South Dakota Supreme Court
Limits, application of South Dakota ‘stand your ground’ law debated before Supreme Court
BROOKINGS — In 2019, Minnesota native Ramon Deron Smith killed a man and wounded two others in a Sioux Falls parking lot during his first visit to the city. He kept shooting as his targets fled across a busy urban thoroughfare. After doing so, he drove back to Minneapolis, shaved his head, ditched the vehicle […]
State Supreme Court considers role of lie detectors in sentencing
BROOKINGS — A man who contends he was not the shooter in a 2020 robbery-turned-homicide in Sioux Falls wants the South Dakota Supreme Court to order a judge to consider the results of his polygraph test at a new sentence hearing. Ray Banks is serving an 80-year sentence for manslaughter for his role in the […]
State Supreme Court hears Kevin Costner dispute, pandemic relief case
The state Supreme Court examined disputes over sculptures commissioned by the actor Kevin Costner and pandemic benefits paid to a business owner as justices heard arguments in several cases Wednesday. The court held its first of two days of oral arguments for its spring term on the South Dakota State University campus in Brookings. The […]
Lawmaker withdraws effort to drop bar-exam requirement for lawyers
A bill that aimed to create an apprenticeship program as an alternative to the bar exam for South Dakota lawyers has been withdrawn by its sponsor. House Bill 1076 is sponsored by Rep. Mary Fitzgerald, R-Spearfish. It would have allowed University of South Dakota Knutson School of Law graduates to bypass the bar exam and […]
Bill proposes task force to study new criminal justice approach for ‘emerging adults’
Young adults, ages 18 to 25, represent roughly 10% of South Dakota’s population but 25% of arrests, according to Greg Sattizahn, state court administrator with the Unified Judicial System. Those “emerging adults” are the most incarcerated group based on penitentiary numbers and are the most likely group of state prisoners to recidivate, or return to […]
Chief justice: Contested elections for local judges may dissolve under lawmaker proposal
South Dakotans would lose the right to elect judges under a proposal from lawmakers that the state’s chief justice addressed Wednesday during his State of the Judiciary speech. Judges can rise to the bench by way of the ballot, but most do not. Judicial elections are mandated by the state constitution, but they only happen […]
Circuit court bench in SD struggles to diversify
Just under half the people in state prisons in South Dakota are people of color, but none of the judges who sent them there are. The general election on Nov. 8 won’t change that. Circuit judges in South Dakota, who preside over the felony criminal cases that can send a defendant to prison, come up […]