never happened to me yet. So it

may tomorrow, but it hasn't happened yet. So for those who don't understand the ethics of these relationships, they're paying you and requesting that you helped them get away with it. Well that ethically they they could do that, and ethically I can do that. I can't put them on the stand to give false testimony. I can't put anybody else on the stand. I know it's going to give false testimony. I you just sit back and wait to see the state makes their case. Yeah, you can rely on reasonable

doubt in the end. Now that's a that's a lousy defense strategy most of the time, simply to rely on reasonable doubt. That's not a compelling story to tell a jury, right, Um, But it could be done. I've never had to do that um to date, you know, because once there's a breakthrough and they say, you know, I did it, it's it's almost seamless to re state the objectives of the representation. At that point, then it becomes you know, but I understand them, and I missed my kids high school graduation.

Is there any way I cannot miss his college graduation? You know? Can you can you mitigate the consequences here and guide me through this? Um And if the relationship is good and trusting in both directions, it hasn't ever yet come down to you know, I want you to go in and try to buffalo jury. There's a guy that I know worked at some mortgage lending company got mixed up in the mortgage scandal prosecutable offense. His boss is he was like a fourth tier junior executive at

this company. And then that's a generous title. It was really just a bunch of guys working in some office in New York, and long story short, as they wound up going after him and squeezing him to give up everybody up above him, and then they would continue to squeeze up the chain. And uh, I mean obviously what I'm getting towards here was prosecutorial overreach, if you will, or whatever term you want to use. I don't want to say, is there were a kind of guy like

the prosecutor in the Dascy case. It was Ken Kratz. I don't want to say that Kratz is symbolic of the kind of people the go into that line of work. But at the very least there's a lot of temptation for those people, isn't there to abuse their power. That's part of why I flopped as a prosecutor. I mean, you you have to have that overriding belief in social order that warrants using people instrumentally, you know, sort of squeezing somebody to get the next bigger guy and then

squeezing that one to get the one above him. And I couldn't do that. This happens that client comes in, potential client comes in, You meet with him, he lays it all out and you know my reactions. Look, you're cooked. They've got you, and they're gonna want you to cooperate against others, and you probably should. That's probably your best option at this point. And I don't do that. I'm not the right lawyer for that. I suck at working with agents and you know, negotiating those kinds of deals,

it's not interesting. I mean, there's no real legal work involved. There are lawyers who are very good at that, and it has to be done, but is it understood in your field when you go into the courtroom. Those guys have the edge when you win the case, you really want the kids. They've got every advantge. That's absolutely right. They really do. Um. And that's not to say that

a lot of them don't work hard. And you know, terrific lawyers and most prosecutors are on the up and up, absolutely and committed to what they're doing and ethical and you know all that good stuff. I want to win the case on the merits, yes, yeah, and want to do you know, want to do what's fair most of them, and so you know that's good. But um, but you're right, they're always the state. You know, they've got the state's resources. They've got the base limited legal fees. I always say,

these people, they're never going to run out of money. Yeah. And and in this country, they've got the basic presumption of legitimacy, you know, even opposed to other countries. Yeah, yes, um, I mean even with the anti government sent him that you'll see rising in you know, sort of conservative populism. Even with that, most Americans at the you know, at the ground level, you know, if they're serving on a jury in a criminal thing, he did it. I think,

if he's charged he did it. They trust the basic ground level competence of our government institutions. Mostly so as a lawyer practicing privately in the state of Wisconsin, so your first awareness of the every Dassy situation was in the media. You followed the case of the and his exoneration back in two thousand three. Um, when he was freed for the rape he didn't commit. It was all over the paper and in and in the chambers of courtrooms in in in Milwaukee and beyond the Wisconsin How

did that reverber rate there? I mean, were the guys who were humiliated did they take that hard when they were humiliated that way? I think a lot of them did um. I think some of them engaged in outright counterfactual thinking. Um that well, you know, maybe the DNA test is wrong, or maybe there were two assailants and for some reason, you know, this poor victim only only

