Court Opinion

ID: 9705906
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:26:16.082645+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:26:11.971373
License: Public Domain

PORTER, Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur in the opinion of Chief Justice Dunn and add the following:
The general public has a vital interest in seeing that persons charged with crime are promptly brought to trial. Speedy trial of those charged leads to prompt imposition of sentence upon those convicted. This brings a greater respect for law by the public generally, and heightens the deterrent effect of laws prohibiting criminal conduct.
Correspondingly, each person charged with crime is, under our system, presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and a speedy trial affords one wrongly charged the prompt vindication which should follow if the charge made is unproven.
As Justice Winans wrote in State v. Starnes, 86 S.D. 636, 200 N.W.2d 244 (1972), quoting from the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Klopfer v. North Carolina, 386 U.S. 213, 87 S.Ct. 988, 18 L.Ed.2d 1:
“The history of the right to a speedy trial and its reception in this country clearly establish that it is one of the most basic rights preserved by our Constitution.” Id., 386 U.S. at 226, 87 S.Ct. at 995, 18 L.Ed.2d at 9.
Justice Winans in Starnes refers also to Article VI, § 7 of the South Dakota Constitution which likewise guarantees the right “ . to a speedy public trial by an impartial jury . . . ” and to the fact that the South Dakota Legislature recognized speedy trial as one of the basic rights of a defendant, in adopting SDCL 23-2-11. Only if we enforce that right with unmistakable firmness will our state criminal justice system respond statewide, by affording, in future criminal cases, the speedy trial which is in the- public interest of seeing the prompt conviction and punishment of those who violate the criminal law and in the individual interest of each person against whom a criminal charge is made.
Significantly, the majority opinion of the court in this case, authored by the Chief Justice, makes clear that a positive duty rests upon the trial judge to act affirmatively to implement the speedy trial requirement. Once the information is filed in circuit court or the pending criminal action is otherwise brought into circuit court, the court from that time on may properly upon its own motion take such steps in open court as are required to insure compliance with the constitutional right of speedy trial.