Court Opinion

ID: 9514489
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:49:55.21327+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:18.243157
License: Public Domain

SABERS, Justice
(concurring specially).
[¶ 31.] I fully agree that we should affirm the circuit court’s dismissal.
[1132.] I write specially to note that the majority opinion seems to unduly narrow the circumstances under which eoram nobis is the appropriate remedy. This is contrary to the letter and spirit of coram nobis as expressed by Justice Wollman in In re Brockmueller, 374 N.W.2d 135, 137, 138-39 (S.D.1985):
Generally, this extraordinary writ is only available to attack convictions involving collateral legal disadvantages which survive the satisfaction of a sentence.
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The state further argues that coram nobis is inapplicable in this case as the writ is available to redress only errors of fact and not of law. We hold, however, that coram nobis encompasses legal errors of constitutional significance such as jurisdictional defects ....
The error presented in this case is of the fundamental nature contemplated by co-ram nobis. To allow a felony conviction to stand when it is based upon void convictions would be an injustice of the first magnitude.
(Wollman, J., delivering the majority opinion) (citations omitted); accord State v. Davis, 515 N.W.2d 205, 208-09 (S.D.1994) (Sabers, J., dissenting); In re Nilles, 412 N.W.2d 116, 119 (S.D.1987) (Sabers, J., concurring in re-*881suit); Moeller v. Solem, 395 N.W.2d 165, 166 (S.D.1986) (Sabers, J., concurring specially).