Wisconsin DOC
Making a Murderer subjects Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey have applied to Wisconsin's governor's commutation board
Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey — the subjects of Netflix’s iconic Making a Murderer documentary series — have filed applications to Wisconsin’s governor’s commutation advisory board, their attorney Kathleen Zellner announced on social media Thursday.
According to reports, Steven Avery submitted his application to Manitowoc County on September 10, where a judge must sign off before it can be forwarded to the state commutation board. Zellner has been Avery’s attorney since 2016 and has maintained publicly that both men are innocent.
Brendan Dassey, who was a teenager at the time of his conviction, filed a juvenile commutation application earlier this month. While a judge offered no opinion on its merits, they still forwarded it to the state board for review.
Making a Murderer subjects Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey have applied to Wisconsin’s governor’s commutation board in an effort to reduce their sentence
The governor’s commutation board is set to meet again next week, having heard 12 cases last month.
Filed yesterday. @MakingaMurderer #TruthWins https://t.co/PV3CShSj6y
— Kathleen Zellner (@ZellnerLaw) September 11, 2026
Both men were convicted separately in the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach at the Avery property in Manitowoc County: Avery was convicted of first-degree intentional homicide in 2007 and is serving a life sentence, while Dassey, Avery’s nephew, was convicted of first-degree intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse, and second-degree sexual assault. Dassey, 16 at the time of his conviction, received a life sentence.
The pair were first convicted in 2007 for the October 2005 murder of Halbach, a 25-year-old photographer who visited the Avery property in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin to photograph a vehicle for Auto Trader magazine and was never seen again before her remains were later found on the property.
The case became a national and cultural phenomenon in 2015 when it was featured in Netflix’s documentary series Making a Murderer — which is largely credited with kicking off the true crime documentary craze.
While Dassey’s conviction was overturned by a federal judge in 2016 on the grounds that his confession was coerced, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated it in 2017. The Supreme Court also declined to hear the case in 2018.