'Making a Murderer': Judge Orders Brendan Dassey a Free Man by Friday Night

WISCONSIN — Brendan Dassey will be released from prison by Friday at 8 p.m. CDT after a federal judge rejected Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel's attempt to block his release.

Schimel filed an emergency motion in Wisconsin's Seventh Circuit court on Tuesday seeking the stay of a federal judge's ruling after the judge ruled that Brendan Dassey be released from prison with conditions.

According to a Channel 3000 report, U.S. Magistrate Judge William E. Duffin said the state largely re-argued the same points already considered and rejected by the court in deciding Dassey’s motion for release. "The court finds that reconsideration of these arguments yields the same conclusion," Duffy wrote.

Judge Orders Dassey's Release from Prison

U.S. Magistrate Judge William Duffin issued the release order, stating, "Dassey's family is concentrated in northeastern Wisconsin. There is no indication that he has the inclination much less the means to flee or will otherwise fail to appear as may be legally required," according to a report by the Journal Sentinel on Monday afternoon. "Moreover, Dassey has a strong interest not to flee."

Read more, including the conditions of Dassey's release, here.

Conviction overturned in August

In August, a federal judge overturned Dassey's conviction, ruling that investigators used deceptive interrogation tactics to coerce Dassey to confess to helping Steven Avery rape and kill Halbach, a photographer, in 2005.

In that ruling, the judge said Dassey's young age — he was 16 when arrested — and "intellectual deficits" played a role in his conviction. The judge's decision notes: "It is clear how the investigators’ actions amounted to deceptive interrogation tactics that overbore Dassey’s free will."

Schimel is appealing that court's ruling, which overturned the conviction of Dassey, who had been sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 41 years in Halbach's 2007 murder.

The murder is the subject of the popular Netflix documentary series, "Making a Murderer."

The judge ordered that Dassey be released within 90 days, unless prosecutors appealed or retried him. That appeal is now happening.

Schimel Files Appeal

The tactics investigators used were "not constitutionally impermissible acts," Schimel contends in a statement released at the time of his appeal.

“We believe the magistrate judge’s decision that Brendan Dassey’s confession was coerced by investigators, and that no reasonable court could have concluded otherwise, is wrong on the facts and wrong on the law,” Schimel said in a prepared statement.

“Two state courts carefully examined the evidence and properly concluded that Brendan Dassey’s confession to sexually assaulting and murdering Teresa Halbach with his uncle, Steven Avery, was voluntary, and the investigators did not use constitutionally impermissible tactics.”

Opposition Disappointed with Appeal

The Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth under the Northwestern Law School's Bluhm Legal Clinic, which worked on Dassey's case when his conviction was overturned in August, released a statement following the attorney general's appeal:

"We are disappointed in the State's decision to prolong Brendan's case by seeking an appeal. We look forward to continuing to defend his rights in court. Like Brendan, we remain grateful to his many supporters for their continued loyalty and strength."