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More than a year after Teresa Halbach disappeared, her family and prosecutors alike finally let out a sigh Wednesday night after a jury convicted Brendan Dassey in her rape and murder. Dassey’s uncle, Steven Avery, was convicted in her death in March.
“There was certainly some sadness, thanksgiving and relief,” said Mike Halbach, Teresa’s brother.
But it’s not over yet. The wheels of justice will keep grinding away in Dassey’s and Avery’s cases for months as they are sentenced and maybe longer as their attorneys pursue appeals.
“I know that people would like to have closure and have everything be over, but it’s part of the safeguards of our system that there is a review process,” said Deb Smith, division director at the state public defender’s office and a University of Wisconsin-Madison law school lecturer. “In those cases where there is a mistake, there is an opportunity to correct that.”
Halbach vanished on Halloween 2005. Her family launched a search and eventually found her sport utility vehicle in the Avery family salvage yard, where she’d gone to take pictures of a minivan Avery’s sister wanted to sell. Investigators discovered Halbach’s charred remains in a burn pit in the yard and a bullet with Halbach’s DNA on it.
Avery, 44, was charged with being party to first-degree murder, mutilating a corpse and sexually assaulting Halbach.
The case caused an uproar in Wisconsin. Avery had grown into a symbol for wrongful convictions after a DNA test showed he didn’t commit a 1985 rape. He was released from prison in 2003 after serving 18 years in prison. Now he was right back in trouble.
The case took a macabre turn when Dassey told investigators he went to Avery’s trailer on Halloween and saw the 25-year-old Halbach naked and shackled to Avery’s bed. He said he raped the woman at his uncle’s urging and the two of them stabbed her before Avery shot her multiple times and burned her body.
Dassey, now 17, was charged with being a party to murder, mutilating a corpse and sexual assault. He recanted his confession and took the stand in his own defense, saying he got some of the details of his story from a novel about serial killers. But when prosecutors repeatedly asked him why he would lie to investigators, all Dassey could say was he didn’t know.
Avery was convicted on the murder charge and acquitted on the mutilation count. Prosecutors dismissed the sexual assault charge. Dassey was convicted on all three counts against him. Both of them now face life in prison.
Avery’s attorneys already have filed a motion for a new trial, arguing it was inconsistent to acquit Avery of mutilating Halbach’s corpse while convicting him of her murder. Avery’s attorney, Dean Strang, didn’t return a message Thursday.
Dassey’s attorney, Mark Fremgen, hinted at an appeal moments after Wednesday’s verdicts, saying it only made sense with his client facing life in prison. Fremgen also didn’t return a message.
Avery is scheduled to be sentenced in June, Dassey in August. Both proceedings threaten to open up wounds as their families and Halbach’s relatives spar over whether the two should get a chance at parole. And Halbach’s family has filed a civil wrongful death suit against both Avery and Dassey.
Smith said she would expect appeals in both criminal cases.
“That’s standard, especially on murder cases,” she said.
A state appeals court could take as long as nine months to review their arguments, she said. If the state Supreme Court takes up their cases, add another six to nine months. And then there’s always federal court.
Janine Geske, a Marquette University law professor and former state Supreme Court justice, said chances are slim the cases would get to the state’s highest court.
The Supreme Court takes only about 10 percent of the cases it receives, and then only if they present some unique question of law or a recurring problem in cases, Geske said.
“Most criminal cases don’t wind up there,” she said.
Even fewer criminal cases make it into federal court, Geske said.
Still, the hardest part of the two cases — convincing juries of Avery’s and Dassey’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt — is over, Smith said. And rarely does an appeals court grant a new trial, she said.
“Most jury verdicts stand,” she said.
Dassey juror Tamara Lowery, 28, of Fitchburg, said the evidence against the teen, including his confession and testimony, added up.
“It all fit together like puzzle pieces,” she said.
