State of South Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee v. Donald Eugene Moeller, Defendant and Appellant

Summary

The court held that the trial court improperly admitted evidence of three prior sexual assaults because the acts were insufficiently similar to establish identity or a common method, and their substantial prejudicial effect outweighed their limited probative value. It upheld the admission of PCR DNA evidence, the soil expert's testimony, the constitutionality of the death penalty, the limiting construction of the aggravating circumstance, and the capital-sentencing scheme's treatment of mitigation and prosecutorial discretion. The convictions were reversed and the case remanded for a new trial. Gilbertson, Justice, concurring in part and dissenting in part, would have upheld the prior-acts ruling and addressed the omitted reasonable-doubt instruction as plain constitutional error requiring a new penalty-phase proceeding.