Opinion ID: 2189556
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: power of trial court to correct illegal sentence

Text: In State v. Tibbetts, 333 N.W.2d 440, 441 (S.D.1983), this Court made a penetrating analysis of SDCL 23A-31-1. We distinguished the difference between an illegal sentence which may be corrected at any time and a sentence imposed in an illegal manner which may be reduced within prescribed time constraints. SDCL 23A-31-1 provides in part: A court may correct an illegal sentence at any time and may correct a sentence imposed in an illegal manner within the time provided in this section for the reduction of sentence. (Emphasis supplied mine.) Thus, the magistrate court had the right, power, and duty to set aside and correct the illegal sentence which it had imposed on Barry E. Bayer and to serve, thereby, the express word and dictate of the highest Court of this state. Without any question, the magistrate court retained jurisdiction to correct the illegal sentence and it was reversible error for the circuit court judge to enter a decision contrary to the Supreme Court mandate and the settled law and statutes of this state. As one can see by reading the majority opinion, the majority opinion does not fasten its decision on the circuit court's decision at all. It erupts with a fish or fowl bit of reasoning which is as far removed from the scene of relevant analysis as the judgment entered by the circuit court. The circuit court's decision was founded upon outrage, namely, the circuit court's outrage that Bayer should not be permitted to recover the money he paid pursuant to the plea bargain because he was in an unconstitutional, profitable business and had no legal standing in moral conscience to ask for the tax money back which he had paid pursuant to the plea bargain. From out of the blue, the circuit court ruled that an admitted violator (Barry E. Bayer) of the State constitution has come into court with unclean hands and that he cannot blandly demand a purchase price back from the law and constitutional-abiding taxpayer. (Whatever that means.) The circuit court judge based his decision further upon the fact that Bayer made no payments under protest (the circuit court failing to realize that this was a criminal proceeding and that the money was paid pursuant to a plea bargain), and was and is violating the constitution and has accordingly waived his right to protest his voluntary agreement and that the magistrate court had neither the duty nor the right to make him whole. In other words, the circuit court is telling us that by making the payments under an unconstitutional conviction, defendant Bayer supposedly has waived his right to recover the tax money paid under the conviction. Not one supporting statute, case, secondary authority, or constitutional citation is listed in the decision of the lower court. In the magistrate court, as distinguished from the circuit court, formal findings of fact and conclusions of law were entered with supporting statutes, law of the case citation, and pertinent South Dakota and United States Constitutional provisions. The Supreme Court of this state under its fish or fowl theory, bottoms its decision on a new theory, namely: that Bayer has waived or forfeited his right to a refund because he did not follow the procedure set out in SDCL ch. 10-55. This Court fails to recognize that the $46,407.56 was paid pursuant to a plea bargain and a criminal judgment of conviction, and it was not paid or tendered in any civil proceeding. Recovery of taxes under SDCL ch. 10-55 applies to the recovery of taxes which are paid pursuant to SDCL ch. 10-45. Here, there was no constitutional sales tax imposed on the proceeds of the business of a bookmaker under SDCL ch. 10-45. For this Court to now hold that the magistrate court is without jurisdiction to refund this money, having determined that the convictions were unconstitutional and should be vacated below, is to, in effect, cast aside the criminal convictions per se but to uphold that aspect of the convictions which decreed the payment of tax money. Such reasoning runs afoul of the concluding language in Bayer, 349 N.W.2d at 450, which commands an amendment to the state constitution if privately operated games of chance are to be either licensed or taxed.