Murder of Julie Jensen

The Julie Jensen case involves the trial of a man in the U.S., Mark Jensen, on charges that he murdered his wife, Julie Jensen. The case is notable for the eventual admission into evidence of a letter written by the deceased prior to her death, expressing suspicion of her husband's intentions.

Julie Jensen investigated her husband, checking his planner, photographing a note and documenting her suspicions.^[1] Julie Jensen gave the letter to a neighbor with instructions to hand it to police if anything should happen to her. She wrote that she would never commit suicide and that if she died, police should consider her husband a suspect. "I pray that I am wrong and nothing happens, but I am suspicious of Mark's suspicious behaviors and fear for my early demise."^[2]

Trial

The trial was moved from Kenosha County, Wisconsin to Walworth County, Wisconsin in response to pre-trial publicity. Special Prosecutor Robert Jambois contended that Mark Jensen poisoned his wife, then 40, with ethylene glycol (antifreeze) and then suffocated her on December 3, 1998, but defense counsel Craig Albee argued that Julie Jensen was a depressed woman who killed herself and framed her husband. Moreover, the deceased had seen a therapist at least three times for depression and was aware of her husband's extramarital affair with a co-worker,^[3] Kelly LaBonte Grieman (whom Mark Jensen later married, and who would retain custody of the Jensens' two sons after Mark's eventual imprisonment). Evidence was introduced indicating that Mark Jensen had discussed poisoning his wife with co-workers and a jailhouse associate, as well as searching on the internet for information relating to spousal murder and poisoning techniques. The prosecution contended further that Jensen remained angry over his wife's brief affair in 1991 with co-worker Perry Tarica.^[4] The letter's use by the prosecutors was controversial, because such evidence has been blocked from court for years by strict hearsay rules based on criminal defendants' right, under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to confront their accusers. But the Wisconsin Supreme Court, guided by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling (Crawford v Washington 541 U.S. 36 (2004)), created a hearsay exception that permitted the use of Julie Jensen's letter and statements as a dying declaration — that is, evidence of her state of mind at the time of her death.

The letter was the critical factor in the trial that ended in Wisconsin on February 22, 2008. The jury found Jensen, 48, guilty of his wife's murder after more than 30 hours of deliberations. He was sentenced by Kenosha County Circuit Court Judge Bruce Schroeder on February 27, 2008 to life in prison with no chance of parole.^[1][5]

Appellate proceedings

According to an ABC broadcast on July 3, 2008, a further Supreme Court ruling in Giles v. California 554 U.S. 353 2008 makes an appeal likely. Mark Jensen's supporters maintain a website offering his side of the case.^[6]

On December 19, 2013, a federal judge overturned Jensen's conviction, and ordered he be released from prison within 90 days. The court agreed with Jensen's argument that the state's use of his dead wife's words violated his Constitutional right to confront witnesses testifying against him. The state of Wisconsin appealed the case, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld the district court's decision on September 8, 2015.^[7]

References