Alex Rentto

In State v. Anderberg, the defendant was charged with assault with intent to inflict great bodily injury after being involved in an incident where the victim was struck with a pool cue and kicked outside a bar in Sioux Falls, leading to a skull fracture. A jury convicted him, and the trial court sentenced him to 18 months in prison with the last six months suspended. On appeal, the South Dakota Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the defendant aided and abetted the assault under state law even if he did not strike the blow, that any challenge to the preliminary hearing was waived by pleading not guilty, that aiding and abetting does not require proof of a prior conspiracy, and that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by declining to order a presentence investigation. The court found the evidence sufficient to support the verdict beyond a reasonable doubt.

criminal lawprocedure

In State v. Barcley, the defendant was charged with multiple counts of forgery in the third degree and one count of attempted forgery after passing stolen checks from a hardware store. A jury convicted him on all counts following a consolidated trial, and the trial court imposed prison sentences without ordering a presentence investigation. On appeal, the court affirmed the convictions, holding that the pretrial photographic identification procedures were not impermissibly suggestive under the standard from Simmons v. United States, that the defendant had withdrawn his request for a presentence report thereby precluding it, and that the checks were adequately identified by witnesses for admission into evidence. The court rejected claims of error in the identification testimony and evidentiary rulings.

criminal lawprocedure

This case arose when a township board, after initially granting permission for defendants to place a mobile home on their lot, faced a neighbor's complaints that it violated local ordinances and reduced his property value. After the board declined to act and was later subject to a default judgment requiring enforcement, it sued the defendants for declaratory and injunctive relief to remove the structure, but the trial court dismissed the complaint. The neighbor, who was not a party to the action, attempted to appeal the dismissal and related orders. The court dismissed the appeal, holding that only parties to the proceeding may appeal from a judgment or order. This limitation stems from the general rule that appeals are restricted to aggrieved parties, with no statute extending review rights to non-parties.

procedure

In State v. Nelson, the defendant, an inmate at the South Dakota penitentiary, was convicted by a jury of second-degree manslaughter in the death of another inmate from strychnine poisoning and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment to run concurrently with his existing life sentence. On appeal, Nelson challenged the admission of the victim's hearsay statements as dying declarations, the sufficiency of the evidence showing he aided in the poisoning, and the introduction of an absent witness's preliminary hearing testimony. The court affirmed the conviction, holding that the dying declarations met the statutory requirements of voluntariness, res gestae, and the declarant's belief in imminent death, that the evidence supported aiding and abetting liability, and that the preliminary hearing testimony was properly admitted under established rules allowing such evidence when the witness is unavailable after due diligence. The court also rejected claims that the manslaughter statute was unconstitutionally vague or improperly submitted as a lesser included offense.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved a dispute over a 1967 contract requiring Oahe Enterprises to transfer stock to Golden in exchange for personal property; the company sought rescission or reformation, while Golden sought enforcement via cross-claim. After a bench trial, the court ruled for Golden, entering judgment for $16,922.32 in stock value but without specifying the number of shares or their valuation date. Golden moved to amend the findings to award 338.446 shares based on a $50 per share value from the contract date, and later filed a similar motion alternatively seeking a new trial; both were denied by the successor judge. The South Dakota Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, holding that the denial order was not appealable under SDCL 15-26-1 because it was reviewable on appeal from the underlying judgment and did not qualify as one of the enumerated appealable orders.

procedure

The case involved defendant Van Beek who was charged with two counts of third-degree burglary in Minnehaha County for incidents at different buildings two months apart. The trial court denied his motion to sever the counts and allowed certain evidence including overshoes and tools seized under search warrants and a sheriff's comparison of a footprint photo to the overshoes. The South Dakota Supreme Court affirmed the convictions, holding that the offenses were of the same class and properly joined without abuse of discretion in denying severance, that the seizures were valid under the plain view exception during lawful searches, and that the footprint testimony was admissible as lay opinion. Because the sentences were concurrent, any error on one count did not affect the sentence.

criminal lawprocedure