‘Making a Murderer’ Filmmakers Consider Second Season
A second season of the true-crime documentary series Making a Murderer could be on the way after directors Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos revealed Thursday that they have talked to Netflix about continuing their examination into Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey’s trials. With Avery and Dassey both waiting to have their appeals heard, the filmmakers told a panel discussion at New York’s IFC Theatre that they’ve already asked Avery’s lawyer Kathleen Zellner about filming the legal process and recording conversations with Avery, Variety reports.
“From our perspective this story is obviously not over,” Ricciardi said. “It’s real life and (Avery’s and Brendan Dassey’s) cases are both still pending. We have no idea when the magistrate will make a decision in Brendan’s case. We do know that two potential outcomes are that the judge could order Brendan’s release or he could order a new trial. So we are on the edge of seats about that. To the extent that there are significant developments, we would like to continue documenting this (case).”
However, Avery’s civil lawyer Stephen Glynn, who also participated in the panel, revealed that animosity towards the two filmmakers in Wisconsin could stand in their way from producing another season. “There is a lot of hostility toward these two women (Ricciardi and Demos) in Wisconsin,” Glynn said. “The theory is that have played Wisconsin unfairly. But among those people who think and are a little more educated and thoughtful about these sorts of issues, there is appreciation.”
In January, the Northwestern University’s Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth filed a lawsuit arguing that Dassey was illegally imprisoned at the time of his confession in 2005. The suit seeks a writ of Habeas corpus, which would force the federal government – and not a local court – to examine the case. The Wisconsin judge involved in that case is expected to make a decision within the year.
Steven Drizin, a Northwestern University law professor who has been working on the Dassey case since 2010, told NBC Chicago in January, “I don’t think that the Netflix movie is going to influence a federal judge, but at the same time, judges are human beings and the Netflix film has created a context for Brendan’s case that didn’t exist at the time of his trial or his appeals.”