Court Opinion

ID: 9670514
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:21:52.869434+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:51:18.378192
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(dissenting).
The Circuit Courts of this State are given the power to suspend imposition or execution of sentences by the South Dakota Constitution art. V, § 5. It is not a power that is inherent within the Courts or the Legislature. State v. Marshall, 247 N.W.2d 484 (S.D.1976).
As I have oft expressed since seated on this Court, the Constitution is the mother law and it takes precedence over every legal treatise, law article, statute, regulation, or the statement (oral or written) of a judge.
S.D. Const, art. V, § 5, provides in part: “Imposition or execution of a sentence may be suspended by the court empowered to impose the sentence unless otherwise provided by law.” (Emphasis supplied.) This latter clause obviously refers to a state statute. And at the time of sentencing of this appellant, there was no statute which allowed incarceration in the South Dakota State Penitentiary as a condition of suspension. It is true, that at the time of sentencing, South Dakota did have a statute on its books which allowed incarceration in a county jail for up to 60 days as a condition of suspended sentence. SDCL 23A-27-18.1. No statutory authority existed for incarceration in the Penitentiary as part of a suspended sentence when this appellant was sentenced on May 4, 1982.
As pointed out by the majority opinion, a 1983 amendment to SDCL 23A-27-18.1 changed the law to not only permit imprisonment in the county jail for a period not to exceed 180 days but also imprisonment in the State Penitentiary for a specific period not to exceed 60 days.
Be mindful that the sentencing judge, in 1982, sentenced this appellant to three years in the State Penitentiary with two years of the sentence suspended, or a net sentence to the State Penitentiary of one year. To this very day, there is no statute “otherwise provided by law” to our state constitution which permits any imprisonment in the State Penitentiary of one year via a suspended sentencing process. The limit, to this day, is 60 days in the State Penitentiary.
The sentencing judge’s sentence was unlawful because it was not authorized by state statute and it caused the imprisonment of appellant absent specific authority. As for plain error, a circuit court judge can only sentence pursuant to statute, no matter how creative he might desire his sentence to be. This Court has recently condemned creative sentencing which exceeds statutory boundaries. State v. Griffee, 331 N.W.2d 576 (S.D.1983). Here, the statutory boundary was 60 days in the county jail. Clearly — plainly, the circuit court exceeded its jurisdiction. The sentencing court mistakenly sentenced this appellant. The South Dakota Supreme Court has held that mistaken interpretations of South Dakota *695statutes substantially affected the rights of defendants. State v. Bunnell, 324 N.W.2d 418 (S.D.1982); State v. Brammer, 304 N.W.2d 111 (S.D.1981). I can imagine no more greater error or plain error than to put a man in the State Penitentiary under a suspended sentence for an entire period of one year of his life when there is absolutely no law which permits it. To countenance this obvious sentencing error, as not being plain error, is to create a broad expanse of uncertainty and unpredictability for the legal community in the future. For indeed, an error might be an error as a rose is a rose, but when may it be dubbed a “plain error” which affects substantial rights?
Therefore, appellant has the right to invoke the plain error doctrine before this Court and to use it, and the mother constitution, as a means to unburden himself from an illegal yoke of restraint. I would reverse. I would favorably grant this appeal, pointing out that the circuit judge hearing the revocation proceeding was not the original sentencing judge, and direct that an order of remedial fulfillment be entered forthwith granting appellant his freedom from and quashing the illegal sentence. I further highlight that this appellant has not contended he is innocent of escape. Rather, he pleaded guilty to escape from the State Penitentiary Farm Facility in Yankton, South Dakota, and was sentenced to three and one-half years in the State Penitentiary and confined under that conviction. His good time should be computed upon his escape conviction to determine his eligibility date for parole.