‘Making A Murderer’ attorney weighs in on Chris Tapp case

Millions of Americans following the popular Netflix documentary series “Making a Murderer,” and one of the attorneys who appeared in the show is weighing in on 1996 murder of Angie Dodge.

Steve Drizin wrote a report on the why he thinks the tactics interrogators used on Chris Tapp, who was convicted of Dodge’s murder, were coercive.

“This is the most contaminated and one of the most coerced confessions I have seen in almost 20 years of doing this work,” he said.

That’s including his work with the Brenden Dassey case, which is part of ‘Making A Murderer.” The series raises questions about the evidence used to convict Steven Avery and Brenden Dassey in the murder of Teresa Halbach. For example, it suggests Dassey’s confession may have been coerced.

“The help theme. We’ll go to bat for you, we’re in your corner, if you just involve yourself a little bit in the crime,” Drizin said. “You’ll be OK.”

It was something he saw in Dassey’s and Tapp’s cases.

“Almost the exact same words. You can transpose sentences from Brendan’s interrogations and put them right in Chris Tapp’s interrogation,” he said. “Brendan’s is actually less coercive than Chris’ in many ways.”

He said that’s for a few reasons: Dassey’s interrogation only lasted hours, while Tapp’s was over a period of nine days. Drizin also said there werre far fewer direct threats and promises of leniency made.

“They tortured him [Tapp] psychologically,” he said.

“They cannot threaten inevitable consequences,” retired judge Mike Heavey said. “They can’t say, ‘You’re going to get the death penalty. You’re going to get the gas chamber.'”

Heavey is a cofounder of the group Judges for Justice. He works for free studying cases that he thinks are wrongful convictions. Judges for Justice(http://judgesforjustice.org/ )released this video (https://youtube.com/watch?v=KfgbjZ4Y5og)explaining why Tapp’s interrogation and polygraph were coercive.

“Why are those not allowed? Because they’ve lead to false confessions, and the courts recognize it,” Heavey said.

“Everybody has a cracking point,” Drizin said. “I think, both you and I, put under that kind of stress might have confessed to killing Angie Dodge.”

“The defense attorney argued all of those same points,” said Bonneville County Prosecutor Danny Clark. “The defense attorney also argued, very clearly, in his closing statement, and, as he cross examined these officers, the coercive nature of the interrogation, or at least, that was his argument. And so yes, that was very much the biggest theme of the case is the coercive nature of the interrogation.”

Clark says the jury got to hear that and made a decision. He said he “can’t just ignore” that, but he’s also not ignoring reports that have come out questioning Tapp’s guilt. Back in July, his office hired an independent investigator to look into the case.

“When questions are raised regarding cases that are handled by this office, or by law enforcement, that we will take those matters seriously,” Clark said. “We will look into them, regardless of where they’re brought from or the motives of those bringing it.”

There is no timeline for when the independent investigator will have a final report. Clark said it’s going to take some time because of how large the case is. He also said it need to be done right.