A little more than four weeks ago, a Sioux Falls police officer pulled over a car with suspicious license plates. According to police, the 22-year-old driver refused to get out of the car and then tried to drive away, putting the officer’s life in danger. The officer fired several shots, striking the driver multiple times, and the front-seat passenger was also hit.
Continue reading “Record year for officer-involved shootings in SD”
South Dakota is short on lawyers, and it is impacting lower income, rural defendants more than anyone else in the state.
But for State Supreme Court Chief Justice Steven Jensen, it is not enough to give University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law graduates a ticket out of the Bar exam.
The proposal last year to provide for “diploma privilege” was brought by Rep. Mary Fitzgerald (R-St. Onge). Fitzgerald’s daughter, a graduate of USD’s School of Law, has been unable to clear the Bar exam after numerous attempts.
Here’s a little known fact: A dozen counties in Nebraska currently have no practicing attorneys.
Zip from the towns of Bartlett, Hyannis or Stapleton. Zero from Arthur, Springview or Spencer. Zilch from Harrisburg or Hayes Center.
And by 2027, four more counties are projected to join them, according to the Nebraska State Bar Association.
In fact, by then half of the state’s counties are expected to have three or fewer attorneys unless something changes.
Continue reading “A legal desert – Attorneys are scarce in Nebraska’s rural areas”
While the number of serious crimes committed in the state has fallen to the lowest number since 2014, the number of cases where the state decided not to prosecute someone who was arrested with probable cause doubled from 595 to 1189 between 2019 and 2021, according to the South Dakota State Crime Reports for those years.
For some number of arrestees to go uncharged is not abnormal. After someone is arrested by police for being suspected of committing a crime, a prosecutor working for the state must decide whether or not to bring criminal charges against them. If the prosecutor decides that there isn’t enough evidence to secure a conviction, they may decide not to bring charges at all.
Members of Congress, state legislators, regulators, and legal advocates are calling on prisons to explain their poor hepatitis C treatment rates, after a STAT investigation revealing that more than 1,000 people had died from complications of the curable disease.
In South Dakota and Oklahoma, lawmakers have written to their respective departments of corrections about STAT’s reporting. In Nebraska, the state’s inspector general of corrections requested that the prison explain a policy, obtained by STAT, requiring that incarcerated people sign a consent form that misrepresents the benefits of available hepatitis C treatments. Lawmakers in other states are pledging broader probes into the issue, too.
A new law that makes it easier for people to sell homemade foods directly to consumers in South Dakota could expand business opportunities for small producers and increase product offerings at homes, farmers markets, fairs and roadside stands.
House Bill 1322 was passed unanimously by the state Legislature in 2022, an d was signed into law by Gov. Kristi Noem. It took effect July 1, 2022.
Continue reading “New law makes selling homemade foods directly to consumers easier in South Dakota”
As President Joe Biden scored several legislative wins last year, voters across the country headed to the polls in November to decide on local measures.
The passage of several of those measures will lead to new state laws this year. And Americans in 2023 will also feel the impact of several provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act that was enacted over the summer.
The Office of the Attorney General today released the Crime in South Dakota 2021 report. This report is compiled annually by the Attorney General’s Criminal Statistical Analysis Center (SAC). Despite technical and staffing issues that affected the 2021 reporting, this publication is designed to reflect the actual arrest and reporting information by South Dakota law enforcement.
Continue reading “Attorney General releases Crime in South Dakota 2021 report”
Of the 20 states that have failed to raise the minimum wage above the federal $7.25 an hour standard, 16 have more than 12% of their children living in poverty, according to a States Newsroom analysis of wage and poverty data. Anti-poverty advocates say that’s a sign that there’s an urgent need for lawmakers to increase the federal minimum wage and do more to help struggling families.
Continue reading “Child poverty rates highest in states that haven’t raised minimum wage”
We hope you have a wonderful holiday season, and we look forward to working with you in the new year.