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Wisconsin Innocence Project pulls images of accused murderer
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by Andriy Pazuniak
Monday, March 6, 2006
After graphic details surfaced about Steven Avery's alleged involvement in an October 2005 rape and murder, the Wisconsin Innocence Project pulled all photos and nearly every reference off its website to the man who was once a poster boy for the organization.
Having helped free Avery after he spent 18 years in prison for a rape he did not commit, the Innocence Project had photos of Avery posted on its website to publicize its involvement in the landmark decision.
However, last week, more details emerged regarding the incident in which Avery, along with his 16-year-old nephew Brendan Dassey, allegedly sexually assaulted and murdered Teresa Halbach before burning her remains.
"It was out of sensitivity to the Halbach family," co-director of the Wisconsin Innocence Project John Pray said in a phone interview Sunday. "It's not really the right time to have that out there as a reminder."
Pray added the Wisconsin Innocence Project also removed photos and nearly all references of all previous cases the organization worked on to protect the people involved from wrongful suspicions.
Although Avery was charged with Halbach's rape and murder in November 2005, Pray said it did not occur to anyone within the organization to pull the photos until the graphic details were more recently released.
"The allegations were so horrifying that we thought we should do that," Pray said, adding that the Innocence Project "maybe" should have pulled the photos earlier.
Founded in 1998, the Wisconsin Innocence Project is an organization within the University of Wisconsin Law School that investigates cases where a prisoner may have been wrongfully convicted of a crime.
In the past decade, the Wisconsin Innocence Project helped reverse six verdicts, including that of Chris Ochoa, a UW law student who was imprisoned for 12 years for a murder he did not commit.
Pray said he did not know whether the Avery case would affect future Innocence Project decisions or operations.
"It's something we have to think about," Pray said.
However, Pray said the guiding principles behind the Wisconsin Innocence Project would not change.
"If someone is in prison for something they did not do and we can prove that … it makes sense to correct the decision," Pray said.
Anonymous (March 6, 2006 @ 11:06am):
I believe the Project is an extremely important tool in preventing innocent people from being punished for crimes they did not commit. If the real criminal is still walking the streets, that bothers me more than anything. Keep up the excellent work that you do, not only are you freeing the innocent, you are exposing a judicial system that needs to clean house and do their job correctly, or get out of the prosecution business if they cannot do their job right!
Wm. & Suzie Arn (March 29, 2006 @ 8:35am):
You are doing a wonderful job.
In this last incident Avery went through, we personelly believe Avery as an innocent man. He would have to be insane to want to kill someone else, when he was looking at a possible few million dollors in his lawsuit. It is extremly simple to set a person up for a crime not committed by an individual. We will never no all of the innocent people.
