State of South Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee v. Stanley Wellner (# 13533) and Steven Wellner (# 13534), Defendants…

Summary

The South Dakota Supreme Court affirmed the Wellners' jury convictions for possession of more than one pound of marijuana. It held that the affidavits supporting the second search warrant established probable cause, that the trial court erred in denying defendants standing as to the buildings adjacent to the farmhouse but that the error was not reversible, and that the plain view exception justified both the seizure of cultivation equipment and a limited inspection of a record book found open on the kitchen counter. The court also upheld the denial of a change of venue, the instruction that possession need not be exclusive, the refusal to disclose the informant's identity, and the sufficiency of the circumstantial evidence. Justice Wollman concurred in part and dissented in part as to the expectation-of-privacy holding, and Justice Fosheim dissented on the ground that the warrant was an impermissible general warrant.