Wrongful Conviction

In 2019, NowThis continued the story of Brendan Dassey, one of the subjects of the Netflix documentary Making A Murderer [2015]. Viewers of Making A Murderer learned about a young 16-year-old boy from Wisconsin, with an intellectual disability, who confessed to a rape and a murder that he did not commit. Brendan has been in prison ever since he was coerced into confessing to the crimes. Speaking from prison, this episode of Wrongful Conviction was Dassey’s first public interview since the documentary. The video also shared details of Brendan and his lawyers’ petition to Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin for executive clemency.

Learning about Brendan, and helping to tell his story, was an incredibly profound experience. His story stuck in my mind for some time, and I learned a lot about American incarceration, the specific coercion tactics used by police detectives that is commonplace in many states (and illegal in others), and the injustice many face in the judicial system.

I worked to develop the pilot episode of this series, seen above, editing the video, and setting tone, pacing, and graphic design. This set the stage for further episodes in the series, and eventually to a season being sold to Facebook in an exclusive streaming deal.