JUDGES BENCHED IN DAKOTA

SOUTH DAKOTA BALLOT INITIATIVE HAS CROOKED JUDGES QUAKING

By Mark Anderson

On Nov. 7, the South Dakota Judicial Accountability Initiative, otherwise known as Amendment E, will be on the statewide ballot. So far, say pollsters, there is a good chance that voters in the Mount Rushmore State will approve the proposed state constitutional amendment, designed to ensure the integrity of the legal system there by creating a special grand jury to oversee it.

On the ballot, it’s charmingly referred to as the Judicial Accountability Initiative Law, or JAIL Amendment. Organizer Bill Stegmeier told AFP that in a Sept. 20 Zogby Poll in South Dakota, 67% of respondents favored the initiative, with 20% against it and 13% undecided.

The central problem today, as Stegmeier and other amendment backers see it, is that there is nothing in place to independently and objectively hold judges accountable, especially in terms of following proper court procedures to ensure that trials are fair. Stegmeier told AFP that many judges abuse defendants’ rights by preventing them from calling key witnesses or presenting crucial evidence.

The JAIL Amendment is designed to make the state’s judicial branch of government answerable and accountable to an entity other than itself, according to a passage on the amendment backers’ web site, sdja.net

Stegmeier said the current system has produced horror stories. He cited the case of a Sioux Falls, S.D., man involved in a complex case, who was convicted of three counts of possession of stolen equipment at his storage facility and was railroaded into a sentence of 15 years behind bars—per count. This travesty occurred because the court was stacked against the defendant. The owner of the stored equipment, said Stegmeier, who could have explained the whole thing, was not even allowed to testify for the defense. According to Stegmeier, Amendment E is breaking new ground.

“This is the first time in history that someone has got something like this on the ballot anywhere,” he told AFP, while noting that somewhat similar measures are likely to make the ballot in 2008 in other states, including Michigan.

In South Dakota, volunteers worked three months to gather enough signatures to help put Amendment E on the ballot. Organizers needed at least 33,456 valid signatures but ended up with 46,800.

Not surprisingly, a number of high-powered corporations and organizations have come out against the amendment. These include Citibank, which donated $50,000; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which donated $15,000; the insurance lobby; many prominent attorneys; and the South Dakota State Bar Association. In addition, all 105 South Dakota state legislators signed a resolution against it. Opponents even went so far as to set up a web site—no-on-e.com —attacking the measure.

The resolution, a copy of which was provided to AFP by Stegmeier, claims, among other things, that Amendment E would prohibit summary judgment, cited as a legal remedy for quickly and cheaply ridding courts of frivolous lawsuits.

The amendment would also permit convicted felons, whose convictions were Supreme Court-affirmed, to sue the prosecutors, jurors and judges who convicted them. The amendment has 23 planks. Number 2, an important South Dakota “for any deliberate violation of law, fraud or conspiracy, intentional violation of due process of law, deliberate disregard of material facts, judicial acts without jurisdiction, blocking of a lawful conclusion of a case, or any deliberate violation of the constitutions of South Dakota or the United States. . . .”

The resolution would create a 13-member special grand jury with statewide jurisdiction, independent of statutes governing county grand juries. This new body’s function largely would be limited to determining objectively whether any civil lawsuit against a judge is frivolous, or whether a given lawsuit falls within the “exclusions of immunity” spelled out above in plank 2.

The authors of the initiative contend that the state’s constitution “already provides for the Judicial Qualifications Commission, which hears complaints and investigates allegations of judicial misconduct,” as the resolution itself states.

The amendment also calls for deducting 1.9% from the gross salaries of all judges to fund the special grand jury. While various county commissions, the state legislature and school boards in South Dakota have gone on record opposing the amendment, some may be spending public funds to do so—despite the official opinion (opinion number 88-28) from the South Dakota attorney general in 1988, in a matter involving a local government, that public funds could not be used to take a stand on issues put before the
voters.

“Almost without exception, the cases disallow the use of public funds for advocacy by government institutions in support of one side of an issue before the voters,” wrote Roger Tellinghuisen, who served as attorney general in 1988, in the text of opinion 88-28, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.

The South Dakota State Bar plans to spend $1 million dollars or more to defeat Amendment E. “This came right out of the minutes of their December meeting, passed on to us by our attorney who receives the Bar’s newsletter,” reads a statement from the amendment backers’ web site.

The real reason why so many powerful organizations are dedicated to opposing the JAIL Amendment, Stegmeier told American Free Press, is because the proposed measure “turns power back to the people.” 

Watch AFP for updates on this and many other domestic issues from across the nation. AFP correspondent Mark Anderson can be contacted at
[email protected]. Readers can contact the SDJA at P.O. Box 412, Tea, S.D. 57064. To get updates on the amendment, please contact Jake Hanes at (605) 201-3960. To contact groups opposing the amendment, write to the No on E Committee, P.O. Box 814 Pierre, S.D. 57501.

(Issue #42, October 16, 2006)