SD: Once investigation complete, SW materials have to be released and implicated person can’t keep them sealed

The local statewide newspaper sought search warrant materials involving a 2019 search warrant and four follow-up warrants in 2020. There was no showing by the issuing court to keep the information sealed under state statute. The person implicated in the investigation can’t keep it sealed. In re Appeal by an Implicated Individual, 2021 SD 61, 2021 S.D. LEXIS 113 (Oct. 27, 2021):

[*P18] The plain language of the statute provides an unmistakable expression of legislative intent. A court may seal the contents of an affidavit in support of a search warrant upon a showing of reasonable cause, but only until the investigation is terminated or an indictment or information is filed. The statute’s text is equally clear in its command that the court “may not prohibit” the public disclosure of other specific records, namely, the contents of the warrant, the return of the warrant, and the inventory. Nor may the court prohibit public disclosure of the fact that a search warrant affidavit has been filed. The Press, for its part, has not sought review of the portion of the circuit court’s amended orders sustaining its decision to seal the search warrant affidavits for the time being, and it would seem, from all appearances, that an elementary application of SDCL 23A-35-4.1 disposes of the disclosure issue before us.

[*P19] The Implicated Individual feels differently. The contrary argument posits that the judiciary possesses preeminent inherent authority to regulate its records. Accompanying this assertion is the corollary that our rules represent the exclusive means by which records may be sealed. As these claims relate to the particular circumstances here, neither is sustainable.

[*P20] To begin, we do not believe that this case implicates the judiciary’s inherent authority. It is true, as the Implicated Individual asserts, that we have promulgated rules governing access to court records. Our 2005 adoption of Rule 05-05 represents such an effort. See SDCL ch. 15-15A (reprinting Supreme Court Rule 05-05). However, we had no need to act under an imprecise concept of inherent authority. Instead, Rule 05-05 can be directly sourced to our “general superintending powers over all courts” expressly granted under the provisions of the South Dakota Constitution. See S.D. Const. art V § 12. Acting pursuant to this explicit grant of authority, we may adopt rules on, among other topics, “practice and procedure and … the administration of all courts.”

[*P21] Beyond this, our rules governing public access to court records, as drafted, do not support the Implicated Individual’s theory of unrivaled court authority. Though the Implicated Individual claims that the procedure set out in SDCL 15-15A-13 recognizes a court’s discretion to “prohibit public access to information in a court record[,]” the argument cannot withstand a more complete reading of the rule that requires a court to consider relevant statutory authority:

A request to prohibit public access to information in a court record may be made by any party to a case, the individual about whom information is present in the court record, or on the court’s own motion . . . . The court must decide whether there are sufficient grounds to prohibit access according to applicable constitutional, statutory and common law.

SDCL 15-15A-13 (emphasis added).

. . .

[*P28] In the end, the application of SDCL 23A-35-4.1 is unavoidable, and it means what it says—a court “may not prohibit disclosure that a supporting affidavit was filed, the contents of the warrant, the return of the warrant, nor the inventory.” Under the circumstances presented here, there is no constitutional collision course between coordinate branches of state government and no tension between our court rules and a plain and unambiguous statute. See Associated Press v. State, 153 N.H. 120, 888 A.2d 1236, 1256-57 (N.H. 2005) (holding that court rules regulating court records and statutes concerning public access to certain records can “coexist”). The provisions of SDCL chapter 15-15A and SDCL 23A-35-4.1, at least as far as they relate to the issue here, are easily reconciled using the cardinal rule of statutory interpretation—simply read the text and apply it.