Court Opinion

ID: 9738123
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:43:13.591688+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:03.853766
License: Public Domain

MILLER, Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur.
This case points out the important necessity for our trial courts to religiously utilize arraignment checklists. It is seldom that we are able to hold that failure to fully advise a defendant of his Boykin/Nachti-gall rights does not result in a constitutionally infirm arraignment. Here, the collective circumstances of proceedings in multiple actions resulted in an adequate result, albeit far from perfect. The trial judges *719here are competent and experienced, not to mention most judicially active. It is incumbent upon all judges, irrespective of the frequency of their arraignment tasks, to follow their arraignment checklists to assure that all salient rights are completely explained.
Secondly, as briefly alluded to by the majority, it was not error for the habe-as corpus trial court to receive into evidence transcripts of the prior proceedings. Admittedly, the circumstances were unusual — namely, that the transcripts were received at a non-reported (for some unexplained reason) hearing, two weeks following the principal hearing on the petition. However, as a practical matter, it was not necessary for the court to receive these transcripts into evidence, since they were part of the court’s own records of which it could properly take judicial notice. Although some of the delay was caused by the time it took for the court reporter to transcribe the notes, that is irrelevant. In many other circuits in this state it is the better practice to routinely transcribe and file all felony arraignments and sentenc-ings so that the transcripts are immediately available for review in any subsequent inquiry.
Lastly, the state’s attorney’s failure to fulfill his duties under SDCL 21-27-9.3 is very serious. The record is unclear as to his reasons for not complying with the statute. Although his inaction could have resulted in some type of sanction upon him or his office, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying petitioner’s motion.