White House denies petition for ‘Making A Murderer’ subject Steven Avery

Ever since the recent Netflix docu-series ‘Making a Murderer’ hit the streaming service, there have been numerous petitions and calls to have the subject of the series, Steven Avery, freed from prison.

Filmed over a 10-year period, Making a Murderer follows Steven Avery, a DNA exoneree who, while in the midst of exposing corruption in local law enforcement, finds himself the prime suspect in a new murder case.

Since both Avery and Dassey are state prisoners, the president lacks authority to grant pardons on their behalf.

BELVIDERE, Ill. (AP) – Presence of a rare mollusk has delayed repairs to a bridge in northern IL. As reported by Deadline yesterday evening, the White House responded about the possibility of pardoning the protagonist of Netflix’s new doc-series in the negative.

There’s also a petition going on Change.org which has racked up more than 350,000 signatures and that one is, actually, directed towards the person who has the authority to pardon the men: Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. As Avery and Dassey were accused under Wisconsin’s justice system, President Obama would not be allowed to pardon either inmates.

The petition has reached 129,800 signatures to date, surpassing the required 100,000 that were needed to elicit a response from the White House before the January 16 deadline for review.

Evidence presented in the Netflix series strongly suggested Avery’s innocence.

Avery is now serving a life sentence in jail without parole.

President Obama will not be pardoning Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey. The White House’s response essentially outlines what has been clear from the beginning: the president does not have the power to pardon a state crime.

Avery had been wrongly convicted of a 1985 rape and served 18 years in prison. But Walker has been notorious in his time in office for refusing to issue any pardons. According to the United States Department of Justice, presidential pardons can only be used on federal convictions.