manslaughter

Chamberlain man gets 22 years for manslaughter

The Daily Republic

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CHAMBERLAIN — A Chamberlain man was sentenced Thursday afternoon to 22 years in prison for killing a man in June 2018.

Nicholas Yellow Lodge, 20, pleaded guilty but mentally ill to the first-degree manslaughter of 77-year-old David Hart in September and will be evaluated at the Human Services Center in Yankton prior to beginning his prison sentence.

In a 25-minute hearing at the Brule County Courthouse, Yellow Lodge was sentenced to 30 years in prison with eight years suspended and given credit for the year and a half he’s spent in jail since his arrest. He is the first person convicted of first-degree manslaughter in Brule County in more than 30 years.

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‘This family lost a mother,’ judge says, as Brinker gets 18 years for manslaughter

The Daily Republic

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A Mitchell man was sentenced Tuesday afternoon to serve 18 years in prison for killing his wife in 2017.

James Brinker, 41, was given credit for the more than two years he spent in the Davison County Jail between his October 2017 arrest for the death of 36-year-old Marie Brinker and his sentencing, where 22 years of a 40-year sentence were suspended as part of an agreement Brinker made with the state when he pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter on Oct. 29.

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Nearly 40 years after South Dakota changed sentencing law, dozens are serving 100 years or more for first-degree manslaughter

The Daily Republic

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Nearly 25 years ago, Joaquin Ramos entered the South Dakota State Penitentiary to begin a life sentence for first-degree manslaughter, angry about the circumstances that led him there.

On Aug. 22, he sat down with The Daily Republic during regular evening visiting hours in the penitentiary’s visitation room. Over the course of about an hour and a half, as other inmates chatted and played cards with family members, he spoke about his time in prison and said if he hadn’t been put behind bars, he would likely have remained the angry person he was when he committed his crime.

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S.D. facilities both keep prisoners in and reporters out

The Daily Republic

Criminals’ stories do not end when they’re put behind bars.

But with the little access South Dakota prisons currently offer to media, the parts of their stories we’re able to tell are often forced to end when someone is put under Department of Corrections supervision. While the DOC clearly has a responsibility to keep its facilities secure and keep close track of who is coming and going, it’s still a public agency, and it shouldn’t be able to be as stringent as it is with media access.

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