Steven Avery moved to medium security prison in Wisconsin

FOX LAKE, Wis. (WBAY) - Steven Avery has been moved from a maximum security prison to a medium security prison in Wisconsin.

Department of Corrections records show on June 21, Avery was moved from Waupun Correctional Institution to Fox Lake Correctional Institution. Attorney Kathleen Zellner says the defense team made the request.

“The next step is getting him home,” Zellner tweeted in response to our report. “New petition is coming.”

Inmates at Fox Correctional have access to more vocational programs.

Avery is serving a life sentence for the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach in Manitowoc County. Just six percent of inmates at Fox Lake are serving life sentences.

Avery is appealing his conviction of 1st Degree Intentional Homicide for Halbach’s murder. The case gained international attention with the Netflix documentary series “Making A Murderer.”

On April 9, Zellner tweeted that she would file a new Steven Avery petition “very soon.” Zellner states her team has new evidence to introduce. That petition has not yet been filed.

“We are working every day on Steven Avery’s case and we are making substantial progress. We will never give up in our quest to rectify this miscarriage of justice,” Zellner tweeted.

Previous appeals have focused on claims of Ineffective Assistance of Counsel, Brady violations, and Destruction of Bone Fragments. The courts have continued to uphold Avery’s conviction.

Avery’s nephew, Brendan Dassey, was also convicted of killing Halbach. He will be able to ask for parole in 2048. Dassey appealed his conviction up to the United States Supreme Court. The justices declined to hear his case. Dassey’s attorneys are now asking Gov. Tony Evers to consider clemency or early release. They argue Dassey’s confession to the crime was coerced by detectives. Dassey was 16 at the time of his confession and considered to be low IQ.

“Brendan Dassey was a sixteen-year-old, intellectually disabled child when he was taken from his school and subjected to a uniquely and profoundly flawed legal process. That process rightly sought justice for Teresa Halbach, but it wrongly took a confused child’s freedom in payment for her loss. Such a debt can never be justly repaid with the currency of innocence,” reads the clemency petition.

In 2019, Dassey was moved from maximum security Columbia Correctional to medium security Oshkosh Correctional.

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