Court Opinion

ID: 9724354
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:53:52.643109+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:59.602427
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(specially concurring).
ISSUE ONE
In joining the majority on issue one, I do not wish to forsake my dissent in State v. Likness, 386 N.W.2d 42, 46 (S.D.1986). Therein, five reasons were expressed for the rule forbidding more than one crime being charged in a single count:
(1) To assure that the person charged is sufficiently notified of the charge;
(2) To protect that person so charged against double jeopardy;
(3) To avoid prejudice and confusion which would naturally arise as evidentia-ry rulings are required during trial;
(4) To assure that the person charged is sentenced only for the crime charged; and lastly,
(5) To guarantee jury unanimity.
This position is supported by United States v. Alsobrook, 620 F.2d 139 (6th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 843, 101 S.Ct. 124, 66 L.Ed.2d 51 (1980).
Gehrke recognizes in his brief that SDCL 22-18-1.1 is written in the disjunctive. In Kleinsasser, cited by the majority opinion, you will find this additional statement:
... it has been held to be fatal to charge disjunctively in the words of the statute if the disjunctive in the averment leaves it uncertain which of the several alternatives is meant. [Footnotes omitted] 41 Am.Jur.2d Indictments and Informations, Section 96, page 939.
An indictment or information should not charge a party disjunctively, so as to leave it uncertain what is relied on as the accusation against him, unless such form of indictment is authorized by statute, as where the disjunctive offenses are of the same character and subject to the same punishment. [Footnote omitted] Id. at Section 214, page 1012. (emphasis supplied mine).
The disjunctive language was, in this case, taken directly from the statute. But here, most importantly, to avoid any transgression of (1) and (2) cited above, Gehrke was actually and formally charged with physically assaulting the officer by fist and foot. Gehrke knew, ab initio, the offense of which he was charged and so did the jury.
ISSUE TWO
Do special writings or dissents serve a purpose? *
Justice Wollman’s dissent in Myers, in which I joined, establishes that they accomplish — a good purpose — oftentimes.
Lest there be any watered-down version of the purport of his writing, regarding the enhancement issue, I quote the pertinent part of it:
I do not agree, however, with the holding that the September 2, 1981, conviction could be used to enhance the penalty for a conviction resulting from an offense that occurred prior to the September 2, 1981, conviction. SDCL 32-23-4.1 *728speaks of convictions occurring prior to the date of the violation being charged, not to the date of the plea or conviction on the currently charged violation.
This dissent still finds favor with me and I cannot outright concur herein as the majority seeks to (a) use it, obliquely, as an expression of some kind of authority but (b) disregard it by attempting to distinguish it and (c) use a Wisconsin Supreme Court case, with approval, which would contravene Justice Wollman’s writing which I joined in 1984 and still believe in.
Layton, a 1983 unanimous opinion, authored by this special writer, and Grooms, a 1983 unanimous opinion authored by my departed and beloved colleague, Justice Dunn, charted the road for the majority’s decision on issue two. Those two decisions begot the underpinning for the primary rationale of the majority decision and, thus, stare decisis in South Dakota upon which this case is now founded, thereby following the majority of the decisions in the United States. From Isaiah 28:9-10, it is learned: “Whom shall he teach knowledge? And whom shall he make understand doctrine? Those who are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts? For precept must be built upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.” So, likewise, it is in the legal world. Law is a learning, building process.
Essentially, I agree, quite simply, upon the premise that Gehrke was sentenced under the habitual offender statute, SDCL 22-7-7, when it did not apply to him. He must be resentenced as a first offender.

 Foolish are those who believe they only engender strife. Their seed does bear fruit — sometimes.