With "Making a Murderer," Netflix's foray into the true crime genre was not only a smash hit, but an inspiration for people who want to help the documentary's subject, Steven Avery, get out of jail for a second time.
The 10-episode documentary detailed how Avery, a resident of Manitowoc County, Wis., served 18 years in prison for a sexual assault he did not commit. Shortly after new evidence exonerated him, Avery was charged with murder and was found guilty after the prosecution appeared to make a case based on biased and planted evidence.
According to The Washington Post, the documentary has inspired petitions on Change.org and with the White House asking President Barack Obama to offer a presidential pardon to Avery. As of Monday afternoon, the petition needed less than 10,000 signatures to reach its target of 200,000.
Avery's defense attorneys, Jerry Buting and Dean Strang, took the risky strategy of trying to prove police officers framed Avery after immediately locking in on him as their only suspect in the murder of Teresa Halbach. But as Buting and Strang said in the doc, the only reason to accuse law enforcement of a frame job is if the supporting evidence is overwhelming.
The public's response has gone far beyond trying to get Avery a pardon (he has no more legal avenues to seek a new trial, sans new evidence). Many have taken aim at the Manitowoc police for their role in the alleged framing, as well as the prosecutor who won the case.
Manitowoc County Sheriff Robert Hermann told Post-Crescent Media he has taken issues with "Making a Murderer" despite not watching it.
"I won't call it a documentary, because a documentary puts things in chronological order and tells the story as it is... I've heard things are skewed," he said. "They've taken things out of context and taken them out of the order in which they occurred, which can lead people to a different opinion or conclusion."
Like HBO's "The Jinx" miniseries documentary and the first season of the "Serial" podcast, "Making a Murderer" inspired legal action in cases that may have otherwise stayed stagnant, NBC News reported. But unlike its true crime counterparts, "Making a Murderer" did not offer new evidence, and the case may well be over.
