Court Opinion

ID: 9717769
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:10:04.388825+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:55.258453
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(concurring in result).
Although I concur in the result of this decision, I would reverse for a different reason.
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*583The State Legislature was not mandated by the federal government to create judges in South Dakota to usurp judicial functions. The State Legislature cannot confer upon any agency a power which is granted unto the courts by the state constitution. In effect, the State Legislature attempted to grant jurisdiction of child support to a new group of judges in this state. If this is sustainable in law, then an amendment by the State Legislature could further empower the DSS to determine child custody. Through the state constitution, state statutes,2 and decisions of this Court, the judiciary has been entrusted to be the guardians of children and to protect their welfare. Houghton v. Houghton, 37 S.D. 184, 188, 157 N.W. 316, 317 (1916) (calling children “wards” of the court). Our courts have a very special and awesome responsibility for the care and welfare of children. Blare v. Blare, 302 N.W.2d 787, 791-92 (S.D.1981) (citing Houghton, 157 N.W. at 317). This new statutory scheme, begotten initially by federal government dollars, thrusts upon the people of South Dakota more “Sta-tism,” and a further opportunity for breakdown in the family unit. The courts exist for the wronged and the oppressed to flee; if state statutes abdicate the courts’ responsibilities over children, and a government agency is substituted as Taskmaster/Father/Judge over children, where shall fathers and mothers flee?
No new body of case law on these guidelines would ever be created by this writer until the decision-making process on child support was cleaned up in the statutes of this state. The present scheme of the statutes is an unholy mixture and marriage between the judicial branch and the DSS, all fashioned by the supposed direction of the federal government. It is a wrongful dejudicialization of the judiciary.
The responsibility of the office held by this special writer far transcends the responsibility of the brief writer. When matters of great import reach this Court which vitally affect the superstructure of state government, a duty calls. Although the brief writer desired to abandon the subject of this dissent, I cannot close my eyes because of his decision. His decision belongs, uniquely, to him, and mine belongs uniquely to me. Therefore, for this special writer to raise this issue, and to present it to the Bench, Bar, and students of the law in this state, is not an individual tenet fashioned instanter.3 Nay, in Bayer v. Johnson, 349 N.W.2d 447 (S.D. 1984), then Chief Justice Jon Fosheim wrote:
There is good authority that where the appellate court has jurisdiction on other grounds it may decide a constitutional question on its own motion. This is especially true when the constitutional question is decisive of the appeal, ... or when the point is one of law and not dependent on facts that might have been presented below had the point been there raised.
State officials, including supreme court justices, are by constitutional mandate required to take an oath or affirmation to support the constitution of this state. S.D. Const. Art. XXI, § 3_ We would be less than supportive if we failed to meet that which is constitutionally offensive.
Bayer, 349 N.W.2d at 449-50 (citations omitted). This rationale was supported by a quotation from Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 179-80, 2 L.Ed. 60, 74 *584(1803), the seminal case establishing the doctrine of judicial review, where John Marshall wrote that the framers of the (federal) Constitution contemplated that instrument as a rule by which the courts, as well as the legislature, would be governed. Bayer, 349 N.W.2d at 450. This Court has continued to recognize the “sua sponte” concept in State v. Jones, 406 N.W.2d 366, 368 (S.D.1987) (“[T]his court has held it may decide a constitutional question sua sponte.”), and State v. Bonrud, 393 N.W. 2d 785, 787 (S.D. 1986) (“Although appellant does not challenge the constitutionality of the search per se, we may raise constitutional issues sua sponte”). Therefore, our State Legislature cannot simply do what it chooses to do because the constitution governs its rule-making conduct and law-making power.
As Chief Justice Wuest recently wrote, in a special concurrence to an opinion authored by this special writer, “[w]e are a government of checks and balances with the separation of powers among the executive, legislative, and judiciary.” Roden v. Solem, 411 N.W.2d 421, 422 (S.D. 1987). Now, the constitutional boundaries are becoming blurred. One branch should not be permitted to encroach on the other and in the negation of this blurring encroachment, I abide.

. It is the circuit court which possesses chancery as well as common-law jurisdiction, SDCL 16-6-8; and under SDCL 16-6-9, the circuit court has exclusive original jurisdiction of all actions or proceedings in chancery, to include actions for divorce and annulment of marriage. Example; Entire SDCL ch. 2S-9A, entitled "Revised Reciprocal Enforcement of Support,” all triggered in the circuit court. SDCL 25-9A-l. Example: Child support payments made through clerk of courts, per SDCL 25-4-43: "[Wjhen the court has provided for the maintenance of the children of the marriage_” (Emphasis added.) Example: Basic statute on child custody provisions in an action for divorce, SDCL 25-4-45, empowering "the court" to give direction for the custody, care, and education of the children of the marriage, and to "modify” the same.

. A voice of dissent on this sweeping change might also be heard in the halls of the State Legislature. For, sifter all, has that body not created a committee, by state statute, for the very purpose of reviewing the decisions of this Court? See SDCL 2-9-4(8).