--- title: 'Making A Murderer' Petition Will Be Reviewed By White House description: With 115,000 supporters, the petition to pardon Steven Avery for the crime depicted in "Making a Murderer" requires a White House response. canonical: https://time.com/4169670/making-murderer-steven-avery-white-house-petition/ author: Entertainment Weekly article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-01-06T17:53:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T13:50:00.955Z article:section: U.S. og:title: 'Making a Murderer' Petition Will Be Reviewed by White House og:description: The petition to pardon Steven Avery has 115,000 signatures og:url: https://time.com/4169670/making-murderer-steven-avery-white-house-petition/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0b3325aa44d2ed7d/6988777a196cf4ad86039ae1/makin_pds_009_h.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: makin_pds_009_h og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'Making a Murderer' Petition Will Be Reviewed by White House twitter:description: The petition to pardon Steven Avery has 115,000 signatures twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0b3325aa44d2ed7d/6988777a196cf4ad86039ae1/makin_pds_009_h.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # _Making a Murderer_ Petition Gains Enough Signatures to Reach White House by [Ariana Bacle / Entertainment Weekly](/author/entertainment-weekly/) ## Ariana Bacle / Entertainment Weekly Jan 6, 2016 5:53 PM CUT  Steven Avery in the Netflix original documentary series "Making A Murderer" Steven Avery in the Netflix original documentary series "Making A Murderer"Netflix by [Ariana Bacle / Entertainment Weekly](/author/entertainment-weekly/) ## Ariana Bacle / Entertainment Weekly Jan 6, 2016 5:53 PM CUT [A petition](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-steven-avery-and-brendan-dassey-their-alleged-involvement-murder-teresa-halbach "undefined") asking the Obama administration to “pardon Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey for the alleged involvement in the murder of Teresa Halbach” — allegations recently brought into the spotlight thanks to Netflix documentary series [_Making a Murderer_](http://www.ew.com/topic/making-murderer "undefined")— has exceeded 100,000 signatures, meaning that the White House must now respond. “Based on the evidence in the Netflix documentary series _Making a Murderer,_ the justice system embarrassingly failed both men, completely ruining their entire lives,” the petition reads. ” … This is a black mark on the justice system as a whole, and should be recognized as such, while also giving these men the ability to live as normal a life as possible.” According to [the terms of participation on the We the People site](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/how-why/terms-participation "undefined"), where the petition was made, “a petition must reach 100,000 signatures within 30 days” to “require a response.” This specific petition was published on Dec. 20 and currently has over 115,000 signatures. Multiple petitions asking for Avery and Dassey to be pardoned [have sprung up](http://www.ew.com/article/2015/12/29/steven-avery-making-murderer-petition "undefined") since _Making a Murderer_ debuted Dec. 18, but Ken Kratz — the special prosecutor in Avery’s murder case — maintains that the series doesn’t tell the whole story. “I believe there to be 80 to 90 percent of the physical evidence, the forensic evidence, that ties Steven Avery to this murder never to have been presented in this documentary,” he [recently told Fox](http://www.ew.com/article/2015/12/28/prosecutor-steven-avery-making-murderer-netflix "undefined"). He also went on [_Good Morning America_ Tuesday](http://www.ew.com/article/2016/01/05/making-murderer-ken-kratz "undefined") to say that _Making a Murderer_ “wasn’t a documentary.” “It was a defense piece, generated by and for Steven Avery by his defense team,” he said. “It wasn’t until Netflix decided to repackage it that both sides were invited to participate.” Moira Demos, who made the film along with Laura Ricciardi, told Fox that Kratz rejected their invitations to be interviewed for the series. “We believe the series is what we witnessed,” Demos said. “The key pieces of the state’s evidence are included in the series.” According to [the Department of Justice’s website](http://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardon-information-and-instructions "undefined"), “the power to grant pardons is vested in the President alone,” but there’s a caveat: The president can only pardon federal criminal convictions, and Avery was convicted of a crime against the state of Wisconsin, not against the United States. As a result, there’s not really much the White House can do in this situation — the Wisconsin governor, Scott Walker, is the only one in this case with the power to pardon Avery. Walker, though, doesn’t seem willing: “Just because a documentary on TV says something doesn’t mean that’s actually what the evidence shows,” Walker [told Fox Tuesday](http://fox6now.com/2016/01/05/governor-scott-walker-says-he-wont-pardon-steven-avery/ "undefined"). “The bottom line is that there was a crime that was committed a decade ago. There is a system in the judicial system by which individuals can petition the courts to get relief like others have done in the past that shows that someone might actually be innocent. But I am not going to override a system that is already put in place.” Read more about the Avery petitions [here](http://www.ew.com/article/2016/01/04/making-murderer-steven-avery-petition "undefined"), and watch _Making a Murderer_ on Netflix. _This_ [_article_](http://www.ew.com/article/2016/01/06/steven-avery-white-house-petition-making-murderer "undefined") _originally appeared on_ [_EW.com_](http://www.ew.com "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4169670/making-murderer-steven-avery-white-house-petition/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4169670/making-murderer-steven-avery-white-house-petition/"},"headline":"Making a Murderer Petition Gains Enough Signatures to Reach White House","datePublished":"2016-01-06T17:53:38.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T13:50:00.955Z","description":"With 115,000 supporters, the petition to pardon Steven Avery for the crime depicted in Making a Murderer requires a White House response","url":"https://time.com/4169670/making-murderer-steven-avery-white-house-petition/","keywords":["Crime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0b3325aa44d2ed7d/6988777a196cf4ad86039ae1/makin_pds_009_h.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ariana Bacle / Entertainment Weekly"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0b3325aa44d2ed7d/6988777a196cf4ad86039ae1/makin_pds_009_h.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"makin_pds_009_h","caption":"Steven Avery in the Netflix original documentary series \"Making A Murderer\"","creditText":"Netflix","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4169670/making-murderer-steven-avery-white-house-petition/","name":"Making a Murderer Petition Gains Enough Signatures to Reach White House"}}]}] ```