Brock Beauchamp

You have that backwards. Bonds was crazy-good before steroids came into the picture. He was an elite hitter with a ridiculous OBP who swiped 40+ bags a season.

Aaron is in the HoF largely based on the ability to play 16 consecutive seasons of 145 or more games. He was a great player and all but longevity was his true skill, not an eye-popping peak. And there's a good chance a few pills helped him along the way.

I discovered a server tech knee-capped our built-in caching. I fixed it an hour or so ago. The sites seem snappier now but the *real* improvement won't come until I implement the new design.

...That we saw in the documentary. But at the very least, Dassey got screwed by his counsel and that should be examined very closely.

Is it, though? Nearly every police procedural in the history of television - and there are dozens, if not hundreds - employ that very thinking in many of their episodes. It's not an infrequently used trope, it's a mainstay of the genre. It's not dissimilar to our view of torture. We know it doesn't work and isn't reliable, yet we cheer its use in fiction all the bloody time. There's a cognitive dissonance there that makes me uncomfortable. Sure, the occasional use of such an element in fiction is fine but we don't see it occasionally... We see it all. the. frickin. time. There's a disturbing taint in that idea that carries over to real-life situations such as this.

We should also think about why we decry the actions of the system in this documentary yet applaud the same actions in fiction. Film and television is chock full of the crap we saw in the Avery trial(s) and we eat it up.

One thing to keep in mind with Making a Murderer is that the documentary didn't make a real attempt to tell us the facts. It built a narrative and told us only what it wanted to tell us. Yes, there were singular events that should be called out, as they were unfair and just plain wrong... But that doesn't mean the convictions (particularly Avery) were incorrect. I'm skeptical of his guilt but I was presented only half the evidence and temper my judgment because of it. Which is why I believe we should focus on the system that badly mis-stepped time and time again during those singular events and worry less about the conviction itself.

She has a lot of opinions but ultimately, she's also smart enough to realize we were fed a focused narrative in the documentary. We didn't see the prosecution present their case at all. The documentary failed to tell us one of the most basic elements of a criminal case: the prosecution's timeline of events and how the crime was committed. That's a problem. Most of her (and my) issues stem from the Dassey case more than the Avery case. That was a ****show from day one and the judge didn't do enough to stop it. Maybe Dassey is guilty... Maybe it's even likely he's guilty... But that doesn't change the fact that a borderline mentally-impaired CHILD was railroaded by his own counsel and the judge allowed that railroad evidence to stay in court.

Sure, he *seems* smarter than that but given his education level and familial background, it's not unthinkable to believe he'd try to hide the vehicle on the property with the notion he'd destroy or move it later. If you're going to stash a vehicle for later transport, there's no better place to do it than a scrap yard that covers 40 acres. And he never received the opportunity to move it due to search parties, police presence, or what have you. As I said to my wife, this is how it breaks down for me: There is too much evidence to suggest Avery is free of all wrong-doing. On the other hand, every piece of evidence presented to us in the documentary can be argued in some fashion. That's why I believe he's guilty but would struggle to convict him of the crime. The evidence points in his direction but I'm not sure it points at him conclusively enough to go beyond the reasonable doubt threshold.

This is pretty much exactly what I was going to say. Power is nice but it works better if there's a mix of BA and/or OBP thrown into the mix.

After finishing the series, I believe Avery was guilty of murder... But I don't know if I'm convinced enough of his guilt to convict him if I'm on the jury. As for Dassey... wow. That entire situation is a travesty of justice. None of that confession evidence should have been admitted into court, as it all stemmed from his lawyer actively working against his own client. Hey, he could be guilty. The kid may be a sociopath based on his complete lack of emotion during any point of the confession, trial, ruling, etc... But that has nothing to do with him getting a fair trial. That's his right. But overall, I wish people were talking less about Avery and more about the system that treated him so unfairly over a 22 year period. I suspect Avery is guilty, there's simply too much coincidental evidence at every point of the way... But I care less about Steve Avery (and Brendan Dassey) than I do about the horrible situation they were put in by lazy, corrupt, arrogant officials. There are supposed to be checks and balances in the system. The police are supposed to follow the rules and do their job. The DA is supposed to monitor the police and keep them on track. The defense attorney is supposed to doggedly protect his client from everyone. The judge is supposed to throw out incorrectly-gathered evidence and make sure the defendant gets a fair trial. The review board is supposed to be the safety net in case all of that fails. None of that happened. None. And a big reason why that happened is because our justice system is broken if you're poor and stupid (not even so much uneducated as stupid... The system loves to exploit those who don't understand it... You have a fighting chance if you're merely uneducated but you're screwed if you're stupid).

Finding the crushed car probably means he's guilty but it'd be a lot harder to find a crushed car, particularly one with its plates and VIN removed.

Finished the series. I still think Avery was guilty though if I was on the jury, I doubt I would have found him guilty.

Not yet, stumbled into this thread on accident and saw that single post.

Except that if you don't find the car, you don't get the eight day search warrant to tear up the property and find the bones.

Directly from the voting instructions: "Voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played." I'm pretty sure that time Cobb crawled into the stands and beat the living crap out of a fan violates roughly half those rules.

