Court Opinion

ID: 9658023
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:44:10.342036+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:49.087801
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(concurring).
In concurring with this opinion, I wish to direct the reader’s attention to Northwest S.D. Production Credit Ass’n v. Dale, 361 N.W.2d 275 (S.D.1985), which sets forth an additional graphic factual background leading to this criminal action.
As a matter of humanity, I wish to express that Trooper Murphy, who was an expert in defensive tactics and described as a marshall arts instructor, and who was specially selected to aid Jerry Baum, Director of the South Dakota Highway Patrol, to subdue Dale, should not have used a ketchup bottle to strike Dale on the forehead inflicting gashes on his face.* Director Baum and Trooper Murphy had agreed, before Dale waved them to come into the house and sit at the kitchen table, that Murphy was to make the first move and strike the first blow. In Murphy’s expertise, there should have been some maneuver, other than employing a ketchup bottle, to render Dale under the control of law enforcement. It is noted that after Dale was struck on the forehead with a tremendous blow by the ketchup bottle, a struggle ensued between Dale, Trooper Murphy, and Director Baum.
The State of South Dakota did have a valid court order and law enforcement officials were acting pursuant thereto. The ketchup bottle blow and the ensuing struggle were subsequent events; the only question presented by this appeal was if there existed sufficient evidence in the record to support the convictions. Dale’s appeal to the circuit court was, essentially, a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence and our scope of review is confined to those challenges.

*816

 See photos of Dale, Defendant’s Exhibits A and B, attached hereto and by this reference made a part hereof.