Court Opinion

ID: 9735819
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:31:55.60975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:27:01.846409
License: Public Domain

SABERS, Justice
(concurring in part and concurring in result in part).
I write again to point out that habeas-corpus reaches jurisdictional error, constitutional error, all “causes” listed in SDCL 21-27-16(1) through (7), and other illegal detentions, including those resulting from failure to comply with “substantive statutory procedures.” Security Sav. Bank v. Mueller, 308 N.W.2d 761, 762 (S.D.1981). See also my special concurrences in Everitt v. Solem, 412 N.W.2d 119, 123 (S.D.1987); Podoll v. Solem, 408 N.W.2d 759, 761 (S.D.1987); and in Goodroad v. Solem, 406 N.W.2d 141, 146 (S.D.1987).
SDCL 21-27-16(3) provides that habeas corpus will lie “[wjhere the process is defective in some substantial form required by law[.]” SDCL 23A-7-16 provides that a guilty but mentally ill plea cannot be received absent a showing of a factual basis from which the trial judge can conclude the defendant was mentally ill at the time of the offense.
Habeas corpus is the proper remedy here because this is a claim that the process was defective in a substantial form required by law. To hold otherwise is equivalent to “judicially” writing SDCL 21-27-16(3) completely out of the habeas corpus statute. SDCL 21-27-16. Therefore, this claim must be examined on its merits. However, when examined on its merits, it does not warrant reversal because the showing of a factual basis was sufficient, though barely.