Court Opinion

ID: 9728854
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:17:47.551012+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:52.567035
License: Public Domain

ZASTROW, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent.
The majority finds that the testimony and comments on defendant’s refusal to submit to a breathalyzer is error, but because of the evidence, the error was harmless. All of the evidence, with the exception of the breathalyzer results, is not substantially different from that in State v. Oswald, S.D., 241 N.W.2d 566 (1976). The effect of the majority opinion is to raise a second presumption, i. e., if a defendant convicted of DWI had blood or breath test results of .19% or more, any error committed at the trial will be harmless because the same verdict would undoubtedly be reached at a new trial. I am aware of enough acquittals in DWI prosecutions where similar, or higher, test results were admitted that I cannot agree that the same verdict would result. The prosecutor here certainly found the refusal important enough to risk error in its admission and comments thereon.