A Murdered Wife’s Letter is Not Harmless to a Jury Verdict

Late last year, a Wisconsin murder trial made its way up to the state Supreme Court over a single piece of evidence. Mark Jensen was on trial for the murder of his wife Julie and the jury returned a verdict finding him guilty and charging him with framing the murder as a suicide. During the trial, the court allowed the prosecution to enter into evidence a handwritten letter by Julie dated just two weeks prior to her death. In that letter, Julie states she would never take her own life and if she were to be found dead, her husband would be the main culprit.

Wisconsin Court of Appeals: Admitting Letter was a Harmless Error

The case moved up to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals to determine whether that evidence should have been admitted at all. Jensen argued the evidence violated his constitutional right to confrontation, which grants all accused the right to face adverse witnesses. In this case, Julie’s letter was admitted into evidence but Mark clearly could not face her in court and have her cross-examined. Although the Court of Appeals agreed that the letter should not have been admitted into evidence, it maintained that the letter was a “harmless error” because the verdict would have come back as guilty regardless of whether the letter was admitted or not. The Court of Appeals stated because there was enough evidence admitted by the prosecution to return a guilty verdict, allowing the letter as admissible evidence was a “harmless error” in retrospect.

Wisconsin Supreme Court: Court of Appeals has it all Wrong

The State Supreme Court felt differently and held the Court of Appeals was unreasonable in their application of the “harmless error” standard. The Supreme Court stated the lower court had applied the standard completely wrong and that it should not have been looking to whether the prosecution had admitted sufficient evidence beyond the letter to return a guilty verdict regardless. Rather, the harmless error standard considers whether the letter had a substantial and prejudicial effect on the jury verdict. The Supreme Court held in this case, it clearly could have.

Whether Julie’s letter was true or false, the contents without a doubt influence the jury to believe that Mark was her murderer because of its decisive tone and the fact it was written by the victim herself. However, there’s also a chance the contents were a lie written in anger and impulse, or even a really bad joke. Regardless of whether the statement was true or false at the time it was written, the fact of the matter is Julie could not be around to testify as to the contents and Mark could not have asked her questions about the nature of the letter as he would with any other adverse witness during cross-examination. Therefore, the jury was naturally tipped toward returning a guilty verdict for Mark and Mark could not fully defend himself as to that particular piece of evidence.

Because of these issues, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held allowing the letter as evidence was in fact not “harmless” at all and reversed the Court of Appeals’ decision.