Court Opinion

ID: 9719086
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:42:10.942086+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:04.567170
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I agree that his Eighth Amendment rights against cruel punishments were not violated. Reed has a long history of mental illness and it will take, unquestionably, years of intensive mental therapy to alleviate or cure his mental illness.
Insofar as the lengthy sentence is concerned, in isolation of that issue alone, I cannot disagree with rationale of the circuit judge to both help this man and to keep him away from his defenseless prey. Our GBMI statutes of this state are badly in need of due process correction. In my opinion, which I have expressed before, they are unconstitutional. See, State v. Robinson, 399 N.W.2d 324 (S.D.1987); Henderson, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part in which Sabers, J., joined; Robinson v. Solem, 432 N.W.2d 246 (S.D. 1988); Morgan, J., concurring in part and concurring in result in part; Henderson, J., dissenting and Sabers, J., concurring in result and dissenting in part. Tacitly, the majority opinion approves of the constitutionality of the GBMI statutes of this state. I cannot. And realize that I am entrenched in a minority viewpoint.