Janusiak v. Cooper

JEANNETTE MARIE JANUSIAK, Petitioner, v. WARDEN SARAH COOPER, Respondent.

Case No. 17-C-514

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN

January 2, 2019

DECISION AND ORDER DENYING PETITION FOR RELIEF UNDER 28 U.S.C. § 2254

Petitioner Jeannette Marie Janusiak filed this petition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, asserting that her state court conviction and sentence were imposed in violation of the Constitution. Janusiak was convicted in Sauk County Circuit Court of first degree intentional homicide in connection with the death of an infant in her care. She was sentenced to life with the possibility of extended supervision after 40 years of confinement. In her petition for federal relief under § 2254, Janusiak claims that her conviction is based upon incriminating statements she was coerced into making in violation of her Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Because the brutal nature of the crime seemed so inconsistent with the history and character of the accused, and because the circumstances surrounding her interview provided some support for her claim that her incriminating statements were coerced, I appointed counsel to represent Janusiak. Now, having carefully reviewed the entire record and considered the arguments of counsel, I conclude that the petition must be denied.

BACKGROUND

Janusiak was convicted of intentionally causing the death of the four-month-old infant daughter of her friend. Janusiak took care of her friend's child, along with her own four children, on August 18, 2011. Although there was no evidence of motive, Janusiak was the only adult in the home with the children when the infant apparently sustained fatal injuries to her head. Other, older injuries were not accounted for. At trial, in the absence of any direct eye-witness account, the State relied on the forensic evidence relating to the injuries and their likely effect on the child, the circumstances surrounding the crime, and the statements made by Janusiak during a police interrogation that offered inconsistent and incredible explanations for the child's severe injuries. Highlighting her multiple, inconsistent, and unbelievable accounts of the death, the State attempted to show that Janusiak lied about how the child died. In her seven-hour interrogation, the entirety of which was shown to the jury, Janusiak changed her account of the infant's death three times: first, she said nothing out of the ordinary happened; later, she said the child fell off Janusiak's bed and onto the floor; and, finally, she said the infant fell from the bed, hit a table and an open drawer, and then hit the floor. ECF No. 12-16. Janusiak testified at trial that she did not know how the injuries to the child occurred, denied that she had done anything to harm her, and maintained that any statements she had made to the contrary were made after she became exhausted and simply tried to tell the officers what they wanted to hear so she could go home to her children. After an eight-day trial, the jury returned a guilty verdict.

The admissibility of Janusiak's interview was the subject of a pretrial hearing before the trial judge. Upon consideration of the evidence presented, including the video-recorded interview, the trial court issued a six-page decision in which it found that Janusiak's statements were voluntary,considering the totality of the circumstances surrounding the interview, and not the product of police coercion or misconduct. ECF No. 12-4 at 78-86. After the trial, Janusiak appealed, claiming that the trial court had erred and that her statements were coerced. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals rejected Janusiak's arguments and affirmed her conviction, holding that the statements were voluntary because the officers' tactics did not overcome Janusiak's ability to resist. State v. Janusiak, 2016 WI App 18, ¶ 32, 367 Wis. 2d 349, 876 N.W.2d 178. Applying the totality of the circumstances test, the Court of Appeals first found that Janusiak's personal characteristics did not make her particularly vulnerable to coercion because Janusiak had nearly identical personal characteristics to those defendants in other cases whose incriminating statements were ruled admissible by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Id. at ¶14. The court found that Janusiak's pregnancy, her one markedly unique characteristic, did not distinguish her from the relevant cases. Id. (citing State v. Lemoine, 2013 WI 5, ¶¶ 21-24, 26, 345 Wis. 2d 171, 827 N.W.2d 589; State v. Reynolds, 2010 WI App 56, ¶¶ 40, 51, 324 Wis. 2d 385, 781 N.W.2d 739). While the court acknowledged that pregnancy could render a woman particularly vulnerable to coercion, the court noted that it does not in every case, and concluded that it did not here since Janusiak seemed alert and was offered plenty of breaks. Id. at ¶15.

