Making A Murderer’s main subject, Steven Avery, has filed a new appeal requesting the judge to dismiss his murder conviction of killing Teresa Halbach. Avery filed the court documents on Jan. 7th and were processed by the Wisconsin court system four days later.
Avery claims that a juror bullied the rest of the panel into declaring him guilty of Teresa Halbach’s murder, Entertainment Weekly reports. The court documents identified the juror as “C.W”, the person who allegedly made “repeated” comments that Avery was “F—ing guilty”.
“If you can’t handle it why don’t you tell them and just leave,” reads another alleged statement from CW.
It was Avery who represented himself on Jan. 7th. At that time, he argued that the juror “had [notions of] preconceived guilt,” which “deprived Avery of an impartial jury trial”.
According to the publication, it’s likely that Avery is referring to Carl Wardman as the “bully” among the jurors. Wardman volunteered with the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Dept. while the case against Avery was still ongoing.
In a report from TMZ, Avery also claimed that the police search that might have produce incriminating evidence (blood and key found on Halbach’s car) was illegal. He asserts that the officials exceeded the limits of the search warrant.
The lead prosecutor on the case, Ken Kratz, released a statement following Avery’s appeal.
"I'm disappointed that Mr. Avery's appellate lawyers are allowing him to continue to file pleadings with the court on his own - that's what lawys are hired to do. And this appears to be an example of Mr. Avery doing exactly what he wants to and when he wants to do it,” he said in a report from CNN.
Avery is currently waiting for the Wisconsin Court of Appeals to rule on his favor to declare a mistrial.
