Yesterday I cited the wrong Supreme Court decision when discussing the issue of a retrial for Mark Jensen. The proper citation is Crawford v Washington (2004). Jensen was tried and found guilty in 2008.

Apparently the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that Jensen’s wife’s “letter from the grave” was admissible under some obscure rule involving “wrongdoing” on the part of the defendant having caused the wife not to be available for cross-examination. What a bizarre tautology!

Say What?

• Jensen was convicted of his wife’s murder primarily (according to jurors) because his wife’s accusation was read aloud in the trial.
• Since Jensen was convicted of his wife’s murder, therefore she was not available for cross-examination.
• That means Jensen’s wrongdoing caused her not to be available for cross-examination.

In other words, Jensen’s motive for killing his wife was to prevent her from testifying in his trial for her murder? (I suppose this answers the eternal question: why would a man murder his wife when he could simply divorce her?)

Crawford v Washington Case

In the Crawford case, a defendant claimed to have been defending his wife from a rapist when he stabbed the man. But an audio recording of his wife’s out-of-court remarks about the incident contradicted his defense. The Supremes held unanimously that this was a violation of his 6th Amendment right to confront witnesses/evidence against him.

Note that in this situation, the wife was alive, but she refused to testify because of spousal privilege. I suppose the Wisconsin Supreme Court would say that even if the defendant had married his wife to prevent her from being required to testify against him, a marriage is not wrongdoing. Or would they? Would they claim that the only reason they were married or that they remained married was to provide a legal loophole for the defendant?

The Black Widow

I certainly hope Raynella Dossett-Leath’s attorney will argue effectively before her retrial that her husband’s paranoid accusation of his wife cannot be read in court, because of Crawford v Washington.