South Dakota Supreme Court

South Dakota Chief Justice Steven Jensen gestures as he participates in oral arguments with other state Supreme Court justices on March 23, 2023, in Brookings. (David Bordewyk/South Dakota Newspaper Association)

Limits, application of South Dakota ‘stand your ground’ law debated before Supreme Court

BY: - March 24, 2023

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 […]

South Dakota Supreme Court Justice Janine Kern gestures as she participates in oral arguments with other justices on March 23, 2023, in Brookings. (David Bordewyk/South Dakota Newspaper Association)

State Supreme Court considers role of lie detectors in sentencing

BY: - March 23, 2023

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 […]

Sculptures by Peggy Detmers stand outside Tatanka: Story of the Bison near Deadwood. The sculptures include 14 bison being chased by three Lakota hunters on horseback. (Courtesy of South Dakota Department of Tourism)

State Supreme Court hears Kevin Costner dispute, pandemic relief case

BY: - March 22, 2023

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 […]

University of South Dakota Law School Dean Neil Fulton speaks to students. (photo courtesy USD)

Lawmaker withdraws effort to drop bar-exam requirement for lawyers

BY: - February 17, 2023

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bill that aimed to create an apprenticeship program as an alternative to the bar exam for South Dakota lawyers has been withdrawn by its sponsor.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 […]

Inside the state Capitol in Pierre. (Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight)

Bill proposes task force to study new criminal justice approach for ‘emerging adults’

BY: - January 18, 2023

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 Steven Jensen addresses the South Dakota Legislature in Pierre on Jan. 11, 2023. (Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight)

Chief justice: Contested elections for local judges may dissolve under lawmaker proposal

BY: - January 11, 2023

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 […]

The Lincoln County Courthouse in Canton, SD, as seen on Oct. 28, 2022.

Circuit court bench in SD struggles to diversify

BY: - November 1, 2022

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 […]