Jendresen v. State
| Decision Date | 08 July 2021 |
| Docket Number | S-19-0154, S-20-0244 |
| Citation | 491 P.3d 273 |
| Court | Wyoming Supreme Court |
| Parties | Nicholas J. JENDRESEN, Appellant (Defendant), v. The STATE of Wyoming, Appellee (Plaintiff). |
Representing Appellant: Office of the Public Defender: Diane M. Lozano, State Public Defender; Kirk A. Morgan, Chief Appellate Counsel; Professor Lauren McLane, Faculty Director, Cameron Smith, Student Intern, of the Defender Aid Clinic, University of Wyoming, College of Law. Argument by Mr. Smith.
Representing Appellee: Bridget L. Hill, Attorney General; Jenny L. Craig, Deputy Attorney General; Joshua C. Eames, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Catherine M. Mercer, Assistant Attorney General. Argument by Ms. Mercer.
Before FOX, C.J., and DAVIS* , KAUTZ, BOOMGAARDEN, and GRAY, JJ.
[¶1] When police contacted Nicholas Jendresen in response to allegations of sexual abuse of a minor, he had trashed his apartment and stripped naked. He then ran screaming outside into the snow. He was arrested and taken to the hospital where he confessed to the crime. He confessed again in jail a few days later. Arguing he did not knowingly and intelligently waive his Miranda rights, he filed a motion to suppress the statements which the district court denied. After a bench trial, the district court found him guilty of four counts of sexual abuse of a minor. He appealed and filed a W.R.A.P. 21 motion, which the district court denied. He appeals that decision, and we consolidate his appeals. We affirm.
[¶2] We rephrase and consolidate the issues:
[¶3] On Christmas Eve, 2016, Nicholas Jendresen confessed to his brother-in-law, Arlin Price, that he had been touching his six-year old daughter, I.J., "in her private areas." Mr. Price advised Mr. Jendresen to tell his wife, and the next evening Mr. Jendresen did so. Mrs. Jendresen gathered the couple's children and took them to Mr. Price's nearby apartment. Mr. Price called the Gillette Police Department. He reported what Mr. Jendresen had disclosed and that Mr. Jendresen was alone in his apartment, with firearms, and potentially suicidal.
[¶4] Corporal Jay Johnson responded, along with five or six other officers, most of whom were recording with their body cameras. Corporal Johnson made contact with Mr. Price in his apartment building. Two other officers encountered Mr. Jendresen walking out of his apartment into the hallway, naked. They commanded him to show his hands so they "could see that he had no weapons" and to lie down on the floor. He complied at first, but then slipped past the officers, who tasered him at least twice; he ran down a flight of stairs; and out the door where he was tackled in the snow. The officers cuffed him and dragged him back into the apartment building. As they did so, Mr. Jendresen repeatedly said, and at times screamed, "I love everyone."
[¶5] Mr. Price arrived and told Mr. Jendresen to "calm down" and to "quit screaming and yelling," which he did. Mr. Jendresen continued to mumble strange statements and tell everyone that he loved them, but he also answered several questions clearly, and told the officers where they could find pants, shoes, and a blanket in his apartment. EMTs arrived and asked him what was going on, and he answered,
[¶6] In the ambulance, Mr. Jendresen had difficulty answering some questions, such as his age, although he knew his birthdate. He made odd comments, apologized to the officers, and he sang quietly to himself. At the hospital, officers handcuffed him to the bed rails. Mr. Jendresen was able to reply to a nurse's basic medical questions, but he could not list his medications, and when the nurse asked him why he took medication, he responded, "because I love you." Officer Dillard later testified that Mr. Jendresen's mental state at the hospital was "much different than that of the individual we were wrestling with." When Mr. Jendresen, who was by then calm, began to make incriminating statements, Officer Dillard asked Corporal Johnson to come to the hospital.
[¶7] At the time, Corporal Johnson was searching the Jendresen apartment for physical evidence of the alleged abuse. He found the apartment in complete disarray, although Mrs. Jendresen reported the apartment had been picked up and clean when she left.
