Court Opinion

ID: 9583669
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:41:00.880812+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:33.661513
License: Public Domain

SABERS, Justice
(special concurrence).
I agree with the majority on all issues. As to Issue III, I am satisfied from the evidence that, at the point when the trial court intervened, the state had not “failed to prove its case” as indicated in the special concurrence. Instead, at the time of the trial court’s intervention, there was evidence in the record to support the elements necessary for a conviction. I agree with the majority that the additional questions clarified the victim’s use of certain slang terminology in describing the incidents of sexual contact, identification and venue. See State v. Lien, 305 N.W.2d 388 (S.D.1981) in which this court stated that a trial court may question witnesses to “clarify evidence.” Id. at 389-90. Here, there was testimony in the record that sexual contacts between the defendant and the victim occurred within Moody County, South Dakota.
The key point is that there was evidence in the record on these matters. The trial court did nothing more than “ ‘take reasonable measures to insure that the evidence [was] intelligibly presented to the jury.’ ... The questions propounded and the answers elicited were little more than clarifications of the evidence being presented.” Lien at 389-90 (citation omitted). Therefore, the trial court’s intervention did not “establish the crucial elements which were [claimed to be] previously omitted.”