STEVEN AVERY

What does Dassey ruling mean for Avery?

Alison Dirr
USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey

With Brendan Dassey's conviction in the 2005 homicide of Teresa Halbach now overturned, what happens next in his case — and that of his uncle, Steven Avery?

The two were featured in the Netflix docu-series "Making a Murderer," which was released in December and has been making waves around the world.

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin reached four legal experts, including one of the attorneys who won the appeal for Dassey, to better understand what happens next in each case. We spoke with Dassey's attorney, Laura Nirider, project co-director at the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth; Michael O'Hear, a law professor at Marquette University Law School; former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janine Geske; and Keith A. Findley, a University of Wisconsin Law School professor and co-founder of the Wisconsin Innocence Project.

Here's what they told us about each case:

Will the overturning of Dassey’s conviction influence Avery’s case? 

The consensus among experts is no.

Dassey's conviction was overturned because his confession was found to be involuntary. That doesn't affect the evidence used against Avery or the issues brought up in his case.

There is nothing in the judge's opinion on Dassey's case "that really speaks to the case against Avery or suggests that there's anything improper that was done in Avery's case or any reason to doubt the validity of Avery's conviction," O'Hear said. "I think these two cases really need to be viewed as completely distinct from one another."

Avery's attorney, Kathleen Zellner, is scheduled to file a brief on Aug. 29 in the state Court of Appeals, District 2. What happens after that?

What happens next depends on the content of Zellner's brief and what issues she raises. The brief will set forth legal claims, arguments supporting those claims and what Avery's attorneys are asking the court to do, Findley said.

It will take many months for his case to move through the court system.

Could the issue of jury contamination from former Calumet County District Attorney Ken Kratz’s pre-trial press conference be raised in Avery's case now that Dassey's conviction has been thrown out? 

Jerry Buting, one of Avery's defense attorneys, told reporters in Tennessee that Dassey's confession was not directly used in Avery's case.

"So the state may argue, well, it shouldn’t affect it at all, because we didn’t use that evidence," Buting said at a stop on a speaking tour days after the conviction was overturned. "But in effect it did. They used it at the press conference where the special prosecutor polluted the entire jury pool that we had to pick Steven Avery’s jury from."

This issue could come up in Avery's appeal — but that doesn't mean it will be successful, O'Hear said.

What will likely happen next in Dassey’s case? 

Prosecutors have a few options but the most likely, experts said, is that they appeal the decision to the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago.

The state could decide to retry Dassey without the thrown-out confession, in which case the state would have to initiate those proceedings within 90 days. A plea offer is also a possibility.

"I think the important thing to keep in mind with a retrial is that in any retrial that occurs, the state would not be able to use Brendan's confession because that confession was thrown out by the federal court on Friday as coerced," Nirider said. "And the only evidence against Brendan has ever been his own words. There's no forensic evidence linking him to this crime. There's no blood. There's no DNA. There's no eyewitnesses, nothing like that. So without that confession, it's hard to imagine how the state would proceed with a retrial because literally they wouldn't have evidence that they could use against Brendan."

The least likely option is that the state decides to release Dassey.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice declined Tuesday to comment on its next move, saying it is reviewing the judge's order.

If there is a retrial, which court would hear it?

In principle, the case goes back to the court that heard the original case. Dassey's is a Manitowoc County case.

Could Ken Kratz come back as a special prosecutor in either case? 

That's legally possible but not probable.

Alison Dirr: 920-996-7266 or adirr@gannett.com; on Twitter @AlisonDirr