Court Opinion

ID: 9584540
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:49:43.010002+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:08:23.561698
License: Public Domain

WOLLMAN, Justice
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I agree with the majority opinion’s dispositions of issues I and VIII.
I do not agree, however, that SDCL 7-16-23, as amended in 1977, prohibits a part-time state’s attorney from receiving extra compensation for legal services performed under a contract with his county.
*769Prior to the 1977 amendment, SDCL 7-16-23 provided:
It shall not be competent or lawful for the board of county commissioners to give or pay any fees or costs or any part thereof to such state’s attorney as part of his salary or in addition to his salary.
This statute was amended in 1977, and again in 1978, to permit part-time state’s attorneys to receive fees and costs for prosecuting child support enforcement cases. These amendments were made necessary, of course, as a result of federal legislation that authorized reimbursement to those states that participated in federal programs designed to enforce more aggressively the child support obligations imposed by law upon parents. See SDCL 28-7-17.1. The amendments were necessary because the prosecution of child support actions has been one of the duties of state’s attorneys in this state. See SDCL 7-16-13; SDCL 25-7-16; and SDCL 25-9A-11.
When thus read, the 1977 and 1978 amendments to SDCL 7-16-23 really did nothing to change the duties imposed upon state’s attorneys by SDCL 7-16-9. As this court held in State v. Marshall County, 14 S.D. 149, 84 N.W. 775 (1900), the predecessor of SDCL 7-16-9 required a state’s attorney to represent his county only in the courts within his county. Subsequently, several Attorneys General ruled that extra compensation to a state’s attorney for representing his county outside of his county, in this court, or in federal court was not precluded by the predecessor of SDCL 7-16-9. See 1927-1928 Biennial Rep.S.D. Att’y Gen. 56; 1929-1930 Biennial Rep.S.D. Att’y Gen. 266; 1929-1930 Biennial Rep. S.D. Att’y Gen. 285; 1937-1938 Biennial Rep.S.D. Att’y Gen. 522; 1943-1944 Biennial Rep.S.D. Att’y Gen. 356; 1959-1960 Biennial Rep.S.D. Att’y Gen. 377.
Upon the basis of the holding in State v. Marshall County, supra, I would hold that the above cited opinions of the Attorney General set forth the correct interpretation of SDCL 7-16-9 and that nothing in SDCL 7-16-23, as amended in 1977 and in 1978, precluded the county commissioners of Tripp County from entering into the contract in question.
Although under my view of the case it would not be necessary for us to consider the constitutionality of House Bill 1266, I agree with the majority opinion that Section 7 of that bill was enacted in violation of South Dakota Constitution Art. Ill, § 21.
I am hereby authorized to state that HENDERSON, J., joins in this concurrence in part and dissent in part.