Court Opinion

ID: 9712561
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:56:16.180322+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:13.025769
License: Public Domain

HANSON, J.
(special concurrence).
Both parties to this marriage were residents of South Dakota at the time defendant hus'bazid was c'onr victed of a felony in Minnesota. Such conviction, in my *207opinion, constituted ground for divorce under our law regardless of whether or not there was a comparable crime in this state.
In most states “conviction of a felony” or “imprisonment in a penal institution” is ground for divorce. Early statutory provisions generally restricted the “conviction” or “imprisonment” to the state of domicile. This is no longer true. Most states, like South Dakota, have broadened the scope of their statutes by removing territorial or comparative crimes restrictions .and now expressly, or by implication, recognize the conviction of a felony or imprisonment in another state as ground for divorce. This trend toward legislative liberalization is reflected in a survey of the divorce laws. Ait the present time the District of Columbia and 19 states, have a simple, broad and unrestrictive statute, similar to • our law, under which a divorce may be granted for the “conviction of a felony or other infamous crime”. In varying language 15 other states expressly authorize divorce for the conviction of a felony or imprisonment in “this or any other state”. Eight states do not recognize conviction of a felony or imprisonment as a ground for divorce. Only 5 state statutes are restrictive in nature such as limiting the imprisonment to “the state prison” and only the state of West Virginia limits divorces in that state to a sentence of imprisonment for crime, which is a felony under the laws of West Virginia.
The experience in other states where this subject has been judicially reviewed is interesting and reflects a nation-wide legislative intent to liberalize “conviction” or “imprisonment” as a ground for divorce. Under a Tennnessee statute authorizing a divorce for the conviction of any crime “which, by the laws of this State, is declared to be a felony” the Tennessee court denied a divorce to a wife whose husband had been convicted of a felony in Kentucky. Klutts v. Klutts, 5 Sneed 423, 37 Tenn. 423. In its opinion the court made the following pertinent observation: “We are reluctantly constrained to hold upon a fair *208construction of the act, that it can only be made to apply to convictions in this State. There can be no good reason why the provision should not be enlarged, so as to embrace other States, as the odium and disgrace of the offender is the same, whether the condemnation and punishment is in one State or another.” The act was subsequently amended in the Tennessee Code of 1932 by Section 8426 to read as follows: “Being convicted of a crime which, by the laws of the state, is declared to be a felony * *.” This amended statute was construed in a subsequent case to mean that conviction of a felony in any state was ground for divorce in Tennessee. Kimbro v. Kimbro, 191 Tenn. 316, 232 S.W.2d 354, 19 A.L.R.2d 1045.
Likewise the Mississippi Court construed “Being sentenced to the penitentiary” as a ground for divorce meant that the offending spouse must have been sentenced to the Mississippi penitentiary and not to the penitentiary of another state or country. Daughdrill v. Daughdrill, 180 Miss. 589, 178 So. 106, 107. The court said “We do not think that the Legislature intended to make incarceration in a penitentiary in another state or country a ground for divorce. The Legislature did not intend to recognize as felonies those offenses which might be established as such by another state or country * * However, following this decision the Legislature of Mississippi amended its law in this regard to read “Being sentenced to any penitentiary.” Sec. 2735, Mississippi Code of 1942, Vol. 2A. Recompiled.
Legislation on this subject in South Dakota has followed the national trend toward liberalization. Our early law authorized a divorce for imprisonment in this or any other territorial or state prison with the restrictive proviso that “Such crime or offence against the laws of such state, territory,, or District of Columbia, be of the same character or grade as is or may be, by the laws of this Territory, punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary.” Our legislature evidently intended to broaden the scope of our law by omitting the restrictive proviso with re*209ference to comparative crimes. Under the present law- a divorce may be granted in South Dakota for “conviction of felony”. Subsection 6, SDC 14.0703. There are no territorial or comparative crimes restrictions whatever.
I would therefore affirm on the broad ground that conviction of a felony in this, or any other state, constitutes ground for divorce under our statute. When the conviction is in a foreign state it is unnecessary to consider whether or not there is a comparable crime in this state.