The Innocent Killer

March 31, 2014
In the ABA’s first venture into true crime, Griesbach, a prosecuting attorney in Manitowoc, Wis., offers a rambling account that does not take advantage of the unusual facts of its central case. In 1985, a Wisconsin jury convicted Steven Avery of a violent assault on a woman jogging on a beach, despite weaknesses in the prosecution’s case. From the outset, it seems clear that there was a rush to judgment that led to Avery spending 18 years in prison before being exonerated by DNA evidence. The book suffers from overly simplistic prose: “Most people charged with a serious crime are guilty. They better be or the prosecutor has no business charging them.” Irrelevant details—such as the subsequent history of the restaurant where the jury ate on the first day of the trial—dilute the impact of a complex case that would have benefitted from a more experienced author. With an afterword by Keith Findley, former codirector of the Wisconsin Innocence Project.