Wisconsin prison system Where is Steven Avery now? The latest prison system photos of Steven Avery.
Steven Avery, the Manitowoc County man who was wrongfully convicted of sexual assault before being convicted in a gruesome murder, is back in the public’s consciousness with Netflix’s October 19, 2018 release of Making a Murderer Season 2. The photos above are the most recent Wisconsin prison system pictures of Avery, as of late October 2018.
The first season of Making a Murderer became a massive Netflix hit and featured behind-the-scenes footage shot of the Avery family and trial by two documentary filmmakers. (You can see crime scene photos from the case here.)
The premise of the show was that Avery, and his nephew Brendan Dassey, might have been set up by a system still upset by Avery’s earlier exoneration for a rape he didn’t commit. Avery had served years in a Wisconsin prison for that attack until DNA evidence showed another man, already incarcerated, and named Gregory Allen, might have done it.
Manitowoc CourtsSteven Avery trailer
However, where is Steven Avery now? Did he ever get released? What has he been doing since the first Making a Murderer became such a massive hit?
Avery has obtained a new lawyer from Illinois, Kathleen Zellner, who has filed a string of court challenges in the Wisconsin Court System. She is well-known for her work in the area of wrongful convictions and is expected to play a big role in Making a Murderer 2.
You can read the court record history in Avery’s Wisconsin case here. He hasn’t had success in getting the Wisconsin judge to side with him since he’s exhausted his appeals. His nephew, Dassey, who was 16 at the time photographer Teresa Halbach was murdered, saw his conviction overturned by a federal magistrate judge and 7th Circuit panel, only to have the full 7th Circuit reinstate it in a close decision. The U.S. Supreme Court then declined to hear the case.
Where Is Steven Avery Today?
Wisconsin prison systemSteven Avery today
Avery is still in prison. He has not been released. He is serving a life prison term and, as of October 2018, he was being held at Waupun Correctional Institution, which is a prison in Waupun, Wisconsin. You can see the information for Waupun, including its address and mailing privileges, here. (Brendan Dassey is being held in a different state prison, Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin, prison records show.)
Avery and his nephew were convicted of Halbach’s murder in 2007.
This is what the prison entry for Steven Avery says:
Name: AVERY, STEVEN Birth Year: 1962
Status: INCARCERATED
Institution: Waupun Correctional Institution
Name: AVERY, STEVEN
Birth Year: 1962
Age: 56
Sex: MALE
Race: WHITE
Weight: 211
Height: 5′ 11″
Eye Color: BLUE
Hair Color: GRAY
Dexterity: RIGHT HANDED
The prison system also provides a list of all of Avery’s movements in the Wisconsin State Prison system going back to 1982. It reads as follows:
03/12/2014 Received from another Facility Waupun Correctional Institution Wisconsin Secure Program Facility
03/12/2014 Transferred to Another Facility Wisconsin Secure Program Facility Waupun Correctional Institution
10/01/2013 Received from another Facility Wisconsin Secure Program Facility Wisconsin Secure General Population
10/01/2013 Transferred to Another Facility Wisconsin Secure General Population Wisconsin Secure Program Facility
09/27/2009 Out to Court Wisconsin Secure General Population Manitowoc County Jail/Sheriff Dept.
