Regina Goodale

The North Dakota Supreme Court has issued a ruling unanimously affirming the conviction of a Minot woman for her role in the 2022 murder of her estranged husband, Wade Goodale.

Regina Goodale, 36, Minot, was found guilty in June 2023 on a Class A felony count of accomplice to murder and filed her appeal shortly after being sentenced to serve 35 years with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in November.

The Supreme Court’s judgment affirmed the conviction, finding that a person can be charged as an accomplice to extreme indifference murder even if the victim’s death was unintentional and otherwise not contemplated by the accomplice.

The Supreme Court’s unanimous opinion authored by Chief Justice Jon Jensen, who wrote that Goodale had accepted the proposed jury instructions after a review by the parties, and thus waived her right to complain on appeal that the jury was incorrectly instructed. Jensen also found that testimony elicited from witnesses at the trial established sufficient evidence to find Goodale guilty as an accomplice in Wade Goodale’s death, despite her assertion in her appeal that the state had failed to prove her actions had caused his murder.

Jensen also rejected Goodale’s claim that her case was wrongly joined with that of co-defendant Matthew Anderson on the grounds it prevented her from being able to cross-examine him, due to a lack of objection being raised at the time.

The final error alleged by Goodale was that she was improperly sentenced by the district court, as the statute in the North Dakota Century Code does not specifically include the crime of accomplice. The Court concluded the sentence does need to be corrected, as evidence presented at trial established her role in the act of committing the murder. The court cited precedence that an accomplice is to be treated as a principal actor in a crime and Goodale is therefore subject to the same sentencing and release terms under North Dakota law.

The court did note in a case highlight that while the district court did err in its use of “and” instead of “or” as found in the statute of the North Dakota Century Code, justices determined it was a harmless error which wasn’t prejudicial to Goodale.

The Supreme Court’s judgment will become final pending a petition by Goodale for a rehearing of her appeal. Goodale’s attorney Kiara Kraus-Parr was contacted regarding the judgment and the potential for a rehearing petition but was not available for comment.