MADISON, Wis. – A federal judge in Wisconsin on Friday overturned the conviction of a man found guilty of helping his uncle kill a woman in a case profiled in the Netflix documentary series “Making a Murderer,” ruling that investigators used deceptive tactics in obtaining a confession.
U.S. Magistrate William Duffin overturned Brendan Dassey’s conviction and ordered him freed within 90 days unless prosecutors decide to retry him. The state Department of Justice, which handled the case, declined to comment.
Duffin said in Friday’s ruling that investigators made false promises to Dassey by assuring him “he had nothing to worry about.”
“These repeated false promises, when considered in conjunction with all relevant factors, most especially Dassey’s age, intellectual deficits, and the absence of a supportive adult, rendered Dassey’s confession involuntary under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments (of the U.S. Constitution),” Duffin wrote. The ruling comes after Dassey’s appeal was rejected by state courts.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – People were “thrown around like little rag dolls” when turbulence rocked a JetBlue flight from Massachusetts to California, a passenger said Friday, in an incident that left more than 20 people injured and forced an unscheduled landing in South Dakota.
The New York-based airline said Flight 429 was traveling from Boston to Sacramento with 146 passengers and five crew members on board Thursday evening when it hit major turbulence and chaos ensued.
Passenger Rhonda Lynam said the plane began to rock as it went “right through a black cloud.”
“It was like a movie. It was just crazy,” Lynam said Friday morning from a hotel in Rapid City, South Dakota, where the plane was diverted to the night before. “We started hopping all over the air, and then all of a sudden, it, like an elevator, just dropped. And when that happened, even people who had their seatbelts on flew out of their seats. I did, my mom did.”
LOS ANGELES – Southern California is having its smoggiest summer in nearly a decade and hospitals report an increase of people with breathing problems.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District says ozone levels exceeded federal standards for all but four days in June. July had only one clean-air day, and there hasn’t been a single day so far in August.
The worst-hit areas are in the mountains and inland areas outside of Los Angeles.
Hospitals in Loma Linda and San Bernardino report 15 to 30 percent increases in the numbers of patients with asthma or other respiratory problems seeking help for breathing difficulties.
The district says the smog is nothing compared to the foul blanket that covered the area in the 1970s.
Associated Press
