'Making a Murderer' Update: Jerome Buting Talks Series Not Including Most Of Prosecution's Case
While many have claimed that Making a Murderer left out some details in the Steven Avery case, one of the defense lawyers in contextualizing why the filmmakers chose to do this.
Jerome Buting, one of the defense attorneys for Avery who had a major role in the docuseries, spoke about the case recently with The Belfast Telegraph. Buting noted that while the prosecution did bring evidence to the table, they ended up not mattering much in the end.
"Those pieces of the prosecution's case that were left out, there was also the defense response to those pieces that were left out," he said. "And in the end, they were largely neutralized at the trial to the extent where even in the closing argument—just to pick one example, the supposed DNA on the hood-latch. By the end of the case, the prosecutor spent only half a page of his hundreds and hundreds of pages of hours and hours of closing argument on that point."
Filmmakers Moria Demos and Laura Ricciardi have been criticized for mostly focusing on the case from the defense's perspective and leaving out key evidence from the prosecution. But according to Buting, the evidence was hardly admissible anyway.
"Because their own witnesses had admitted that it could have been transferred by the analyst who was working inside the car and then failed to change his gloves before he opened the hood latch. So those are just really, I think, misrepresentations and unfair representations as to how the case went down. The majority of the really hot pieces of evidence were covered for both sides."
Avery was convicted for the murder of photographer Teresa Halbach, but even all these years later, Buting believes Avery to not be guilty.
"I don't have any difficulty in saying, personally, I think he is innocent," he stated.
Attorney Kathleen Zellner is Avery's current lawyer, who is working to prove that another suspect is guilty for murdering Halbach.
Making a Murderer is currently available to stream in full on Netflix.
