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Category: Uncategorized
The 1990s Law That Keeps People in Prison on Technicalities
If you even half-paid attention in high school history class, you might be forgiven for thinking that federal courts are the most powerful courts in the land. After all, they’ve been responsible for landmark rulings about everything from abortion rights to school desegregation — disputes so well-known, the cases are household names: Roe v. Wade. Brown v. Board of Education. Despite those high-profile decisions, when it comes to protecting prisoners’ rights and avoiding executions of innocent people, the top courts in the land are oddly impotent.
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Sex crime conviction doesn’t require a victim, court rules in case stemming from sting operation during 2017 Sturgis motorcycle rally
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in South Dakota has ruled a sex crime conviction doesn’t require that there’s an actual victim.
The court last week upheld the conviction of a man stemming from a sting operation during the 2017 Sturgis motorcycle rally.
Counties Pledge to Break the Cycle Between Jail and Homelessness
San Francisco and Sioux Falls might seem to share little beyond an abbreviation, but the cities wrestle with a common problem: homelessness. In the Bay Area, a persistently high unhoused population has long been a municipal crisis. But shelters are near capacity in South Dakota’s largest city, too, and the growing number of unhoused people on the streets has emerged as an issue in the current mayoral race.
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Cryptocurrency is not actually perfectly designed for crime.
When the Justice Department announced in February that it had seized bitcoin worth $3.6 billion, it was more than just the largest recovery of alleged crime proceeds in U.S. history. It was the biggest signal yet that cryptocurrency, once seen as attractive to criminals for its supposed shield of anonymity, may not be so crime-friendly after all.
Just a few years ago, the federal government barely knew what to do with cryptocurrency. Now, most federal law enforcement agencies employ experts adept at tracing it. Investigators are using a new generation of sophisticated software that harnesses big data to link transactions to people, taking advantage of the fact that most cryptocurrency transactions are recorded in public ledgers that can never be erased.
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Vehicle Safety Standards, Crash Prevention & Increased Fatalities Addressed in Federal Law
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that became law in November 2021 not only lays out a spending plan for the repair of roads and bridges but also requires vehicle safety standard revisions and research as well as safety component additions over the next one to three years.
As attorney Michael R. Lemov points out in an opinion piece published by The Hill, the law within its 1,039 pages contains “little-noticed sections designed to implement a reduction in the rising toll of automobile crashes, deaths and injuries.”
Leaking SCOTUS draft opinion overturning Roe is not a crime, expert says
The stunning leak of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion has caused speculation that the person behind the leak could be held criminally liable, but one expert is skeptical the leak itself violates any laws.
“First, without more, I don’t think there is such a crime,” Orin Kerr, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said on Twitter Monday. “There are criminal laws against leaking classified information, of course. But draft opinions are not classified.”
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Abortion: What the potential overturn of Roe v. Wade means for SD
As the Supreme Court deliberates Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, states across the country are preparing for the possible overturn of the Roe v. Wade abortion ruling.
Over the past few months, state legislatures have passed a variety of restrictions in anticipation of the Dobbs decision. On Thursday, a federal judge blocked a 15-week abortion ban that included reporting requirements from clinics in the state. Kentucky’s two providers said they would not be able to comply with the new reporting guidelines and the ban would have effectively eliminated access to abortion in the state.
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Sex Crimes Defined in South Dakota
South Dakota has pages of statutes when it comes to crimes that will land someone on the sex offender registry.
But exactly how those intersect with daily life isn’t black and white.
Immigration: Lesterville Case Decision Touches On Issues
A recent South Dakota Supreme Court decision in a Lesterville case has left a divided court and divided legal opinions in its wake.
Last week, the South Dakota Supreme Court handed down an opinion, which, in its attempt to ensure a defendant’s right to cross examine the witnesses against him, touches on the sensitive subject of today’s national policies and politics regarding immigration.
The appeal to the high court stemmed from a guilty verdict rendered in the case of South Dakota vs. Kevin Xavier Dickerson and Arianna Cherelle Reecy, a criminal case that was tried in circuit court.
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