Street roots., November 11, 2016, Page 8, Image 8

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Street Roots • Nov. 11-17, 2016
COURTESY PHOTO
Dean Strang and Jerry Buting, who represented Steven Avery of “Making a Murderer,” are on tour to encourage conversations about justice.
BY LAURA KELLY
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
n the 02 Academy, a 2,550-capacity
venue in Glasgow, Scotland, that’s used
to hosting the likes of Kings of Leon or
The White Stripes, two middle-aged guys in
suits are doing the traditional sound-check
call. “One, two,” says Wisconsin attorney
Dean Strang. “A,B,C ...” recites his
colleague Jerry Buting. It’s more than a
little surreal.
Later this evening, Strang and Buting will
pack the venue to the rafters for their “long-
form conversation” about the issues raised
in the Netflix hit documentary “Making a
Murderer.” The 10-part series - focusing on
Manitowoc County, Wis., man Steven Avery’s
wrongful conviction for the sexual assault
and attempted murder of Penny Beerntsen
and his subsequent arrest and conviction for
the murder of Teresa Halbach - is a damning
reflection on the flaws of the U.S. justice
system and a powerful indictment of the role
of class, power, poverty and educational
opportunity on legal outcomes.
In an otherwise bleak tale, Strang and
Buting, Avery’s defense attorneys in the
series, are the sole rays of light. When
Strang breaks down partway through the
series, saying he almost wishes that Avery
were guilty because otherwise the injustice
he has faced is too unbearable, it is the
most inspiring a lawyer has been since
Atticus Finch’s closing speech in “To Kill a
Mockingbird.” Both men’s passion for
justice ignited a vast following of fans -
enough to fill venues like this across the
U.S. and U.K. - and turned both into
unlikely stars. In the immediate aftermath
of the show’s release, Buting said, his
teenage daughter swore off social media
because “everyone keeps talking about how
I
Dean Strang and Jerry Buting were the
defense attorneys in the documentary series
“Making a Murderer.” Now, they are promoting
conversations worldwide about justice.
hot Jerry Buting is.” Strang doesn’t do social
media, but “Sexy Dean Strang” has
thousands of followers on Twitter.
Though perplexed at this “crazily
improbable” turn of events, both are
determined to use the publicity to open up a
frank debate on the reality of human
attempts to provide justice - in the U.S. and
further afield.
Recognizing the particular problems that
street paper vendors and others
experiencing housing insecurity face with
the law, they were particularly keen to talk
about these issues with the International
Network of Street Papers.
“I didn’t realize there was an international
network before,” Strang said about INSP, a
network of more than 100 street papers
worldwide, including Street Roots. “That’s
amazing.”
Speaking to our global readers is a good
start. After all, they pointed out, criminal
justice starts with social justice.
INSP: Why have you decided to take time
away from your day job to go on tour?
Jerry Buting: After the documentary
came out, there were so many issues it
raised: unanswered questions not just about
the case, but issues of justice. One of the
things we saw pretty quickly was that even
though the media would interview us and
ask questions about some of those issues,
the reports that would end up on TV and in
print would be fluff. They didn’t even
scratch the surface. We talked it over and
we thought it would be great if we could
have a forum where we could bring in the
public and have them ask us questions and
have us talk about justice.
Dean Strang: A long-form conversation.
J.B.: Yes, a long-form conversation. And
we did that - 90 minutes in Milwaukee. All
of a sudden, all of these other cities said,
hey, we’d like to do that too. It just sort of
grew on its own, organically. Then some
tour promoters came up with the idea of
doing a longer-term thing in America. And
now we’ve been going foreign as well.
: Do you feel like your discussions will have
an impact, once people leave the theater?
D.S.: I hope so, over the long term. I
really do hope so. That’s the point - to
foster dialogue about problems in the
administration of justice that transcend one
county or one time in the United States and,
to a very large extent, transcend all national
borders. Because no matter where on this
Earth we are trying to administer justice,
it’s human beings who are the entire
composition of every institution of justice
that any country has ever devised. So many
of the weaknesses or frailties of any system
of justice are universal. Ultimately these
things don’t change unless the public
understands what the professionals on the
inside are doing and what the risks for
uncertainty or unreliability really are. Again,
those risks tend to transcend national
boundaries. They often concern class. Class
gets linked to race and ethnicity. Poverty is
linked to race and ethnicity. Or you’re a
recent arrival as an immigrant. And certain
mistakes police officers make or their own
cognitive biases that affect how they look at
the world are not so different no matter
where you are.
We’re hoping that members of the public
who found themselves engaged by “Serial”
the podcast or by “Making a Murderer” or
by “The Jinx” or by “Paradise Lost,” or
whatever these interesting and well-done
true crime entrants to that genre are, we’re
hoping that they’ll take that interest and
challenge themselves to look beyond one
case that happened at a distant time and
place and to look at their own locale and to
look to the future. We hope they’ll look at
what they can do to get involved in advancing
not just criminal justice but social justice.
INSP: When you agreed to be filmed for
“Making a Murderer,”you couldn’t have
known how big the series would be. Would you
have thought any differently about agreeing to
be filmed if you’d realized how much of an
impact it would have on your lives?
D.S.: I wonder if it would have scared me
off, at the time, had there been any way at
all to anticipate this. I hope not, because -
though unexpected and widely improbable -
it’s been a great gift to be able to participate
as a voice in this discussion.
J.S.: It’s a good question. And it’s a new
question, actually. I don’t know. If I’d have
known that this impact would be there, I