No, Brendan Dassey is not out of jail. He remains incarcerated at the Oshkosh Correctional Institution in Wisconsin, where he has been held since his 2007 conviction in the killing of Teresa Halbach. He is now 36. His federal appeals are exhausted, his clemency petition was denied, and he has no pending legal challenges. His earliest possible release date is November 1, 2048.1The Associated Press. A Timeline of Events in the Brendan Dassey Case
What He Was Convicted Of
In April 2007, a Wisconsin jury convicted Dassey of being a party to first-degree intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse, and second-degree sexual assault in the October 2005 death of Teresa Halbach, a 25-year-old photographer who had visited the Avery family salvage yard in Manitowoc County. Dassey was 16 at the time of the interrogation and was charged as an adult. He was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole until 2048, when he will be roughly 59.1The Associated Press. A Timeline of Events in the Brendan Dassey Case
The prosecution’s case rested almost entirely on a videotaped confession Dassey gave to investigators and later recanted. No physical evidence independently linked him to the crime. The 2015 Netflix documentary Making a Murderer brought international attention to the interrogation footage and to arguments that the confession had been coerced from a teenager with documented intellectual limitations.
How His Federal Appeals Ended
After losing in Wisconsin state courts, Dassey’s attorneys filed a federal habeas corpus petition in December 2015. Habeas review does not retry the case; it asks whether the state court decision so unreasonably applied constitutional law that it cannot stand.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code Chapter 153 – Habeas Corpus The petition argued that Dassey’s confession was involuntary and that his trial lawyer had been ineffective.
He initially won. In August 2016, a federal magistrate judge found that investigators had made repeated false promises during the interrogation and ordered the state to release him or give him a new trial. In June 2017, a three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.3Juvenile Law Center. Dassey v. Dittmann
Wisconsin then asked the full Seventh Circuit to rehear the case en banc. In December 2017, the full court reversed the panel 4-3 and upheld Dassey’s conviction. The majority concluded that the Wisconsin state courts had not been unreasonable in finding the confession voluntary, even as several judges expressed personal reservations about its reliability. Three judges dissented, writing that interrogating a learning-disabled teenager without a parent or attorney, using false promises, produced exactly the kind of confession the Constitution is supposed to guard against.3Juvenile Law Center. Dassey v. Dittmann
Dassey’s attorneys petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court in February 2018. On June 25, 2018, the Court denied certiorari without comment.4Supreme Court of the United States. Docket for 17-1172 That ended his path through the federal courts.
Why Clemency Didn’t Work
With courts no longer an option, Dassey’s attorneys turned to executive clemency. In October 2019, they filed a petition with the Wisconsin Pardon Advisory Board asking Governor Tony Evers to pardon Dassey or commute his sentence. Evers denied the request in December 2019. In a brief letter, the governor said Dassey was ineligible for a pardon because he had not completed his sentence and had not registered as a sex offender as required by Wisconsin law. Evers also declined to consider commutation.
Dassey’s lawyers criticized the outcome, noting the Pardon Advisory Board rejected the petition in an unsigned form letter without reviewing it on the merits. No subsequent clemency petition has been publicly reported.
What Could Still Change His Situation
Dassey has no pending appeals, no active court challenges, and no clemency proceedings underway. He has spent over 18 years at Oshkosh. Reaching his November 2048 parole eligibility date does not guarantee release either; Wisconsin’s Parole Commission weighs institutional conduct, completed programming, public safety risk, and a viable post-release plan.5DOC Wisconsin. Wisconsin Parole Commission Parole consideration is an entitlement at that date; parole itself is not.
His legal team, led by attorneys Laura Nirider and Steven Drizin at the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, continues to advocate for his release.6Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. Brendan Dassey Case, Wrongful Convictions of Youth The realistic paths forward are narrow. A future governor could grant clemency. Newly discovered evidence could support a fresh post-conviction motion in state court. A change in Wisconsin law could open a door that does not exist today. None of those is currently in motion.