told us about one, you know, preposterous stuff. But you know, more broadly, the when DNA exonerations started happening, it wasn't quite an existential crisis for the prosecution apparatus in this country, but I think it was a moment where they had

to look in the mirror. You know, we we sort of the hubrist that we don't get things wrong, or that we you know, juries always come to the right outcome, and judges weed out the cases that ought to be weeded out, and prosecutors dropped the things that ought to be prosecuted. That hubris just couldn't be maintained in the same way anymore. You had to acknowledge a known error rate, and then acknowledge the possibility that there was an unknown error rate, that it was even you know, larger. In

the show, you are sented. I'm not gonna say you present yourself, but you appear, you know, very trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reference if every quick I touched all those offerences there, I still remember that all these years later. But you do seem like a pretty solid citizen there. So I was assuming that you wouldn't maybe want to comment on this. But Patrick Willis was the judge in the Avery case.

Is he still on the bench? He retired, he'd be tired? How long ago? Three or four years? I'm guessing something like that. Do you care to render any kind of observations about him or evaluations of him? Do you find it's better in your work if you don't do that? Well, I actually like judge Willis. I did, and I do. Um And look, we we elect our judges in Wisconsin with open elections, you know, a trial judge every six years,

any lawyer can run against him or her. Like that system. No, I don't like that and um and it and it affects how judges behave, especially in cases they're getting a lot of public attention. And um. You know, so what you're seeing there is is a judge who's well above the fiftieth percentile in a state that elects judges. I think he tried to get things right. Um, and do you know, do I think that he felt sort of

the pressure of public attention. Yeah, I do think you felt the pressure of public attention to people who do what you do. Have an instinct or you can tell that the judge already thinks the person is guilty when the case proceeding. Oh, sure you can tell. Sure. So you found that this guy, he wanted to affirm what the cops the prosecutors were saying. He's part of that system. That is to say that almost every judge, in almost every case, believes more guilty they you know, they lose,

they lose, really, they get habituated to guilt. They get habituated to a Have you seen judges that are not like that? Yes, on occasion in the case you see a judges I'm not quite sure at the very least, right, But boy, they have to hang onto that hardy. You know, when of the people are pleading guilty in the end, you know, and when you're seeing the same cops and prosecutors every day, and you know you're going to retirement parties together, it becomes a courthouse click and you gotta

hang on real hard to you know. The possibility of innocence. When you watch Making a Murderer, what you get sucked into it becomes a clue and it's almost like Demos and mccayarty got people to start playing this game of how many of these facts do you remember and how do you piece them together? And you have a chance to play lawyer for a little while. But as an actual lawyer, what were some of the first things you saw in the case when you said to yourself, this

is wrong. The key, the key, just something something doesn't square with the police explanation for this. I can't you know, you try to look at it from the other side. You know, what's the prosecution You gonna say, what's their argument? Can I parry that? You know, how do we handle that? And so you try to flip around your point of view. If I were them, if I were them, and I don't know what I'd say about that key. More on that key when we return explore the Here's the Thing archives.

I talked with Laura Richiardi and Morbid Demos, the filmmakers of Making a Murderer who spent ten years capturing Stephen every story. You know, we were there simply to document events as they were unfolding. You know, we were not there to judge. We were there to listen and to witness. Take a listen at Here's the thing. Dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.

Dean Strang is the former co council for Stephen Avery, a man convicted of a brutal murder, as documented by the ten part series Making a Murderer. The show sheds light on major flaws and the prosecution's case. Dean Strang says there was one piece of evidence in particular that didn't add up. A key found in Avery's home during the investigation. Well, this was the seventh search. Um the

bedroom of a single wide trailer. The size of this booth were in about the size of this booth, were in seriously about the size of the maybe a little bit bigger. You've got a standard sized mattress in there.