[¶8] Corporal Johnson arrived at the hospital and advised Mr. Jendresen of his Miranda rights. Mr. Jendresen indicated he understood by nodding. Corporal Johnson asked Mr. Jendresen to clarify the statements he had reportedly made to Mr. Price about sexually touching his daughter. He asked, Mr. Jendresen responded that he touched "the one bad thing," and then confirmed that he had touched her vagina in a sexual way. He said the abuse began when his daughter was in diapers, and happened five to ten times in a number of locations, and at least four times since the family had moved to Gillette, months earlier.
[¶9] Mr. Jendresen described the sexual abuse in detail and his thoughts at the time. Mr. Jendresen also described, in detail, the events leading up to his hospitalization, including the disclosures he made to his brother-in-law and wife, trashing his apartment, stripping naked, and walking out into the hallway and seeing the officers.
[¶10] A few days later, while in jail, Mr. Jendresen asked Corporal Johnson to come and speak with him. He was advised of his rights and confessed again in detail, acknowledging that in the hospital he had already "let the cat out of the bag, so to speak."
[¶11] A forensic interviewer for the Children's Home Child Advocacy Center of Rapid City, South Dakota, met with I.J. I.J.’s interview largely corroborated Mr. Jendresen's confession.
[¶12] The State charged Mr. Jendresen with three counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor and one count of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor under Wyo. Stat. Ann. §§ 6-2-314 and 6-2-315. Mr. Jendresen's court-appointed attorney filed a motion in the circuit court to have Mr. Jendresen evaluated for his fitness to proceed pursuant to Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 7-11-303(b) and (c). Dr. Laura McCormick, a forensic examiner from the Wyoming State Hospital, met with Mr. Jendresen and filed a report finding him not fit to proceed due to depression. She recommended inpatient restoration treatment, so the circuit court sent him to the State hospital. A month later, Dr. Katherine Mahaffey, a different forensic psychologist for the State, evaluated Mr. Jendresen and filed a report finding him competent to proceed. The case was bound over to the district court, where Mr. Jendresen was arraigned and pled not guilty to all charges.
[¶13] Mr. Jendresen filed a Motion to Enter Plea of Not Guilty by Reason of Mental Illness (NGMI) and a Motion for a Psychological Evaluation, Criminal Responsibility pursuant to Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 7-11-304. Mr. Jendresen's counsel later explained that the NGMI defense was not part of his ultimate trial strategy, but a way to obtain further evaluations, which might support his theory that Mr. Jendresen's bizarre behavior on the night of the arrest indicated he may not have been capable of knowingly and intelligently waiving his Miranda rights.
[¶14] Dr. Mahaffey evaluated Mr. Jendresen again for the purposes of the NGMI defense. Based on what she felt was suspicious endorsement and exaggeration of a wide constellation of symptoms, particularly his reported inability to remember the abuse or his confessions, Dr. Mahaffey diagnosed him with malingering and several other disorders. But her report found Mr. Jendresen "did not suffer from a mental illness or mental deficiency so severely abnormal as to have grossly and demonstrably impaired his perception or understanding of reality," and stated "with a reasonable degree of psychological certainty" that "Mr. Jendresen did not lack substantial capacity, as a result of mental illness or deficiency, either to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law." (Emphasis omitted.)
[¶15] Mr. Jendresen's counsel requested a second opinion from Dr. Trent Holmberg, a forensic psychiatrist. Counsel sent Dr. Holmberg the police reports and thousands of pages of Mr. Jendresen's medical, military, and mental health records, but did not send the officers’ body cam videos of the arrest and confessions, because he felt Mr. Jendresen's behaviors on that night were "well documented" in the police reports. Dr. Holmberg examined Mr. Jendresen, and filed a report expressing concerns about his competence at the time of the confessions. Dr. Holmberg opined that Mr. Jendresen confessed amidst an acute psychotic episode
and may not have knowingly and intelligently waived his rights.
[¶16] Mr. Jendresen filed a motion to suppress his confessions. The district court held a hearing in January 2019, during which both experts testified remotely. Dr. Holmberg opined that Mr. Jendresen was, more likely than not, acutely psychotic and lacking contact with reality when he confessed at the hospital. He supported his conclusion with information from the police reports about the condition of the Jendresen apartment and Mr. Jendresen's behavior throughout the night. He...
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