Opinion ID: 1669274
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: sufficiency of evidencefirst-degree manslaughter

Text: Wilcox next argues that evidence was insufficient to support the conviction of first-degree manslaughter. Wilcox's brief, on this point, consists of approximately one page of double-spaced printed material. Wilcox's reply brief does not argue any law or facts on this issue. Therefore, digesting his one-page legal argument, boils down to the contention that the elements of SDCL 22-16-15(2) were not fulfilled by the facts of this case. He, essentially, argues that the level of barbarity necessary to sustain a conviction for manslaughter in the first degree, simply does not exist. SDCL 22-16-15(2) provides: Homicide is manslaughter in the first degree when perpetrated:       (2) Without a design to effect death, and in a heat of passion, but in a cruel and unusual manner[.] This Court recently considered the cruel and unusual aspect of manslaughter in State v. Jaques, 428 N.W.2d 260, 267 (S.D. 1988), also a first-degree manslaughter case: Sufficiency of trial evidence rests on whether the evidence, if believed by the jury, is sufficient to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Andrews, 393 N.W.2d 76, 80 (S.D.1986) (citing State v. Faehnrich, 359 N.W.2d 895 (S.D.1984)). The factual basis supporting a manslaughter charge grounded in a cruel and unusual manner must show that the killing was done with (some refinement or excess of cruelty sufficiently marked to approach barbarity, and to make it especially shocking....) State v. Lange, 82 S.D. 666, 671, 152 N.W.2d 635, 638 (1967) (citation omitted). While death from a single shove in a drunken street brawl is not cruel and unusual, a prolonged beating of a woman by a drunken defendant outweighing her by 100 pounds is sufficient to reach the jury on the point. Lange, id. In Jaques, clubbing and kicking a fully grown man who had started a fight, but became helpless, was sufficient for conviction. We judicially note the reference therein to a man beating a woman he outweighed by 100 pounds (in Lange ). Here, the victim was an innocent two-year-old child. Wilcox was a full-grown man. Sheena's statements, corroborated by bruising and autopsy results, together with an eyewitness account of Wilcox delivering a severe blow to Sheena, link Wilcox to a crime infinitely more brutal than Lange. Wilcox's beating upon this little girl was cruel and barbaric. It caused her death. Witness Pittenger, when asked how hard Wilcox struck Sheena, responded by stating I wouldn't hit my dog that hard. Pittenger had also testified, on other occasions, he witnessed Wilcox strike the child in the stomach. This transcript reveals that the blows were of such force that Sheena was knocked to the ground. We refuse to reverse the conviction of first-degree manslaughter on the basis of insufficient evidence.