State v. Wenthe
Annotate this CaseAfter a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of third-degree criminal sexual conduct for sexually penetrating a member of the parish where he served as a priest. The court of appeals reversed and ordered a new trial, holding that the district court erred in (1) failing to provide a specific-unanimity instruction; (2) failing to instruct the jury that State was required to prove that Defendant had subjective knowledge of the purpose of the meeting at which sexual penetration occurred; and (3) denying Defendant’s motion to admit evidence of the complainant’s sexual history after it admitted the State’s evidence of the victim’s sexual inexperience. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) the district court’s failure to provide a specific-unanimity jury instruction did not affect Defendant’s substantial rights; (2) the clergy sexual conduct statute does not require the clergy member to know that the complainant seeks or is receiving spiritual counsel; and (3) even assuming the district court abused its discretion in disallowing Defendant’s sexual-history evidence, any error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
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