Making a Murderer: Oh-So-Many Talking Points

635874987555624158-XXX-IMG-NETFLIX-MAKING-A-MUR-1-1-VGCTGMDU-78432434As the winter break winds down, it’s definitely worth your time to start binge-watching Making a Murderer, a recent Netflix documentary on a real-life criminal case. A very close-to-home criminal case, at that.

The documentary, filmed over 10 years, follows Steven Avery, who was convicted in 1985 of sexual assault. He maintained his innocence and, indeed, 18 years later DNA evidence exonerated him. After he was released, he sued Manitowoc County for his wrongful conviction. It looks as though that lawsuit starts digging up some very unsavory conduct among officials in Manitowoc County.

But then—Avery is arrested for the murder of photographer Teresa Halbach. Several months later, his nephew Brendan Dassey is also arrested.

I’ll stop there with plot. If you’ve been around Wisconsin, you’ve probably heard of the case. If you’ve been on the Internet in the last couple of weeks, you’ve almost surely heard of it. But you must watch it.

For law students, there’s so many teachable moments. For everyone, there’s so much to talk about.

Continue ReadingMaking a Murderer: Oh-So-Many Talking Points

Bill Cosby’s Honorary Degrees Rescinded & Sexual Assault Charges Filed

bill-cosby-mugshot-640x400In May 2013, comedian Bill Cosby received an honorary doctorate of letters from Marquette University. In his address to the students, he told them “to go into the world remembering the values they learned from the school’s Jesuits—respect, integrity and a responsibility to serve others.” In retrospect, it’s ironic advice coming from him.

In the past year, a large number of women have come forward to say that Cosby sexually assaulted them, with incidents going back to the mid-1960s. To date, that number has swelled to more than 50. The stories of the alleged assaults have some general similarities: Cosby offered to mentor the women or coach them with acting; he offered them drinks; the women then felt dizzy or woozy and some may have passed out; some of them describe waking up in various states of undress.

Yesterday, Cosby was charged with aggravated indecent assault, a felony, in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, stemming from an encounter in 2004 with Andrea Constand, then operations director for Temple University women’s basketball team, who believed Cosby was a mentor and a friend. The allegations in the complaint parallel the numerous other allegations. The complaint alleges Cosby gave Constand some pills and told her to sip some wine; Constand felt dizzy and felt she had no sense of time; Cosby then sexually assaulted her. The case was re-opened this summer, prosecutors said, after new evidence emerged. That new evidence was Cosby’s deposition testimony in the civil suit Constand filed against him. In his deposition, Cosby admitted giving women Quaaludes in an effort to have sex with them.

Continue ReadingBill Cosby’s Honorary Degrees Rescinded & Sexual Assault Charges Filed

Possible Solutions to America’s Gun Problem

Glock_19_Gen_4_frontThe first step in solving any problem is admitting that a problem exists. America has a gun problem. Guns are all too easy for those with ill intent to obtain. So why worry about gun control and not knife control? Guns allow murderers to exponentially increase fatalities. Compare, if you will, the knife attack in China in which six terrorists killed 29 people and wounded 130 others with the Virginia Tech shooting, in which a single shooter killed 32 people and wounded 20 others. Anecdote aside, one only need to intuit that guns possess extraordinary risks uncommon to other weapons. We need to acknowledge the risks that guns possess.

America averages one mass shooting a day. Clearly something needs to be done, and we must do it without delay. Several observers have suggested ways in which gun violence could be reduced, both from within and outside of the legal system.

Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn has repeatedly called for illegal gun possession to be a felony under Wisconsin law . It is currently a misdemeanor, no matter how often an individual has perpetrated the crime. This means that when police catch someone with a gun who should not have it, all they can do is take it away, slap that person with a fine, and let them go. This is not a sufficient deterrence for people who should not have guns and does not do enough to keep them from possessing guns.

Continue ReadingPossible Solutions to America’s Gun Problem