Maier v. Smith

Maier was convicted of threatening Wisconsin state court judges in 2006. In 2011, Maier mailed a handwritten letter to the jurors in that case, stating that after being “skrewed” and serving two years in prison, Maier was “going for a Pardon.” Maier addressed various injustices he believed he suffered during his prosecution, trial, and incarceration, closing the letter by encouraging the jurors to mail their questionnaires to the governor’s Pardon Advisory Board with a copy to Maier. The letter did not included direct threats. Maier sent a second letter, encouraging the jurors to contact his state representative or the governor’s office, and signed off as “Your friend from Planet of the Apes Courthouse In downtown Zappenville[.]” Convicted of six counts of stalking, Maier was sentenced to 15 years in prison. After exhausting state remedies and unsuccessfully seeking Supreme Court review, Maier sought federal post-conviction review under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The Seventh Circuit affirmed denial of the petition; the Wisconsin Court of Appeals’ decision was not objectively unreasonable. The statute criminalizes behavior that ʺwould cause a reasonable person under the same circumstances to suffer serious emotional distress, so failing to introduce evidence of non-jurors’ impressions could not have harmed Maierʹs defense to such an extent that it changed the outcome. The court rejected an argument that the jury instructions misstated Wisconsin law, relieving the state of its burden of proof. View "Maier v. Smith" on Justia Law