Um And so that the key, you know, just didn't add up on the explanation the police were given for me, to my eye, in terms of a tipping point in the trial, I think it's when the judge allowed the FBI analyst to testify to the e d T, a testing which was when you say E d T A. D T A was this preservative that is in vials that are used, you know, to store blood, to keep the blood liquid. And E d T A is a chemical that's used in all kinds of refresh our listeners memory,

what what what happened there? Well, so you start, So the blood was taken from Avery purpose for early DNA testing that was inconclusive at that time. And so there it sits in a vial after in a courthouse, in the clerk's office in the courthouse, the custodians of which are the Sheriff's department ultimately. And now you fast forward November two, five trees the Hallbucks cars found there looks like blood around the ignition, you know area on the

dashboard that blood gets collected. It's identified as being Stephen Avery's blood. How did it get there unless he was bleeding and was in the car and you know, presumably turning the key in the ignition. Well, this is you know, and this is the you know, the game on moment in the trial, you know, with Jerry beating um. Where Wow, there is a vial of Stephen Avery's blood in the courthouse. The seal on the box has been slit and when you open the box up, now that the seals slit

without explanation, the blood still liquid. So could the blood from that vial have ended up smeared on Teresa hallbox dash? When the blood is still liquid? How in the way it wasn't refrigerated or frozen. It's in the continent, it remains good. There's a substance they put in there. Correct, The vial, as all are, is treated with this chemical E d T, a chemical compound, just say as a

common It's in a lot of household goods. It's edible, it's even you know, it's even in So when you put that in there, it doesn't affect the DNA testing of the blood people itself was It just keeps it liquid and we will always know that is that person's budded matches. Well, yeah, it just makes it easier to test. So what was the ruling about? So the state now

it's got a problem, right, Oh my god. The police in theory did have access to his blood, and one of the officers involved in this investigation heavily was the one who transported this violent blood back in nine I knew where it was. Now it existed, and so what do we do, you know, the States saying, what do

we do about that? Well, let's see if we can test the blood from the dashboard to see if it contains E t A, because if it doesn't, then the hypothesis is it couldn't have come vile, couldn't have come from a vial because it would have E d t A and if it had been in the vial, right, yeah, And so initially they said, Judge, you know, exclude the blood vial and all this argument about planting the blood because there's nobody who can do a test for E d t A and they were certainly can't do it

in time. Judge said no, I'm gonna let it in. And so then they got the They talked the FBI into going into into double time to try to you know, redo the E d t A testing. And I think the last time the FBI had done that was in the O. J. Simpson prosecution, where that was an issue as well, and the E d t A was an issue there. So the FBI had gotten out of that business, and the State of Wisconsin talked them into getting back into it. And then mid trial, you know, on a Friday, afternoon.

As I recall, we get seven fifty pages of reports and we're told the FBI analyst is going to come in and say he couldn't detect E D T A in the blood from the dashboard of the car. And when the judge ultimately let that in, and of course we couldn't do independent testing or defense testing at that point. We're five because we're four or five weeks in the trial, and nobody but the FBI does this, and you know it just you couldn't do it. We're we're just resource,

no resources and no time. Uh but why no time? What you mean you couldn't because we were in trial, We were five weeks into trial, and the judge wouldn't have allowed you if you could have found an independent source to determine something as significant as that, to have a month off or something to go do that. I don't think there was any way in the world the judge would allow that. But is it safe to say that the case potentially hinged on that? I thought that

was the tipping point in the trial. Um, did anybody subsequently find out? Did anybody go after the trial and go and get the testing done so that they could then publicize we had an independent test done that said that there were traces of D. Did that happen? Not yet? Not yet? You know. I find that the most difficult thing for me to face this was in family law court. This is in criminal proceedings that friends of mine have been involved in, civil proceedings that my ex wife was

involved with. And that is that the job that is the toughest job, the job that requires the greatest attention and acuity and intellect and bravery, is to be a judge. What people don't understand about the jurisprudence system in this country, as far as I'm concerned, is is that you're sitting there and the judges like according to case law. For me, as a judge to rule, I can rule either way. I've got case law to rule in the way. Which one of you do I like more? Which one of

