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RALEIGH (AP) The state Supreme Court upheld the murder conviction of novelist Michael Peterson on Friday, ruling that keeping out evidence improperly obtained from his computer wouldn't have changed the outcome of his trial.

Peterson is serving a life sentence for the first-degree murder of his wife Kathleen, whose body was found at the bottom of a staircase in the couple's Durham home in December 2001.

"We conclude that, because the state presented overwhelming evidence of defendant's guilt, independent and separate from the tainted evidence, no reversible error occurred," Justice Edward Brady wrote for the court.

In the unanimous opinion, the state's highest court also determined that the presiding judge at the 2003 trial didn't make a mistake by admitting evidence about the 1985 death of a Peterson family friend in Germany.

The justices also ruled that statements made by Durham prosecutors during closing arguments don't warrant a new trial.

"I'm thankful that we've got a positive result and it's finally over," said Freda Black, a former Durham assistant district attorney who helped prosecute Peterson. Black, who is now in private practice, said the Peterson family will be pleased that "they can finally lay Kathleen to rest."

Thomas Maher, one of Peterson's trial attorneys and his appellate attorney, didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment Friday.

Peterson, now 64 and imprisoned near Rocky Mount, contends his wife died accidentally in a fall. State prosecutors argued the Petersons had a strained marriage, accumulated $143,000 in credit card debt, and that Michael Peterson stood to benefit financially from life insurance and other assets if his wife died.

After her death, investigators issued a search warrant seeking items from Peterson's computer and software files. Evidence prosecutors presented at trial from the computer included e-mails between Peterson and a male prostitute, as well as information showing he viewed sexually explicit photographs of men.

The state Court of Appeals, which heard the case earlier, determined that the warrant contained details that were inadequate to justify the search. The Supreme Court agreed, saying if the computer evidence wasn't presented during trial, jurors would have reached the same guilty verdict.

"The evidence that financial stress existed in the relationship between defendant and the victim, and that defendant stood to gain from the victim's death, is overwhelming even without considering the cumulative evidence retrieved from defendant's computer," Brady wrote in the Supreme Court's decision.

Peterson's attorneys also argued that Durham Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson shouldn't have let the jury hear evidence about the death of Elizabeth Ratliff, the Petersons' friend who was found dead at the bottom of a staircase in her home in Germany.

The justices agreed that Hudson didn't act outside of reason in determining there was value in evidence about Ratliff's death, because it contained similar facts and circumstances to Elizabeth Peterson's death.

Peterson also complained about comments made during closing arguments by Black vouching for the credibility of the prosecution's witnesses. Jurors who found Peterson guilty wouldn't have reached a different verdict had Black not made those statement, Brady wrote.

"This trial spanned five months, and the record contains thousands of pages of transcripts," he wrote. "The offending statements by Ms. Black spanned less than five minutes."