The Court of Appeals likewise affirmed the trial court's finding that the police had not engaged in coercive tactics. The general conditions of the interrogation did not amount to coercion. See id. at ¶¶ 18-19. Janusiak's more specific allegations, that police threatened to take her children away and falsely promised to send her home if she cooperated, were both described by the Court of Appeals as mischaracterizations of the interrogation. Id. at ¶¶ 22, 27. While Janusiak contends Hazel Coppernoll, Sauk County Human Services Supervisor, threatened to take her children awayunless she cooperated, the Court of Appeals clarified that Coppernoll specifically said she was not taking Janusiak's children into custody. Id. at ¶¶ 22-23. What Janusiak describes as a threat was Coppernoll's concern that if the infant's injuries were caused while she was in Janusiak's care, Janusiak's children might need protection, which could potentially involve removing them from Janusiak's home.

The Court of Appeals reached a similar conclusion on the alleged false promise of the law enforcement officers who questioned her. Janusiak claimed interrogators promised she could go home if she cooperated. Id. at ¶ 26. But the court noted that Janusiak's interrogators told her she could go home if she provided an exculpatory explanation for the infant's injuries that matched the medical evidence—not if she provided just any explanation. Id. at ¶ 27. To the extent this amounted to a police tactic, the court found it permissible.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court denied Janusiak's petition for review, and Janusiak then filed her petition for federal habeas corpus pursuant to § 2254. Now represented by counsel, Janusiak asserts several claims in support of her petition: 1) the Court of Appeals' decision was contrary to the Supreme Court decisions defining the totality of the circumstances test; 2) the Court of Appeals' decision was contrary to, or involves and unreasonable application of, Lynumn v. Illinois, 372 U.S. 528 (1963); 3) the Court of Appeals made an unreasonable finding about her emotional state; and 4) the Court of Appeals made unreasonable findings about the police officer's promises. Respondent denies that the Court of Appeals unreasonably applied the law or determined the facts.

ANALYSIS

A. Federal Relief Under § 2254

Janusiak seeks federal relief from her state court conviction under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Under § 2254, a federal court can consider granting relief from a state court conviction only on groundsthat the petitioner is in custody in violation of the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(1)(a). Janusiak's petition clearly states a claim that is cognizable under § 2254, since the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the use of coerced statements at a criminal trial. Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 6 (1964).

Janusiak's petition is governed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Under AEDPA, habeas corpus relief for persons serving sentences imposed by state courts may not be granted on any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in state court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim:

(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the United States Supreme Court; or

(2) resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.

28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). A state court decision is "contrary to . . . clearly established Federal law" if the court did not apply the proper legal rule, or, in applying the proper legal rule, reached the opposite result as the Supreme Court on "materially indistinguishable" facts. Brown v. Payton, 544 U.S. 133, 141 (2005). A state court decision is an "unreasonable application of . . . clearly established Federal law" when the court applied Supreme Court precedent in "an objectively unreasonable manner." Id. Finally, the state court's determination of a factual issue is presumed to be correct, a presumption that can only be overcome by clear and convincing evidence. § 2254(e)(1).

This is, and was meant to be, a difficult standard to meet. Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 102 (2011). "[A] federal habeas court may not issue the writ simply because that courtconcludes in its independent judgment that the relevant state court decision applied clearly established federal law erroneously or incorrectly. Rather, that application must be objectively unreasonable." Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 75-76 (2003) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted).

B. The Law of Confessions

The federal law applicable to the admissibility of a defendant's statement in a criminal trial was recently summarized by the Seventh Circuit, sitting en banc, in Dassey v. Dittmann, 877 F.3d 297 (7th Cir. 2017). Rather than attempt to restate the principles the court so thoroughly explicated there, I will simply incorporate verbatim that section of the court's opinion:

The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment forbids the

...