With one dissenting judge calling the decision “a profound miscarriage of justice,” a federal appeals court in Chicago has reversed an earlier decision to overturn the murder conviction of Brendan Dassey, one of the subjects of Netflix’s true crime documentary hit Making A Murderer. The 4-to-3 decision hinged on whether individual justices believed that Dassey’s confession to the murder of Teresa Halbach—which the then-16-year-old has since recanted, claiming it was coerced—stood up in a court of law. Ultimately, the majority decided that it did.
The dissenting opinions in the case were blistering, though, with judge Ilana Diamond Rovner writing, “His confession was not voluntary and his conviction should not stand, and yet an impaired teenager has been sentenced to life in prison.” (Dassey was a high school sophomore enrolled in special education classes at the time the murder occurred.)
Today’s news is just the latest in a long back-and-forth between Dassey’s attorneys and the State Of Wisconsin, as they fight over whether he deserves to go free. The now 28-year-old’s lawyers have vowed to continue appealing the case, pledging to take it to the Supreme Court.