South Dakota Supreme Court elections, 2022
 |
U.S. Senate • U.S. House • Governor • State executive offices • State Senate • State House • Supreme court • State ballot measures • Local ballot measures • Municipal • How to run for office |
 |
| 2022 State Judicial Elections | |
|---|---|
2023 »
« 2021
| |
 | |
| Overview | |
| Supreme Courts Overview | |
| Appellate Courts Overview | |
| View judicial elections by state: | |
The terms of two South Dakota Supreme Court justices expired on January 2, 2023. The two seats were up for retention election on November 8, 2022. The filing deadline was August 2, 2022.
South Dakota was one of 30 states that held elections for state supreme court in 2022. That year, 84 of the 344 seats on state supreme courts were up for election. Of those, 64 were held by nonpartisan justices, 13 were held by Republican justices, and eight were held by Democratic justices. For more on the partisan affiliation of state supreme court justices, click here. For an overview of state supreme court elections in 2022, click here.
Candidates and results
Salter's seat
South Dakota Supreme Court District 2, Mark Salter's seat
Mark Salter was retained to the South Dakota Supreme Court District 2 on November 8, 2022 with 80.1% of the vote.
Retention Vote |
% |
Votes |
|||
| ✔ | Yes |
80.1
|
228,724 | ||
No |
19.9
|
56,676 | |||
Total Votes |
285,400 | ||||
|
|
DeVaney's seat
South Dakota Supreme Court District 3, Patricia DeVaney's seat
Patricia DeVaney was retained to the South Dakota Supreme Court District 3 on November 8, 2022 with 80.1% of the vote.
Retention Vote |
% |
Votes |
|||
| ✔ | Yes |
80.1
|
230,126 | ||
No |
19.9
|
57,052 | |||
Total Votes |
287,178 | ||||
|
|
Voting information
- See also: Voting in South Dakota
About the South Dakota Supreme Court
- See also: South Dakota Supreme Court
The South Dakota Supreme Court is the highest court in the state of South Dakota. The main job of the court is to listen to appeals from the decisions rendered by lower courts in the state. The court also has authority over some original matters, and it can be called on to advise the state's governor regarding executive powers. The court is composed of a chief justice and four associate justices appointed by the governor and selected from five different appointment districts.
Political composition
This was the political composition of the supreme court heading into the 2022 election. Justices on the South Dakota Supreme Court are appointed by the governor from a list of at least two names provided by the South Dakota Judicial Qualifications Commission.
| ■ Patricia DeVaney | Appointed by Gov. Kristi Noem (R) in 2019 | |
| ■ Scott P. Myren | Appointed by Gov. Kristi Noem (R) in 2020 | |
| ■ Steven Jensen | Appointed by Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R) in 2017 | |
| ■ Janine M. Kern | Appointed by Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R) in 2014 | |
| ■ Mark Salter | Appointed by Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R) in 2018 |
Selection
- See also: Assisted appointment
The five justices of the South Dakota Supreme Court are appointed by the governor from a list of at least two names provided by the South Dakota Judicial Qualifications Commission. Newly appointed justices serve for at least three years, after which they must run in a yes-no retention election during a regularly scheduled general election. Subsequent terms last eight years. If a justice retires before the end of his or her term, a replacement is sought by the same method normally used to select justices.[1]
Qualifications
To serve on this court, a justice must be:
- a U.S. citizen;
- a resident of South Dakota;
- a voting resident within his or her respective district;
- licensed to practice law in the state; and
- under the age of 70.[1]
Selection of the chief justice
The chief justice of the court is chosen by peer vote and serves in that capacity for four years.[1]
Analysis
Ballotpedia Courts: Determiners and Dissenters (2021)
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: Determiners and Dissenters, a study on how state supreme court justices decided the cases that came before them. Our goal was to determine which justices ruled together most often, which frequently dissented, and which courts featured the most unanimous or contentious decisions.
The study tracked the position taken by each state supreme court justice in every case they decided in 2020, then tallied the number of times the justices on the court ruled together. We identified the following types of justices:
- We considered two justices opinion partners if they frequently concurred or dissented together throughout the year.
- We considered justices a dissenting minority if they frequently opposed decisions together as a -1 minority.
- We considered a group of justices a determining majority if they frequently determined cases by a +1 majority throughout the year.
- We considered a justice a lone dissenter if he or she frequently dissented alone in cases throughout the year.
Summary of cases decided in 2020
- Number of justices: 5
- Number of cases: 73
- Percentage of cases with a unanimous ruling: 91.8% (87)
- Justice most often writing the majority opinion: Justice Jensen (18)
- Per curiam decisions: 2
- Concurring opinions: 3
- Justice with most concurring opinions: Justices Gilbertson, Kern, and Salter (1)
- Dissenting opinions: 3
- Justice with most dissenting opinions: Justices DeVaney, Kern, and Jensen (1)
For the study's full set of findings in South Dakota, click here.
Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)
- See also: Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship
Last updated: June 15, 2020
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country as of June 15, 2020.
The study presented Confidence Scores that represented our confidence in each justice's degree of partisan affiliation, based on a variety of factors. This was not a measure of where a justice fell on the political or ideological spectrum, but rather a measure of how much confidence we had that a justice was or had been affiliated with a political party. To arrive at confidence scores we analyzed each justice's past partisan activity by collecting data on campaign finance, past political positions, party registration history, as well as other factors. The five categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[2]
- Mild Republican
- Strong Republican
We used the Confidence Scores of each justice to develop a Court Balance Score, which attempted to show the balance among justices with Democratic, Republican, and Indeterminate Confidence Scores on a court. Courts with higher positive Court Balance Scores included justices with higher Republican Confidence Scores, while courts with lower negative Court Balance Scores included justices with higher Democratic Confidence Scores. Courts closest to zero either had justices with conflicting partisanship or justices with Indeterminate Confidence Scores.[3]
South Dakota had a Court Balance Score of 7.80, indicating Republican of the court. In total, the study found that there were 15 states with Democrat-controlled courts, 27 states with Republican-controlled courts, and eight states with Split courts. The map below shows the court balance score of each state.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 American Judicature Society, "Methods of Judicial Selection: South Dakota," archived October 2, 2014
- ↑ An Indeterminate score indicates that there is either not enough information about the justice’s partisan affiliations or that our research found conflicting partisan affiliations.
- ↑ The Court Balance Score is calculated by finding the average partisan Confidence Score of all justices on a state supreme court. For example, if a state has justices on the state supreme court with Confidence Scores of 4, -2, 2, 14, -2, 3, and 4, the Court Balance is the average of those scores: 3.3. Therefore, the Confidence Score on the court is Mild Republican. The use of positive and negative numbers in presenting both Confidence Scores and Court Balance Scores should not be understood to that either a Republican or Democratic score is positive or negative. The numerical values represent their distance from zero, not whether one score is better or worse than another.
Federal courts:
Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: District of South Dakota • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: District of South Dakota
State courts:
South Dakota Supreme Court • South Dakota Circuit Courts • South Dakota Magistrate Courts
State resources:
Courts in South Dakota • South Dakota judicial elections • Judicial selection in South Dakota
| ||||||||||
