Viewers are devastated by White House response to Making a Murderer petition

Fans of Making a Murdereron Netflix are continuing to use the Internet to their advantage.

This time, they even got the White House to respond. A White House petition requesting the pardon of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey has collected over 100,000 signatures and prompted a statement from the federal government.

Embarrassingly, the response is more of a civics lesson than an empowering show of democracy. Avery and Dassey were convicted of the murder of Teresa Halbach, a state criminal offense. The president can only pardon federal crimes.

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The official response from the White House reads, well, like an official response from the White House: “Thank you for signing a Change.org petition on the Teresa Halbach murder case, currently featured on the ‘Making a Murderer’ documentary series. We appreciate your interest in this case.” OK!

They try to let us down easy: “To best respond to your petition, we should go over what exactly presidential pardoning power entails… Since Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey are both state prisoners, the [p]resident cannot pardon them. A pardon in this case would need to be issued at the state level by the appropriate authorities.”

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As CNN.com reports, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker has said that he will not intervene in the case.

A similar Free Steven Avery Change.org petition has collected over 350,000 signatures. The petition directed at Gov. Walker has 6,500.

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