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The White House has officially responded to 'Making a Murderer' petition

The Netflix documentary series Making a Murderer, which tells the story of Steven Avery, a Wiscon...
Newstalk
Newstalk

13.08 8 Jan 2016


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The White House has officially...

The White House has officially responded to 'Making a Murderer' petition

Newstalk
Newstalk

13.08 8 Jan 2016


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The Netflix documentary series Making a Murderer, which tells the story of Steven Avery, a Wisconsin man previously jailed for 18 years then exonerated by DNA evidence, only to become embroiled in the murder case of a missing woman, has become the must-watch TV show of the moment. And now even the White House has weighed in, in response to the huge online support for Avery in a number of online petitions.

At the time of publishing this article, nearly 130,000 had pledged their support to the official ‘We the People’ petition, a service offered by the White House to engage the public on matters of government, and nearly 340,000 have signed their name to the Change.org pledge – of which, Joe.ie reports more than 7,500 of the signatories are from Ireland.

Of the official White House one, which asks President Obama to give a full pardon to Steven Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey for their “wrongful conviction in connection to the murder of Teresa Halbach,” a statement has been produced by the White House revealing that President Obama will not be able to free the men.

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"Under the constitution, only federal criminal convictions, such as those adjudicated in the United States District Courts, may be pardoned by the President," the statement reads. "In addition, the President's pardon power extends to convictions adjudicated in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and military court-martial proceedings. However, the President cannot pardon a state criminal offense."

In essence, because Avery and Dassey are regarded as state prisoners in the eyes of the law, the federal president is unable to pardon them, and any decision to do so would fall under the remit of the Wisconsin governor.

"While the case is out of the Administration's purview, President Obama is committed to restoring the sense of fairness at the heart of our justice system. That's why he has granted 184 commutations total - more than the last five presidents combined – and has issued 66 pardons over his time in office," the statement reads.

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