I'm at the halfway mark in the series. Don't tell me what happens next. I'm going to try to unpack my thoughts on this documentary, which addresses so many things it's hard to unravel it all. 1. Don't be poor. We talk about race in this country... We talk about it a lot. I'm not suggesting the deck isn't stacked against people of color but the real issue - the one that could affect the most people in one fell swoop - is socio-economic status. Avery is railroaded from day one and it's because he's poor. 2. Don't be stupid, especially if you're poor. The Dassey situation - a minor obviously incapable of understanding the situation presented him - is a travesty even to the most casual viewer. He has no ****ing idea what's happening to him and because he's also poor, no one can stop it. Steven Avery was in a very similar situation two decades prior, though he's not an obvious simpleton in the style of Dassey. Dassey's public defender is a perfect example of how the system fails the poor. My wife - a trial lawyer - nearly went into a blind rage over how the lawyer was presenting Dassey's case and how he allowed nearly unfettered access to the boy. Thankfully, the judge saw the light and dismissed the smug, arrogant, grand-standing prick. 3. Police and district attorneys are arrogant. This is probably the most complex issue so far in the series. When you deal with ****ty people all day long - as police and DAs often do - it's hard to not fall into the trap of tunnel vision over the course of a long career. When you're right 99% of the time and a crime's perpetuator is obvious, how do you recognize the 1% of the time when you're terribly wrong? That's why constant vigilance is required and the system failed Avery every step of the way during that process. Add in some pretty obvious corruption and you have a system that allows the corrupt few to get away with some really tragic things. 4. The internal review system was the most egregious situation in the documentary in my eyes. Yes, police can be corrupt, arrogant, and ignorant. Part of the DA's job is to keep them in line. Obviously, that didn't happen... But what really sent me into "seeing red, can't assemble coherent thoughts due to Hulk Rage" mode was the review process that examined the 1985 conviction and said "yeah, they're alright". NO, THAT WAS NOT ALRIGHT. No matter how noble the intentions of everyone involved - and I don't believe there was a lick of nobility in that situation - HEADS MUST ROLL when things go that horribly, horribly wrong. I can accept corruption from a few individuals. I cannot accept a system that tolerates corruption, or, at the very least, complete and utter indifference to doing their jobs. Also mix in a spattering of incompetence. 5. I suspect Avery is guilty of the murder. I'll just leave it at that because I feel the real lesson here is to be learned in the first two episodes for the reasons I listed above this bullet point. 6. WTF, Wisconsin. There's so much more I want to say about this documentary but I can't fully unpack my thoughts quite yet. This documentary says so much about what's wrong with America and while Steven Avery is the vessel used to explain those problems, he is only one man. There's a lot to be learned here and it has little to do with Steven Avery. I only wish America was capable of understanding the underlying themes that feed this continued insanity instead of focusing on the man.

Every player accused of using PEDs, while technically being a "cheater", is ten times the human being Ty Cobb was during his lifetime. Cobb was a deplorable human being whose mere presence degrades the Hall more than any drug user. Yet there he is, sitting in the Hall. Also, don't lay all the blame on the Player's Association for drug testing. The owners were just as reluctant to implement testing in the 90s, as two PED users are what brought baseball back from the dead in 1998. This was a systemic failure on all levels of the game and no one cared because MONEY. Hell, even journalists turned a blind eye to the situation for a decade... But NOW they climb up onto their soapboxes to vilify these players, long after taking the high ground could have improved the situation. They had a decade to do something about this but stood back and watched it happen. Why do we only blame the players?

I'm tired of people using the PED argument (particularly against players who are only suspected of using PEDs) to keep deserving players out of the HoF. Bonds was a HoF player before BALCO came around. Clemens was a HoF player before PEDs came into prominence. Piazza's use was mostly speculation. There are a half dozen guys who should be in the HoF but aren't because BBWAA writers are overly stubborn and refuse to critically examine the game's history of abuse and cheating. The only excuse for a voter to not elect Griffey is because the voter filled their ballot with ten guys they believe deserve to be in the Hall but can't get the votes... And I'm extremely skeptical that was the thought process for those three writers. Baseball needs to start holding these voters accountable for their votes.

Watching episode five but have to stop after this or my face is going to ****ing melt.

I lived in CA while all of this was happening so while the name Steve Avery is vaguely familiar, the entire story is unknown to me.

Wanted to watch more but the wife was tired and the series is pretty exhausting. Made it through two episodes, will probably get 2-3 more in tonight. I was merely unsettled and disappointed until the DA was found free of wrong-doing for the 1985 rape charge. That's the point where my blood started to boil. The initial charge and conviction was organized through a few participating individuals (partially through incompetence) but when the system declined calling them out for it, I... Well, it's hard to have any faith in the system if the internal review system wouldn't pursue those rotten scum-sucking dirtbags. Watching the series sitting next to a trial lawyer adds quite a bit of insight to the show.

Just starting episode one now.

According to LucasFilm, all books published in 2014 and later are canon (and I've read nearly all of them). The novelization felt as if it was written from an early script and scenes were cut to increase intrigue, not because Abrams wanted to go a different direction. There are only a few key lines missing from Snoke and Kylo that tell quite a bit about what might be coming next. I also recommend Before the Awakening if you want to learn more about the political climate leading up to Episode VII. Finn and Rey have mediocre stories but nearly half the book is dedicated to Poe, which is a good thing because a)we don't know enough about him and b)his story is far and away the most interesting.

I think a guy who ripped 330-ish PAs to the tune of a .900 OPS with 18 homers already "broke out" but okay, sure, he'll break out in 2016 as well.