“Making a Murderer” subject Steven Avery has been denied a new trial by a Wisconsin judge.
The BBC reported that Judge Angela Sutkiewicz ruled that Avery had failed “to establish any grounds that would trigger the right to a new trial in the interests of justice.”
“As such, no further consideration will be given to this issue,” she said, adding that there was no “reasonable probability that a different result would be reached at a new trial.”
Avery’s lawyer, Kathleen Zellner, said she planned to present new evidence to the court for a request of a new trial after it was rejected by a state circuit judge. Avery and his team have argued that evidence that he murdered photographer Teresa Halbach in 2005 was planted. He and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, were convicted of the crime. Avery was sentenced to life in prison.
In a statement to TheWrap, Zellner said she would be filing a motion to vacate the judge’s order and that she plans to conduct further testing and amend his petition with new witness affidavits.
“With the addition of these new scientific test results and new evidence, Mr. Avery’s attorneys remain confident that his conviction will be vacated,” the statement read.
Avery argued that new scientific tests cast doubt on evidence submitted at trial and his team also presented alternate theories on who killed the photographer.
The decision comes after Dassey’s conviction was overturned because the judge ruled his confession, made as a 16-year-old at the time, was coerced. In June, the Seventh Circuit upheld that decision, leaving the state with the options of appealing the ruling, dismissing the charges, or retrying him. The state is fighting the ruling and a federal appeals court heard arguments last week.
“Making a Murderer” chronicles Avery’s life up until the murder of Halbach and Avery’s subsequent conviction in the brutal crime.