MAKING A MURDERER

Steven Avery’s Request to Review Case Denied by State Supreme Court

Avery, who is serving a life sentence for murder, had a request for an evidentiary hearing denied by a court in July.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected Steven Avery’s petition to have his case reviewed on Wednesday, offering little explanation. “It is ordered that the petition for review is denied,” the high court’s sparse statement said, “without costs.” The petition, which asks the state Supreme Court to review issues raised in a series of rejected appeals, was filed on Aug. 25 by Avery’s attorney, Kathleen Zellner. Avery is seeking an evidentiary hearing and new trial, based on what Zellner said were three issues: ineffective assistance of counsel; prosecutors’ withholding of evidence; and destruction of bone fragments. An appeals court previously denied Avery an evidentiary hearing in July. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2007 for the murder of photographer Teresa Halbach two years earlier. Avery won the right to appeal his case in February 2019, after the 2015 Netflix series Making a Murderer cast doubt on the legal process used to convict him. He was diagnosed with COVID-19 while incarcerated in June last year.