Bad news for those looking forward to the May 31 filing date of Making A Murderer subject Steven Avery’s appeal. His lawyer, high profile wrongful convictions specialist Kathleen Zellner, has requested a 90 day extension that pushes back the date for filing his legal briefs to August 29.
Amateur online sleuths have been eagerly awaiting this day, as Zellner’s appellate brief was expected to appear online the moment she submitted it digitally to the Wisconsin Department of Justice. From there, it wouldn’t have taken long for it to appear on one of the several sites compiling comprehensive databases of Steven Avery court documents. In fact, Zellner’s motion to extend has already made it onto one of these sites.
https://twitter.com/ZellnerLaw/status/737352043187347456
The motion notes the heavy workload of Zellner’s law firm and the volume of documents they need to go through for Avery’s brief. “The record totals 464 documents. Although counsel has worked diligently … it requires additional time to complete the brief in this case.”
Avery isn’t the only person Zellner is working to free from prison. She recently returned to court in an attempt to get the conviction of Melissa Calusinski thrown out. Calusinski was a daycare worker convicted of first degree murder in the 2009 death of a one-year-old baby. The prosecution convicted her based on an autopsy report that claimed there was a fracture found in the baby’s skull. Zellner’s investigation uncovered an undisclosed set of x-rays that proved that fracture was actually “an accessory suture, which is the growth plate that allows the skull to expand while the brain grows.”
“In our opinion, the case collapses when there is no skull fracture,” Zellner told the court. “The jury was mislead from the beginning when they were told there was a skull fracture.” A judge is currently set to rule on Zellner’s appeal of the Melissa Calusinski case on June 13.
The wheels of justice turn slowly, but they do turn … at least when you have a skilled defense lawyer like Kathleen Zellner on your side. For more Making A Murderer updates, click here.
