Opinion ID: 2233481
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: retroactive application is ex post facto

Text: As a matter of law, the trial court erred in retroactively applying the statute to include the 1984 Hughes County conviction. The United States Supreme Court established a two-prong test in Weaver v. Graham, 450 U.S. 24, 101 S.Ct. 960, 67 L.Ed.2d 17 (1981), concerning ex post facto statutes and application. First, a statute must be retrospective, that is, it must apply to events occurring before its enactment.... Id., 450 U.S. at 29, 101 S.Ct. at 964. Secondly, the statute must disadvantage the offender affected by it. Id. Both prongs are here met as the amended five-year version of SDCL 32-23-4.1 was used to enhance the charge and punishment against appellant. At the time of the two prior convictions (1979 and 1982), the four-year limitation applied. If the amended version of SDCL 32-23-4.1 is applied to the 1984 conviction and the facts of this appeal, the amended statute has absolutely changed the legal consequences of appellant's 1979 and 1982 convictions. Instead of the four-year limitation applying (in effect at that time), a five-year limitation is applied (not in effect at that time). Is appellant disadvantaged? Under the five-year application, South Dakota uses the 1979 Stanley County conviction as a platform to additionally punish. By employing this tactic, the third conviction (January 23, 1984) is a Class 6 felony. See SDCL 32-23-4. Conversely, if the four-year limitation is applied, i.e., the law in existence when appellant received his first two D.W.I. convictions, appellant may be sentenced only under a Class 1 misdemeanor. See SDCL 32-23-3. Appellant now labors under a sentence to prison for 18 months which has been stayed pending appeal. Therefore, the application of the law in this case is of extreme importance to his rights and his liberty. Forbidding the type of application, such as we see here, the highest Court in this land disapproved because such applied ... not only to prisoners sentenced for crimes committed since its enactment..., but also to all other prisoners, including petitioner, whose offenses took place before that date. Weaver, 450 U.S. at 27, 101 S.Ct. at 963 (footnote omitted). In effect, the trial court created an unconstitutional ex post facto law by applying the amended statute (five-year statute). There is nothing to suggest that the South Dakota Legislature intended that SDCL 32-23-4.1, the five-year amended statute, should be applied retroactively. Why is it that the majority opinion and the State of South Dakota believe that some right inures to the state to interpret this amendment to be retroactive? If this amended statute was to be retroactive, it should have said so. A fundamental rule of statutory construction is that statutes must be construed as having only a prospective operation unless the purpose and intention of the legislature makes it clearly appear that the statutes are to be given a retroactive effect. In In re Estate of Scott, 81 S.D. 231, 234, 133 N.W.2d 1, 3 (1965), we expressed: It is always to be presumed that a law was intended, as its legitimate office, to furnish a rule of future action to be applied to cases arising subsequent to its enactment. A law is never to have retroactive effect unless its express letter or clearly manifested intention requires that it should have such effect. If all its language can be satisfied by giving it prospective operation, it should have such operation only. (Citation omitted.) See also, Matter of Adams, 329 N.W.2d 882, 884 (S.D.1983).