1. 2/2/2016 Brendan Dassey’s Confession Highlights Importance of Recording Interrogations — The Innocence Project
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Home > News & Events > Brendan Dassey’s Confession Highlights Importance of Recording
Interrogations
Brendan Dassey’s Confession Highlights
Importance of Recording Interrogations
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Posted: February 1, 2016 6:05 PM
For millions of people, the Netflix series Making a Murderer has served as a shocking eye­opener to
some of the more devastating flaws within our country’s criminal justice system. For those who are
unfamiliar with it, the series details the 2007 convictions of Steven Avery and his teenage nephew
Brendan Dassey for the 2005 murder of 25­year­old Teresa Halbach in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin.
While the series focuses on the Avery and Dassey cases exclusively, in a broader sense it reveals the
widespread pitfalls of tunnel vision within criminal investigations, especially in terms of how they can
skew interrogation practices, and it provides a key lesson as to why the practice of electronically
recording interrogations should be mandated across the country.
If you have not yet watched the series, one of the biggest twists in the series is Dassey’s confession.
When prosecutor Ken Kratz calls a press conference to announce that the 16­year­old was taken into
custody after admitting to Avery’s and his involvement in the death of Halbach, it seems like the
smoking gun in the case. But when we see the tapes of Dassey’s interrogation, a different story emerges.
Dassey, who has an IQ in the low 70s (an average IQ is 100), is pulled out of school by two investigators
and interrogated for several hours without a parent or attorney present. The interrogators, Department of
Justice investigator Tom Fassbender and Calumet Sheriff’s Sgt. Mark Wiegert, push Dassey for details of
the crime, and at times he seems to be guessing what they want to hear.
For example, Fassbender and Wiegert ask Dassey what happened to Halbach’s head, and he says that
Steven cut off her hair. The detectives keep pressing, and he says that Avery punched her, and pressed
further he says that he cut her. Frustrated, Wiegert finally says, “I’m just going to come out and ask you.
Who shot her in the head?” Dassey says that Avery did. “Why didn’t you tell us that?” asks one of the

2. 2/2/2016 Brendan Dassey’s Confession Highlights Importance of Recording Interrogations — The Innocence Project
http://www.innocenceproject.org/news­events­exonerations/brendan­dassey2019s­confession­highlights­importance­of­recording­interrogations 2/4
investigators. “ ’Cause I couldn’t think of it,” Dassey replies.
During closing arguments, the prosecution says, “People who are innocent don’t confess.” But, that’s not
true, especially when it comes to juveniles. False confessions played a role in 28 percent of the nation’s
337 wrongful convictions overturned with DNA, and in 65 percent of exonerations involving minors.
Suggestibility, obedience to authority and immature decision­making abilities make juveniles particularly
susceptible to interrogations designed to elicit confessions from adults. While juveniles and people with
mental limitations are particularly vulnerable, mentally capable adults have also falsely confessed to
crimes they did not commit. Dassey’s case shows how powerful a confession can be to a jury; he was
convicted despite a lack of physical evidence and the recantation of a key witness linking him to the
crime.
Legal practitioners, academics and law enforcement have endorsed electronic recording of interrogations
in their entirety as a safeguard against wrongful convictions stemming from false confessions. By
creating transparency and accountability, the practice deters the use of illegal or abusive interrogation
techniques and ensures the protection of defendants’ rights. It also benefits law enforcement by removing
any doubts about the voluntariness of authentic confessions and protecting officers against frivolous
allegations of misconduct.
Dassey’s interrogation was one of the first to be recorded in the state of Wisconsin. In 2005 the state
Supreme Court ruled that juvenile interrogations must be electronically recorded, and the following year
the state legislature passed a law extending this requirement to all felony cases. Currently, 19 states
require electronic recording of interrogations and federal agencies including the U.S. Federal Bureau of
Investigations, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives have implemented the practice.
Of course, a videotaped interrogation only benefits a defendant if it is used properly. Courts assess
voluntariness when deciding whether a confession can be admitted into evidence, and the judge ruled that
Dassey’s confession was voluntary and could be heard by jurors. However, the jury didn’t see the last
hour and a half of the interrogation tape, including Dassey telling his mother during a break that “they
got into my head,” which could have raised doubts about the credibility of his confession.
But at least there is an enduring record of what occurred during the interrogation, which may help Dassey
in his appeals. (Dassey is now being represented by the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth.)
Without video it would be his word against the interrogators. For example, we would have thought that
Dassey brought up that Halbach was shot in the head, when it was really the police who first mentioned
it.
While we may never know what really happened in this case, thanks to the videotape at least we know
what happened during Dassey’s interrogation. This year the Innocence Project is working in several
states to pass laws that would require police to record custodial interrogations, and you can help by
telling your state representatives that you support this reform. To find out if your state currently requires
recording of interrogations click here.
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3. 2/2/2016 Brendan Dassey’s Confession Highlights Importance of Recording Interrogations — The Innocence Project
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4. 2/2/2016 Brendan Dassey’s Confession Highlights Importance of Recording Interrogations — The Innocence Project
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