Steven Avery
Encyclopedia
Steven Avery is an American who was convicted of murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

. He served 18 years on a rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...

 conviction in which DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

 analysis later linked the crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...

 to another man. After his exoneration and release from prison, he was convicted of the murder of Teresa Halbach.

Background

At age eighteen, Avery pled guilty to burglarizing a bar and was sentenced to ten months in prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

.http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=407592 When he was twenty, Avery and another man pled guilty to animal cruelty after pouring gas and oil on Avery's cat and throwing it into a fire; Avery was sentenced to prison again for that crime.http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=407592 In 1985, Avery was charged with assaulting and flashing his cousin and possessing a firearm as a felon, and with the rape for which he was later exonerated.http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=407592 He served six years for assaulting his cousin and illegally possessing firearms, and twelve years for the rape he did not commit.http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=407592

The Wisconsin Innocence Project
Innocence Project
An Innocence Project is one of a number of non-profit legal organizations in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand dedicated to proving the innocence of wrongly convicted people through the use of DNA testing, and to reforming the criminal justice systems to...

 took Avery's case and eventually he was exonerated of the rape charge. After his release from prison, Avery and his attorneys (Stephen Glynn and Walter Kelly) filed a $36 million federal lawsuit against Manitowoc County, its former sheriff
Sheriff
A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....

, Thomas Kocourek, and its former district attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...

, Denis Vogel. On October 31, 2005, the same day that Halbach went missing, state legislator
Legislator
A legislator is a person who writes and passes laws, especially someone who is a member of a legislature. Legislators are usually politicians and are often elected by the people...

s passed the Avery Bill to prevent wrongful convictions. The bill has since been renamed out of respect for the Halbach family.

Halbach murder

Sometime during the day on October 31, 2005, photographer Teresa Halbach was scheduled to meet with Steven Avery, one of the owners of Avery Auto Salvage, to photograph a maroon Plymouth Voyager minivan for Auto Trader Magazine
Trader Corporation
Trader Corporation is a Canadian print and online publisher. The company was formed in June 2006 with the integration of Classified Media Holdings Inc. and Trader Media Corporation . The two companies were acquired by Yellow Pages Income Fund that same year...

. She had been there at least fifteen times before, taking pictures of other vehicles for the magazine. Halbach disappeared that day.

On November 11, 2005, Avery was charged with the murder of Halbach. Avery protested that authorities were attempting to frame him for Halbach's disappearance to make it harder for him to win his pending civil case regarding the false rape conviction. To avoid any appearance of conflict, Mark R. Rohrer, the Manitowoc County district attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...

, requested that neighboring Calumet County
Calumet County, Wisconsin
Calumet County is a county located in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is included in the Appleton, Wisconsin, Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of 2010, the county's population was 48,971. The county seat is Chilton.-History:...

 authorities lead the investigation. Manitowoc County Circuit Court Judge Patrick Willis presided over the trial.

On March 18, 2007, Steven Avery was found guilty of murdering Halbach, not guilty of mutilating a corpse, and guilty of illegally possessing a firearm. On June 1, 2007, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder. He was also sentenced to 10 years in prison for felony possession of a firearm, which will run concurrent to the murder sentence.

Unreasonable Inferences

Unreasonable Inferences https://www.createspace.com/3494866 is a true crime book
about the wrongful conviction of Steven Avery and its tragic aftermath.
The book was written by Michael Griesbach, a prosecuting attorney in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin.
Griesbach played a significant role in some of the events described in his book.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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