Court Opinion

ID: 9732706
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:32:29.589129+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:31.782182
License: Public Domain

*418WOLLMAN, Justice
(concurring specially).
I would reverse the conviction on the ground that defendant was entitled to a jury trial based on our decision in City of Brookings v. Roberts, 88 S.D. 623, 226 N.W.2d 380. I would hold that our decision in the Roberts case is retroactive to the extent that it applies to all cases raising the issue of the right to jury trial for violation of a municipal ordinance in which the appeal had been perfected prior to our decision in Roberts. See De Stefano v. Woods, 392 U.S. 631, 88 S.Ct. 2093. 20 L.Ed.2d 1308.
I take this position for three reasons: First, in his letters to the Chief Justice, dated April 29 and May 8, 1975, which are part of the Clerk’s official file in this case, the Assistant City Attorney in effect confessed error on the part of the City on the issue of jury trial and agreed that the conviction should be reversed on that issue alone. That is why the City did not file a brief in response to defendant’s brief.
Second, I think it has been our longstanding policy not to reach constitutional questions if there is any legitimate way to dispose of a case on any other grounds. See, e. g., Aberdeen Ed. Assn. v. Aberdeen Bd. of Education, 88 S.D. 127, 215 N.W.2d 837; House of Seagram, Inc. v. Assam Drug Co., 83 S.D. 320, 159 N.W.2d 210.
Third, I cannot agree that SDCL 9-19-4 violates either Art. VI, § 18 of the South Dakota Constitution or the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. How can it be said that SDCL 9-19-4 grants any citizen, class of citizens or corporation any privilege or immunity so long as all citizens and corporations are subject to the same maximum possible penalty for violation of an ordinance within a municipality having a municipal court? By the same reasoning, how can any citizen or corporation complain that he or it is being denied equal protection of law so long as everyone similarly situated, i. e., everyone violating a municipal ordinance within a municipality having a municipal court, is subject to the same maximum possible penalty? As this court stated in State v. King, “Equal protection of the law requires that the rights of every person must be governed by the same rule of law under *419similar circumstances * * 82 S.D. 514, 516, 149 N.W.2d 509, 510 (emphasis added).
Even though I do not think it is necessary to reach the issue, I think there was clearly a rational basis upon which the legislature decided to grant enhanced penalty powers to cities having municipal courts. SDCL 16-11-8 provides that the judge of a municipal court must be an attorney at law licensed to practice in the courts of this state and shall have been engaged in active practice of law in this state for at least one year next preceding his election. Thus the penalty powers granted to cities in which municipal courts were established were commensurate with the legal qualifications of the judges of those courts. Implicit in SDCL 16-11-2 and SDCL 9-19-4 is the legislative recognition that cities falling within the classification set forth in 16-11-2 might very well have problems not existing in the small municipalities that would require enhanced penalty provisions in their municipal ordinances. That to me is a logical explanation of why when the jurisdiction of certain of the municipal courts was transferred to the district county courts by SDCL 16-9-31 (Ch. 145, § 1, Laws of 1968), no change was made in the penalty powers given to smaller municipalities.
Because it is not necessary to do so in order to resolve this case, I would not wander into the morass of the equal protection argument. Let us grapple with that question only when there is no alternative ground upon which to dispose of a case.
■I am authorized to state that Justice COLER joins in this special concurrence.