The SD
Supreme Court handed down one decision this morning, holding inter alia:
1) 1st degree
murder conviction affirmed, upholding denial of requested change of venue
Summary
follows:
STATE v.
KRUEGER, 2020 S.D. 57:
Defendant
was convicted of 1st degree murder by a Beadle County Jury and given
a mandatory life sentence. Although the
State initially designated this prosecution as a capital case, it subsequently,
“withdrew its notice to seek the death penalty.” In this direct appeal, Defendant raises five issues:
1. Denial of motion for judgment of
acquittal; 2. Denial of motion to change
venue; 3. Refusal to strike expert testimony regarding DNA recovered from the
black Velcro shoes; 4. Failure to strike
the State’s comments during closing argument or issue a curative instruction;
and 5. Cumulative errors deprived Krueger of a fair trial.
Defendant’s
2nd issue which relates to the denial of his motion for change of
venue, premised initially upon 7 newspaper articles from the Huron
newspaper. The opinion notes, “In
connection with the motion to change venue, Krueger also sought, among other
things, to exclude the press from the courthouse until the jury was empaneled
and to prohibit news coverage of pretrial and voir dire proceedings.”
On
the change of venue issue, the Court recognized the important role of voir dire
examination holding in ¶35:
Nevertheless,
voir dire examination is the best means to determine whether potential jurors
have preconceptions they would be unable to set aside to render an impartial
verdict. See Garza, 1997 S.D. 54, ¶ 21, 563 N.W.2d at 410. Here, the
circuit court allowed a careful voir dire process over the course of two days.
The court also utilized a comprehensive and specific juror questionnaire that
asked prospective jurors a number of questions, including whether they had
“heard or read anything about this case . . . .”
The SD Supreme
Court rejected all of the issues raised by Defendant and affirmed the
conviction. This decision is unanimous with opinion authored by Justice
Salter.
This decision may be accessed at
http://ujs.sd.gov/Supreme_Court/opinions.aspx .
