State of South Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee v. William Boyd Guthrie, Defendant and Appellant

Summary

The South Dakota Supreme Court affirmed William Guthrie's first-degree murder conviction for the bathtub drowning of his wife Sharon. The lead opinion held the suicidologist Dr. Berman's profile testimony was admissible under Daubert but that his ultimate opinion that Sharon did not die by suicide was inadmissible, though the admission was harmless error given the substantial independent circumstantial evidence. The court also rejected challenges to the denial of the acquittal motion, the warrantless seizure of the home computer (valid third-party consent), the clergy-privilege rulings (privilege limited and waived), and admission of the daughter's covert tape recording. Chief Justice Miller and Justice Gilbertson concurred in part and concurred in result in part; Justice Sabers concurred in part and dissented in part, and Justice Amundson joined the concurrence on Issues 1-5 and the dissent on Issue 6.