06/20/2007 Received from another Facility Wisconsin Secure General Population Dodge Reception
06/20/2007 Transferred to Another Facility Dodge Reception Wisconsin Secure General Population
06/05/2007 Admitted Inmate with New JOC Dodge Reception Unknown
09/11/2003 Released by Court Stanley Correctional Institution Unknown
06/10/2003 Received from another Facility Stanley Correctional Institution Fox Lake Correctional Institution
06/10/2003 Transferred to Another Facility Fox Lake Correctional Institution Stanley Correctional Institution
11/28/2001 Received from another Facility Fox Lake Correctional Institution CCA Whiteville
11/28/2001 Transferred to Another Facility CCA Whiteville Fox Lake Correctional Institution
10/19/1998 Received from another Facility CCA Whiteville Fox Lake Correctional Institution
10/19/1998 Transferred to Another Facility Fox Lake Correctional Institution CCA Whiteville
04/19/1994 Received from another Facility Fox Lake Correctional Institution Green Bay Correctional Institution
04/19/1994 Transferred to Another Facility Green Bay Correctional Institution Fox Lake Correctional Institution
07/14/1986 Returned from Court Green Bay Correctional Institution Manitowoc County Jail
07/11/1986 Out to Court Green Bay Correctional Institution Manitowoc County Jail
05/21/1986 Returned from Court Green Bay Correctional Institution Manitowoc County Jail
05/20/1986 Out to Court Green Bay Correctional Institution Manitowoc County Jail
04/25/1986 Received from another Facility Green Bay Correctional Institution Dodge Reception
04/25/1986 Transferred to Another Facility Dodge Reception Green Bay Correctional
Institution
03/18/1986 Admitted Inmate with New JOC Dodge Reception Unknown
08/12/1983 Released Early (ER) Sanger B. Powers Correctional Center Division of Community
Corrections Central Office
06/21/1983 Received from another Facility Sanger B. Powers Correctional Center Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution
06/21/1983 Transferred to Another Facility Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution Sanger B. Powers Correctional Center
01/28/1983 Received from another Facility Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution Dodge Reception
01/28/1983 Transferred to Another Facility Dodge Reception Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution
12/23/1982 Returned from Court Dodge Reception Unknown
12/22/1982 Out to Court Dodge Reception Unknown
11/29/1982 Admitted Probation Violator Dodge Reception Unknown
New Motions Filed & Rejected
Steven Avery.
To give you an example of the kinds of motions that Avery’s attorney, Zellner, has been filing in state court: She filed motions with Wisconsin courts asking to conduct new scientific testing on Avery’s blood to determine whether it might have been planted by law enforcement officers.
In one motion, Avery alleged his blood was planted in the victim’s car by law enforcement and wanted the most scientific testing available to prove it. That was the theory advanced by his first defense team and rejected by a jury. In the motion, Zellner sought body fluids testing to restudy the DNA found on the victim’s car key – which was found in Avery’s bedroom – as well as under the hood latch of her car, which was found on his property.
Manitowoc courtsSteven Avery’s blood in Teresa Halbach’s car, according to the state
You can read that motion here. ABC News reported that, among other things, the motion sought “advanced testing of previously obtained fingerprints of two officers, as well as DNA testing of the alleged human pelvic bones recovered from the quarry.”
Judge Angela Sutkiewicz Was Critical of Steven Avery’s Motion Seeking a New Trial
The judge who presided over Avery’s trial has retired. A new judge is handling the appeals in the case – Angela Sutkiewicz. She denied Avery’s motion for a new trial. In 2017, Zellner filed a lengthy motion in which she argued that the real killer was not Avery and that he was basically the target of a double frame job. She laid out extensive challenges to the forensic evidence in the case and law enforcement procedure. You can read that court motion here.
Judge Sutkiewicz denied the motion. The court records for Avery’s case say, in October 2017: “the motion of the defendant for a new trial is denied in its entirety.” You can read the court record listing here. The Wisconsin judge criticized the defense conclusions as “speculative” and based on “interim opinions” by experts.
For example, the judge, Angela Sutkiewicz, wrote in one passage in her decision, according to Law and Crime: “[T]he court quoted the defendant’s experts, indicating that they could not reach definitive conclusions regarding items of evidence without further testing. Without such conclusions, the reports are speculative and do not present facts that the court must consider. The defendant did not wait for the final tests to be run and conclusive reports to be issued before submitting his motion. The court must accept the allegations in the motion as true only if there are facts of record to support them; the court is not required to accept as fact the defendant’s interpretation of the expert’s interim opinions.”
In September 2018, Sutkiewicz again rejected Zellner’s quest for a new trial for Avery; this time, she rejected a motion that centered around a CD that Zellner argued was withheld evidence from the defense. WMTV reported that the judge sided with the state, which had argued that the CD was a summary of other CDs that the defense did have.
“While the defense did not have those specific impressions of Detective Velie prior to trial, the information that he used to create the CD in question was in possession of the defendant prior to trial,” Sutkiewicz wrote in the ruling.
Zellner told Action 2 News, “Once again we are disappointed in the lower court’s poor grasp of the facts, misapplication of the law and dilatory tactics in missing deadlines. We look forward to experiencing the best of Wisconsin’s judiciary as we advance to a higher court. We did not develop the ineffective assistance of counsel argument because the failure to disclose the CD was a clear cut Brady violation, not ineffective assistance of counsel.”
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