Court Opinion

ID: 9737974
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:38:53.089898+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:02.981123
License: Public Domain

DUNN, Chief Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur that the case should be reversed and a jury trial granted. I would prefer to do so on the reasoning of Baker v. City of Fairbanks, 1970, Alaska, 471 P.2d 386, in which the Alaska Supreme Court held that: “In extending the right to jury trial, we define the category of ‘criminal’ prosecutions as including any offense a direct penalty for which may be incarceration in a jail or penal institution.” The Baker opinion was based on a provision in the Alaska Constitution similar to § 7, Article IV of our Constitution, and dealt directly with the violation of a municipal ordinance.
I realize that this view is not in accord with South Dakota case law and, further, that it is not dictated by the decisions of the United States Supreme Court interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment; however, I have long harbored the opinion that there was nothing “quasi” about the cells in a city jail, and that they deprive a person of his liberty as effectively as any other prison where a person has been placed as a result of a “criminal” offense.