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Ken Kratz

Ken Kratz
Calumet County District Attorney
In office
May 1992 – October 2010
Succeeded by Jerilyn Dietz
Personal details
Born Kenneth R. Kratz
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
United States
Political party Republican Party
Residence Wisconsin
Alma mater University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
Marquette Law School
Occupation Attorney

Kenneth R. Kratz, also known as Ken Kratz, is a lawyer and the former district attorney of Calumet County, Wisconsin. He gained prominence for trying a highly publicized homicide case, State of Wisconsin v. Steven Avery (2007), in which Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey were both convicted. This was the subject of Making a Murderer (2015), a Netflix 10-episode documentary series.

Kratz resigned from his office in October 2010 after a sexting scandal; he had written to a 26-year-old domestic violence victim whose ex-boyfriend he was prosecuting. Several other women also complained about him to state authorities. In 2013 he settled a civil suit by the first woman who had brought the complaint against him.

After graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in 1983 and Marquette Law School in 1985, Kratz was admitted to the bar and licensed to practice law in Wisconsin. He worked in the La Crosse, Wisconsin City Attorney's Office from 1985 to 1987. He served as an assistant district attorney in La Crosse County, Wisconsin from 1987 to 1992.

Kratz was appointed district attorney of Calumet County by Governor Tommy Thompson. He served as president of the Wisconsin District Attorneys Association in 1996. Kratz chaired the Wisconsin Victim Rights Council in 1993 as well as its successor, the Wisconsin Crime Victims Rights Board, from 1998 to 2010.

In 1997, Kratz prosecuted a prominent child abuse case, in which parents allegedly locked their daughter in a cage. The mother pleaded guilty. In 2008, Kratz explored a run for the Republican nomination in Wisconsin's 6th congressional district.

Kratz was appointed special prosecutor and headed the investigation and prosecution of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey in neighboring Manitowoc County for the murder of Teresa Halbach on October 31, 2005. Manitowoc County officials had recused their Sheriff's department because it was being sued by Avery for wrongful conviction, following his exoneration in 2003 of a 1985 conviction.


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