Court Opinion

ID: 9724342
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:53:38.659923+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:59.516482
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(specially concurring).
In concurring to the majority opinion in chief, it is my opinion that Judge Zinter, acting as a commissioner, must now proceed to have a hearing, prepare his findings, and file them pursuant to SDCL 21-32-7. When he has accomplished this — the State of South Dakota is still not liable for a penny to Moeller. His findings are advisory only. South Dakota, and its people, are only liable to that extent which the State Legislature determines in the 1992 Legislative Assembly. The 1992 State Legislature may compromise, settle, or reject Moeller’s claim.
We are not confronted with a Henny-Penny, catastrophic situation. The sky has not fallen because this walnut dropped into the South Dakota Supreme Court.
Plausible it is not — to hold that the one-year statute of limitations via SDCL 21-32-2 commences on a damage claim prior to the date the conviction was vacated by Judge McKeever — when no valid damage claim can be made before that time — for such a conclusion would run afoul of the constitutional infirmities of the statute of limitations struck down in Daugaard v. Baltic Co-op. Bldg. Supply Ass’n., 349 N.W.2d 419 (S.D.1984).