On Point blog, page 1 of 1
The 7th Circuit: Making a mess of confession law
Dassey v. Dittman, 2017 WL 6154050, (7th Cir. 12/8/17)
This is the decision Making a Murderer watchers have been waiting for. Critics and ivory tower dwellers will celebrate the result (a 4-3 win for the prosecution) but also the concise, dispassionate exposition of the law on involuntary confessions and its application to a hypothetical Brendan Dassey–someone mature, intelligent, unsusceptible to manipulation or coercion by “interviewers.” Documentary fans and lawyers having real world experience representing clients with diminished mental capacity will prefer Chief Judge Diane Wood’s biting dissent. She nails the flaws in the majority’s reasoning and applies the law to the human Dassey–a 16-year old with an IQ in the low 80s.
Statements to police during ambulance ride, and later while cuffed to bed in ICU, deemed voluntary
State v. Stanley K. Bullock, 2014 WI App 29, case activity
How “voluntary” does this sound to you?
The defendant was convicted of 1st-degree reckless homicide for the stabbing death of his girlfriend. He said that masked attackers broke into their apartment and stabbed him and his girlfriend. He called 911. The responding paramedics found the defendant conscious with stab wounds and his girlfriend dead. During his ambulance ride to the hospital (and while experiencing pain and disorientation),