Brendan Dassey to Be Released From Prison After Wrongful Life Sentence

Finally, some good news in the justice world. Making a Murderer’s Brendan Dassey could be released from prison after a federal appeals court upheld Dassey’s overturned conviction. Instead of serving a life sentence, the 27-year-old will be freed after 10 years already served. Good news has always felt a bit scarce in the cases of Making a Murderer subjects Dassey and Stephen Avery until now. Hopefully, this news will come as a relief to Dassey’s friends and family.

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There is still a chance that things could go wrong for Dassey, who many viewers believe is wrongly accused of committing the crime at the heart of Making a Murderer. Reportedly, the state of Wisconsin could try him again in the next 90 days, including appealing to the Supreme Court. If that doesn’t happen, Dassey will officially be released from prison.

One of the three judges in this case, William Duffin, stated that “Dassey’s age, intellectual deficits and the absence of a supportive adult” were reasons to believe that Dassey’s 2005 confession, when he was only 16 years old, as seen in the Netflix documentary, was “involuntary” and part of a plan to frame anybody for the murder of Teresa Halbach.

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Laura Nirider, Dassey’s lawyer and first-time Twitter poster, announced the good news today.

What better way to join Twitter than to announce some very good news: Victory in Brendan #Dassey appeal. Thank God. #MakingaMurderer

— Laura Nirider (@LauraNirider) June 22, 2017

Dassey’s other attorney, Steven Drizin, joined in on the congratulatory news.

THIS JUST IN. 7th Circuit AFFIRMS Judge Duffin in 2-1 decision. This round goes to Brendan Dassey 2-1 (Judge Hamilton dissenting).

— Steven A Drizin (@SDrizin) June 22, 2017

More: Making a Murderer Season 2 Will Give New Hope to Brendan Dassey Supporters

An interesting fact reported by ABC News is that the court that released Dassey today is the same court that denied him his freedom just one year ago. There’s no link to what might have changed the court’s mind, but it’s not hard to put together the release of Making a Murderer on Netflix and Dassey’s release from prison.