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BISMARCK -- The North Dakota Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from convicted murderer Milo Whitetail.
Whitetail was convicted in 2022 in North Central District Court for the killing of Eric Patterson in 2020 at a Minot motel. The jury found Whitetail, who argued he acted in self defense, had stabbed the victim with a steak knife during an argument over missing batteries.
During the trial, Whitetail had called a psychologist as an expert witness who testified that he had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which could lead an individual to overestimate the risks of danger. The district court had denied Whitetail's motion to acquit on self-defense grounds during the trial, and the jury ultimately found him guilty having determined he was not acting under extreme emotional disturbance. He was later sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
Whitetail appealed the verdict in district court, asking for the conviction of intentional or knowing murder to be thrown out on the grounds that the state had not proven he was not in a dissociative mental state at the time of the murder. This appeal was rebuffed by the district court, leading Whitetail to elevate his appeal to the Supreme Court.
In the ruling released on Wednesday, the Supreme Court affirmed the district court's rulings and Whitetail's conviction, finding that the state's evidence supported the jury's verdict that he had acted knowingly and intentionally. The Supreme Court found that while psychologist Dr. Shannon Weisz's testimony affirmed that dissociation can be an element of PTSD, he did not testify directly as to Whitetail's intent.
The testimony of the State's rebuttal witness, Dr. Michael Vitacco, was cited by the Supreme Court. Vitacco had reviewed body camera video of Whitetail speaking to officers at the scene and noted he was "talking logically, coherently. He did not appear to be [sic] that he was under extreme emotional distress at that time."
The Supreme Court's ruling closed saying, "Whitetail has not met his burden of showing the evidence reveals no reasonable inference of guilt when viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict. We affirm the judgment."