Illusion of Justice | Jerry Buting | Talks at Google
420Over his career, Jerome F. Buting has spent hundreds of hours in courtrooms representing defendants in criminal trials. When he agreed to join Dean Strang as co-counsel for the defense in Steven A. Avery vs. State of Wisconsin, he knew a hard fight lay ahead. But, as he reveals in ILLUSION OF JUSTICE: Inside Making a Murderer and America’s Broken System, no-one could have predicted just how tough and twisted that fight would be—or that it would become the center of the Netflix documentary sensation Making a Murderer, which made Steven Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, household names and thrust America’s criminal justice system into the spotlight.
Combining narrative reportage with critical commentary and personal reflection, he explores his professional and personal motivations, including a battle with a rare cancer that almost cost him his life; career-defining cases, including his shocking fifteen-year-long fight to clear the name of another man wrongly accused and convicted of murder; and what must happen if our broken system is to be saved. Taking a place beside Just Mercy and The New Jim Crow, ILLUSION OF JUSTICE is a tour-de-force from a relentless and eloquent advocate for justice who is determined to fulfill his professional responsibility and, in the face of overwhelming odds, make America’s judicial system work as it is designed to do.
Moderated by Matthew Hendershot.