Court Opinion

ID: 9656392
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:47:43.196525+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:32.176070
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(specially concurring).
Can one trial judge enter findings of fact and conclusions of law for another trial judge when he has not heard the testimony nor observed the witnesses? Obviously, he cannot. Credibility is at issue. Here, trial judge number two was in no position to enter findings of fact and conclusions of law for trial judge number one. Trial judge number two was in a no-win situation as his predecessor had not entered and filed findings of fact and conclusions of law except for this salient fact: he could have granted the motion for a new suppression hearing and thereupon entered and filed findings of fact and conclusions of law based upon the evidence before him. Instead, he denied appellant the right to relit-igate anew the motion to suppress thereby leaving the record devoid of any type of ruling on the motion to suppress. This being error, I join in reversal.
We must remember that the second trial had to be conducted de novo because a new trial was granted due to a hung jury in the first trial. The law of the case doctrine is not applicable where the trial court grants a new trial; and, furthermore, rulings of the court at the former trial are not binding on the court at the second trial. See 66 C.J.S. New Trial § 226 (1950) and SDCL 23A-29-2. Hence, I would reverse on the error of trial judge number two (rather than focus on trial judge number one’s action) in refusing to grant a new suppression hearing on the evidence sought to be introduced at the new trial. There was simply no determination that the confession was given knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily. State v. Lyons, 269 N.W.2d 124 (S.D. 1978). Appellant’s pretrial motion to suppress in-court and out-of-court identification of him by the victim was also summarily denied without hearing. No hearing at all is hardly due process.
As an academic premise, I believe that the holding in State v. Thundershield, 83 S.D. 414, 422, 160 N.W.2d 408, 412 (1968) has been somewhat eroded but surely not in its entirety. Thundershield was the seminal case in this jurisdiction on the issue of proof in an independent hearing, on a motion to suppress, outside the presence of a jury. Its holding was reiterated in State v. Kiehn, 86 S.D. 549, 199 N.W.2d 594 (1972). Then followed State v. Stumes, 90 S.D. 382, 241 N.W.2d 587 (1976) and State v. Lewis, 90 S.D. 615, 244 N.W.2d 307, 310 (1976). In State v. Lufkins, 309 N.W.2d 331 (S.D.1981) where there was no motion to suppress, we *530held that Stumes was inapposite for Stumes involved a motion to suppress. Certainly, however, we determined in Lufkins that the facts therein fell within the purview of the holding in Pinto v. Pierce, 389 U.S. 31, 33, 88 S.Ct. 192, 193-194, 19 L.Ed.2d 31, 33 (1967). And we noted in Lufkins that the United States Supreme Court had recently declined to rule that a defendant has a per se due process right to an independent hearing on the issue of a statement’s voluntariness. Watkins v. Sowders, 449 U.S. 341, 101 S.Ct. 654, 66 L.Ed.2d 549 (1981). Subsequent to Lufkins, we addressed a motion to suppress in State v. Hintz, 318 N.W.2d 915 (S.D.1982). These authorities are chronologically set forth to assist the reader in a historical development of the growth of law on this subject.
Lastly, I do not precipitately bind myself to any affirmance as it appears that the appellant has preserved other alleged errors which call upon this court to rule thereon whatever the outcome of the rulings below evolving from this opinion.