you do I want to reward more? Whatever resembles truth rarely walks into or out of a U. S. Court Right. One of one of my favorite moments and favorite judges. I'll remember this guy until I can't remember anyone anymore. Um about five ft two quiet guy where hush puppies only judge in a in a rural county in Wisconsin. And and and you know, and I had a number of experiences with him and they were all good. He just

was judicial. He was careful, fair. I mean, you know, you don't see that many like this, right, But but the crystal heising moment for me. I had brought a motion to suppress some evidence in a case and it required testimony of a police officer and testimony of my client. And the police officer was it was a good guy. I liked. I liked that detective. I liked him. I thought he was a truth teller. Um. And so he testified at the suppression hearing. My client testified at the

suppression hearing. Um. She was a saleswoman, a little bit, a little bit brassy, a little bit hard edged. She was likable though in the end. And this guy said, you know, I heard the testimony and off, you know, Detective so and so he was he was very credible, very believable, you know. But the defendant she was, she was credible too. I you know, I have no reason to disbelieve what she said. And and you know you don't get this from judges usually, well they are you know,

balancing the credibility. The officer was very credible, and you know defendant was not. And he said they both were very very credible, believable people. Um, I have no real reason to disbelieve either one of them. And that makes this a very close case. And in our system of government, close cases go to the defense emotions. Granted, I could have kissed him, I could have run up and kissed him. He was it was, you know, and you just don't.

You don't have many experiences with judges like that. So when the Avery case ends and he's found guilty again, described to me how you felt sick to my stomach. I mean I think I literally felt sick to my stomach. And I'm somebody who always tells himself, no matter how well a case has gone, they're gonna come back guilty. They're gonna come back guilty. They're gonna come back guilty. I have to tell myself that because I can, I can deal. Yeah, I can deal with the the wonderful,

you know, wonderful pleasant surprise. Different here, occasional acquittal, but different here. Well, I had told myself, they're coming back guilty, They're coming back guilty. But when you hear it, you know when you actually hear it, and then you know the first verdict, first count guilty for screw intentional homicide and then in the next breath not guilty of burning the body. You know, you you realize that a compromise was struck, um, and that you know you you were

in the game. You were you know it's not a game, but you were, you were, You were there, doubt somewhere. You were there, and a compromise got struck and it got away from you. And how did Avery strike you in the time that you spent with him. Did you look at him in his background, out in his profile and say, this can be tough. Sure, he's not a very articulate guy. No, no, And and he's been kicked

around by the world. And so family was. And the Stephen Avery I came to know projects exactly on the screen. It that Stephen Avery you're seeing in in this ten hour film and his parents, his family members is exactly the guy I came to know and the people I came to know. Um. It was remarkable how directly they projected in an unfiltered way. Where is he now? He's at upon correctional institution in Wisconsin. Our oldest our first and therefore oldest prison still in use, and what is

the update if antying on his legal status. He's got an aggressive, good new lawyer from the suburbs of Chicago, assisted by an innocence project in Kansas City. They're working really hard on this. Someone shaking a blood vial tree. I hope I don't know, you know, I don't. I don't know. Ask what she's doing. UM, I don't talk to her. I'm there to help win and if she wants it, um, you know, and I passed along information that comes to me and really should be going to her. Um.

But they're working really hard on the case. Were you surprised at what kind of a firestorm that show created? Oh, I'm surprised. Hardly begins to say it, you know, it hardly begins to say it. I got my first email at six thirty Central time the night that that came out. A guy in Charleston, South Carolina had been home sick from work and he'd watched all ten hours of it and and then you know, it was moved for whatever

reason to google me and find my Well. But but you know, funny you I think you it came out on a Friday, December eighteenth, and I think you called me on Monday, if I remember right. And I had been off to court somewhere and I came back to my office and there's a voicemail and it's some guy saying he's Alec Baldwin and it's sure as how it sounds like Alec bald One to me, and uh, and there's you know, there's a telephone number. And I thought this is going to get weird. Things that are going

