Four years after the initial release of the Netflix documentary “Making a Murderer,” the defense attorney in the Steven Avery case came to Oswego State to discuss his investigations and new book on the subject, concluding that there are injustices in the legal system that have yet to be fixed.

Jerome Buting is a criminal defense attorney who recently wrote “Illusion of Injustice: Inside ‘Making a Murderer’ and America’s Broken System” about his role in the Avery case. In 2005, he defended Avery when Avery was arrested and accused of the rape and murder of Teresa Halbach in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. 

In 2007, Avery was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Avery had filed a civil suit against Manitowoc County, its former sheriff and its former district attorney for his previous wrongful conviction and imprisonment in 1985. Buting argued this suit motivated police to frame Avery. 

“He was embarrassing the heck out of them,” Buting said. “Who better than law enforcement to know how to frame somebody?”

The Avery case and Buting’s investigation were covered in the controversial documentary “Making a Murderer,” which currently has two seasons on Netflix. 

At the Oswego State lecture, Buting went through how he built up his defense case for Avery, covering what was in the docu-series for those who had not seen it and touching on things that are not in the Netflix series. At the end of his lecture, Buting held a book signing at The College Bookstore.

Several students expressed that the Netflix documentary is what motivated them to attend Buting’s talk, and they appreciated his thoughtful discussion. 

Samantha Zerbinos, a junior English and creative writing double major, said she got hooked on the show after her boyfriend introduced it to her.

“I think that it affects everyone because you think, ‘That could be me. That could be someone in my family,’” Zerbinos said. “So, I think that really pulls people in.”

At his talk, Buting argued that there are too many wrongful convictions in the country, and though he lost the Avery case, he continues to advocate for justice system reformation to avoid future cases of police framing, malpractice and wrongful imprisonment. 

“I’m not against police officers, and I’m not trying to bash all police officers because the vast majority of them are good,” Buting said. “But there are enough who are not, and we have enough documented cases … that we need to be careful.”

One of the biggest problems with the justice system today, Buting said, is that presumption of innocence, where someone is assumed innocent until proven guilty, is being switched for presumption of guilt. He said this creates a lot of problems if the assumption becomes too widespread.

“If being innocent isn’t enough and you’re still easily convicted of something you didn’t do, well, then why the heck should I obey the law?” Buting said. “And if such an idea as that takes root in our society, then everything crumbles.”

Specific reforms Buting offered were federal mandatory recordings of interrogations, having an attorney present for all juvenile interrogations and the use of sequential, rather than simultaneous, lineups. The recording of interrogations and having an attorney present were in direct response to the treatment of Avery’s nephew, Brenden Dassey, who was accused of participating in Avery’s crime at the age of 16. 

“You cannot expect 16-year-olds, 15-year-olds, 14-year-olds, to be able to handle themselves against these trained interrogators,” Buting said.

Graduate student and special education major Sofiya Pazycheva said she appreciated Buting’s discussion of the Avery case, as the talk gave her an important perspective on the Netflix documentary series she had not previously considered.

“I’m more sure about the things that I was feeling about this case now,” Pazycheva said. “After hearing Jerome Buting talk … it made me feel real good and bad because I feel like I was feeling the right things, but also bad because I’m just really infuriated about this whole thing.”

Beyond the Avery case, Buting said wrongful convictions in the U.S. are too widespread, and the few exonerations that happen are not a sign of progress.

“That’s just the illusion of justice, that a few people get out,” Buting said. “Our system is designed to enforce the finality of justice, to the extent where, unfortunately, fairness and [actual] innocence doesn’t matter.”

Buting ended his presentation by discussing the controversial nature of the docu-series, per students’ request. After the series came out, the prosecution in Avery’s case claimed significant evidence was left out that would have shown Avery was guilty, not framed. Many rallied around this opinion, arguing the documentary presented a biased account. 

Others, however, saw the documentary as a wake-up call for an unjust system, getting enthralled in the holes in the case the defense tried to use to prove Avery was framed. Buting said he was happy to have filmmakers interested in the case for what it could teach viewers.

“We thought it would be a good education opportunity for people to see what it’s like to prepare a serious case like this,” Buting said.

Buting said that Netflix had reached out to the prosecution, which denied its requests to participate. In addition, the series tried to remain as unbiased as possible, he said, presenting all relevant facts about the case.

Buting’s perspective impressed several students, including sophomore cinema and screen studies major Alex Premo, who said he thought that Buting was very “down to earth.”

“It was all kind of very informational, brought a lot of things to light that they skipped over in the documentary, things like that,” Premo said. “So, I thought it was very important.”

Kimberly LaGatta, a second-year chemistry graduate student, said she was very pleased with Buting’s presentation.

“It was actually amazing – everything I could’ve asked for,” LaGatta said. “I really liked how it gave people the opportunity who hadn’t heard about the case to learn about it.”

Photo by Jessica Wickham | The Oswegonian