The SD
Supreme Court handed down two decisions this morning, holding inter alia:
1) Alimony dispute resolved;
2) Direct appeal from 2015
conviction permitted and resolved, as a result of ineffective assistance of
counsel.
Summaries
follow:
LEEDOM v. LEEDOM, 2020 S.D. 40: This is a dispute over the impact of H’s
attaining the age of eligibility for social security in connection with his court-ordered
alimony -- a contingency referenced in the original memorandum divorce opinion. The holding of the trial court and the
corresponding affirmance on appeal is summarized in ¶ 1 of the Court’s opinion
as follows:
David and
Cindy Leedom divorced in 2004. The divorce court ordered David to pay Cindy
monthly alimony in the amount of $3,000. David stopped paying alimony in
January 2017, after reaching the age of social security eligibility. Cindy
filed a motion to restore alimony in the circuit court (modification court)
alleging that David was obligated to pay lifetime alimony of $3,000 per month.
The modification court held David’s obligation to pay alimony was continuing.
The court also determined that he owed accrued alimony from the time he stopped
paying until the time of the modification hearing, which totaled $87,000. The
court then reduced David’s monthly alimony obligation to $1,750 beginning on
June 1, 2019. David appeals. We affirm.
The Court’s decision is unanimous, with opinion authored by
Justice Jensen.
STATE v. WILSON, 2020 S.D. 41:
The facts generating this criminal prosecution occurred in March,
2014. Defendant was tried by jury and
convicted in 2015, but encountered difficultly with counsel as follows:
Wilson’s
legal representation through the Minnehaha County Public Defender’s Office was
reassigned three times before trial. The court reset the case with each
reassignment. The first reassignment occurred due to disagreements between
Wilson and his counsel. The second reassignment occurred when his attorney left
the office for another job. Wilson’s third lawyer from the Public Defender’s
Office was assigned approximately one month before trial. None of Wilson’s
attorneys filed any substantive pretrial motions or motions in limine.
No appeal was taken, but Defendant brought a habeas corpus
action 2 years later asserting ineffective assistance of counsel, with
the result being that the, “habeas court granted
relief by reentering the judgment and sentence on September 11, 2018, allowing
Wilson to file a timely direct appeal.” This decision resolves that
appeal, with the resolution summarized in ¶ 1 of the opinion as follows:
A jury
found Deondre Wilson guilty of aggravated assault (domestic), simple assault
(domestic), interference with emergency communications, and disorderly conduct.
He appeals, claiming the existence of plain error through the admission of
certain evidence and the prosecutor’s closing argument. Wilson directs an
additional challenge to his assault convictions, arguing that their domestic
designation reflects an essential element that was not proven at trial.
Finally, Wilson contends the court utilized an improper procedure for a
stipulated postjudgment sentence correction. We affirm and remand with
instructions to remove the domestic designation from the aggravated and simple
assault convictions and the accompanying obligation to pay two $25 statutory
domestic violence fees.
This decision is unanimous, with opinion authored by Justice
Salter.
These decisions may be accessed at