to change. But then I have changed and they have. Now I can't say that Avery is capable of doing the things that are described in the indictment, the sexual assault, the you know, the abduction and tying them down and killing them and burning them all this. I mean, it just goes to this level from on a scale of one attendants a twenty and I can't say that they would do that, and I can't say that they wouldn't. I'm just saying I don't think that it's proven in

the case that they did. But the next thing obviously becomes to me like O J who said, I'm going to spend the rest of my life finding out who really did this. Um, I'm hard pressed to think who would do that? Was any thought about alternative suspects? Yeah, no, We we identified a number of people who have the opportunity to do this, who are approximate, you know, nearby, and who's past suggusted some legitimate tendency to worry about it. The judge excluded all that. But on your point, I mean,

you're you're an actor. Um, if you were playing Brendan Dascy and somebody handed you a script that says, okay, a sixteen year old boy who's who's got some learning disabilities and who's had zero sexual experience. The script calls for this sixteen year old boy, you Alec Baldwin playing him, to come over to his uncle's trailer and to be told to come in, take off all his clothes, and have sex in front of his uncle with a woman who's manacled to kid and screaming for her life. You know,

after he's walked home from school. Action right, you're gonna throw the script back. He's gonna believe it's preposterous. It you know, I can't make this work. I may be a great actor, but we're making the same point. You know. One of the things that Moira and Laura we we were you know, kind of underlined when they were here was Mike callback and how the judge said, don't try the case in the press. So the prosecutors basically did

Hall back the script. Did that irky when he was doing that it, Yeah, I'd bothered me, um, you know, And I'm not inclined to be too critical of a bantam Stam's family. You know, they all process in their own way. And he was very saying when the whole time we do it was it was amazing how little emotion there wasn't my callback? Well, I think he was trying hard, you know, to do that. Mike's a nice guy, actually, I'm just telling you. You know, he and his brother Tim,

and the parents for that matter. Um, So I think didn't they have any curiosity to find out potentially that there was someone else that killed their sister. I don't know, I can't. I'm just I'm just saying there for me that the two go hand in hand. I mean, maybe a nice guy, but I thought, well, he has a level of certainty. I would really want to know who did it. You know. Well, you know we were circle back too. We trust the police in most country in

the main most of us trust the police. Now things have changed for you. I I was stunned to see in Slate and I have to I have to cool her out on this. That Heather Schweddle. I believe her name is spelled in her peace and Slate was interviewing you and she talked about how you become a heartthrob? Is your legal practice just exploded? Now? Is everything just going your way? Are you dressing differently? You're wearing your

hair differently? My wife several years ago, I started trying to dress me better, um, you know, and I indulged that what'd your wife think about all this? Oh? She she can hardly stop laughing. I mean that's um, heart throb.

I'm not. But what's changed for you? Well? Here I am in New York City talking to Alec Baldwin across the doing a bunch of other things, and doing a bunch of talking at universities and colleges and bar groups and charities and the you know, the theater stuff with Jerry um so so sort of everything has changed, um in the last few months, and it will change back again. Um, But you know there's a moment where you know, the things I've wanted to say for a long time, and

nobody wanted to hear. And now some people are are willing to give me an opportunity to say. When you speak before legal groups ESPEC especially or universities, give us one of those things might be talk about the role of class in our criminal justice system, and not just how poorly we fund indigence defense, but why there are

so many indigence to defend in the system. Linkage between class and race and ethnicity, UM, the role of electing judges, UH, police interview techniques with people who are vulnerable or unsophisticated, often learning disabled. There's any number of things that that you know that I'm glad America's getting a glimpse of how this really works. No offense intended. But not in a movie, you know, not not in a fictional account.

So UM, for the time I think I've got a duty to speak up, we'll be able to hear Dean Strang speak up even more. Dean Strang Road to Justice, an eight episode television series, is now in development. Strang will study big time cases that expose the weaknesses in our criminal justice system. Sign me up. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing