Court Opinion

ID: 9728781
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:16:21.523711+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:52.026484
License: Public Domain

ZASTROW, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
SDCL 23-43-28 provides that the defendant is entitled to twenty peremptory challenges where the maximum imprisonment for an offense is life imprisonment. The opinion points out that the habitual criminal statutes do not create an offense but are authorized enhanced punishment for the underlying crime.
In this case the possible enhanced penalty for the underlying crime is life imprisonment. It is illogical to say that the maximum punishment for the underlying crime is less than life in determining the number of peremptory challenges, but the maximum punishment is life imprisonment when it is time to sentence the defendant.
The fact that the statutes provide for the hearing on the habitual criminal allegation after a conviction on the underlying crime does not alter the fact that the possible maximum penalty is life imprisonment. There are other crimes which provide a *841possible maximum penalty of life imprisonment, however, the fact that the sentence allowed may be less than life imprisonment (e. g., where there may be lesser included crimes) is not grounds to allow less than 20 peremptory challenges. This situation here is no different; the fact that the sentence allowed may be less than life imprisonment because an inability to establish three prior felony convictions does not alter the fact that at the time of the jury selection the possible maximum sentence is life imprisonment. Twenty peremptory challenges are allowed by statute and should have been granted.