In re Dragoncrxst new evidence 2025 SDSC 42

In re "Appeal of in Re Dragoncrxst new evidence SDCR 22" [2025] SDSC 42

Date of judgment	16th February 2026
Justices	Chief Justice Ed Justice Ivy Cactus Justice Britz Justice TheLittleSparty
Held	The Court of Review in Interlocutory Appeal of SD v Dragoncrxst [2025] SDCR 22 erred such that the interlocutory appeal is thrown out, with new precedent established to replace it.
Ruling	4-0
Applicable precedent	Evidence submitted during the pre-trial process is to be considered “evidence entered into discovery”. As per statutory law, evidence subpoenaed is to be considered “evidence entered into discovery” even if it is subpoenaed after the end of the pre-trial process. Evidence subpoenaed is however still subject to evidentiary standards from the Courtroom Procedures Act 2025 Article 13§2. Evidence which is “new and vital” in accordance with the Evidence Act 2025 and the test established in SD v notcommunist366, Creative, & Acool [2025] Crim 103 [6], duly motioned for admission, shall be considered “evidence entered into discovery” upon approval from the presiding judge.

MAJORITY OPINION by Justice TheLittleSparty

(with Chief Justice Ed and Justice Britz agreeing, and Justice Ivy Cactus concurring)

Introduction

[1] The petitioner asserts that the Court of Review erred substantially in its decision of Interlocutory Appeal of SD v Dragoncrxst [2025] SDCR 22, specifically with regard to its decision to overturn previous precedent by which inadmissible evidence may be objected to after the pre-trial ends in such cases as an objection to its admissibility being raised after the normal time for such, particularly in the context of a substantial change in the representation of such evidence in such a manner as to substantially change the vector by which a state prosecutor seeks a conviction. The petitioner seeks that the Court of Review’s decision be vacated, and the trial remanded with the judge directed to review the allegedly objectionable evidence, deeming it inadmissible and subsequently continuing the original case without its inclusion.

[2] The respondent asserts that the Court of Review found correctly that the petitioner, in their previous role as a defense attorney, failed to serve due diligence and object to potentially inadmissible evidence at the time provided by the Courtroom Procedures Act for such objections, and seeks to have this case dismissed.

Summary of the Petition

[3] The petitioner opens by strenuously protesting the nature of the evidence admission process as determined by the Court of Review, asserting that the Court of Review erred so substantially as to have both contradicted itself, contradicted prevailing precedent at the time, and established new precedent of such a caliber as that the Senate felt the need to promptly amend relevant legislation as to correct the Court of Review’s error.

[4] The petitioner subsequently frames the following three primary arguments, citing considerable bodies of both SimDemocracy and United States court precedent:

[4.1] 1. The Court of Review was wrong to overturn the notcommunist366 case.

[4.2] 2. For those and other reasons, the Court of Review was wrong to hold that, as applied, the CPA was constitutional.

[4.3] 3. The Court of Review was wrong to hold objections waived when persuasive precedent reasonably provided that they could not be made.

Summary of the Response

[5] The respondent responds primarily to the petitioner’s allegation that, in the original case, the state prosecutor entered evidence which they then subsequently represented substantially differently from its representation during the pre-trial. This act, according to the respondent and Court of Review, represents a simple failure on the original defense attorney’s part to object during the pre-trial, if indeed the defense attorney felt that evidence might have been inadmissible.

[6] In addition, the respondent raises critical items regarding the appellant’s (in their original capacity as defense attorney) behavior with regard to evidentiary procedure was sloppy and out of line with then current law, including presenting evidence out of turn without meeting the prerequisite standards for doing so, and in so doing, illustrating the appellant’s apparent failure to understand general evidentiary standards in such a manner as to cast considerable doubt upon the presently considered petition.

A Structural Framework for Clarity

[7] On the whole, this petition and its response represent a remarkably dense cascade of legal questions and framings which cannot be easily encapsulated into a single question or even a short sequence of questions. In addition, the relevant Court of Review decision poses several additional points which bear out necessary discussion, and as such, this review of the appeal as a whole requires an effort to erect structural scaffolding in order to frame a coherent understanding of, and thus answer to, the core issues at hand.

[7.1] To begin such clarifying statements, hereafter any reference to “the defense” or similar, is indeed referring to this case’s appellant, who is also the appellant in the interlocutory appeal.

[7.2] Hereafter, any reference to “the prosecution” or similar refers both to the prosecution in the original case, as well as the respondent to the interlocutory appeal, but not to the respondent to this case.

[7.3] Hereafter, any reference to “the respondent” refers only to the respondent to this case.

[8] To begin to construct the necessary framework, the following nested structure is intended to represent the general sequence of events, as well as shed light on questions this court must answer in the order in which they arose.

[8.1] In the original case, the point of issue raised was that of the evidentiary admission procedure. Specifically, the defense attempted to enter evidence into discovery after the designated time period to do so during pre-trial, on the following grounds:

[8.1.1] The evidence presented by the prosecution was incomplete, contradictory, and was being used in such a manner as was misrepresented during pre-trial.

[8.1.2] The defense additionally argued that its own late submission (additional context around screenshots of chats) constituted components of already submitted evidence, which the prosecution failed to include properly.

[8.1.3] Simultaneously, the defense argued that their evidence, as it had not been included properly in prosecutorial submissions, should be considered new to discovery so as to meet the Evidence Act 2025’s requirement that such late submissions be both “new and vital”.

[8.1.4] As the defense failed to submit evidence during the pre-trial period designated for such, the defense alleged that the late submission was intrinsically vital, thus clearing both bars set by the Evidence Act 2025.

[8.1.5] When the prosecution’s objection regarding the defence’s late evidence submission was resolved in favor of the prosecution, the defense submitted the interlocutory appeal to the Court of Review, which would become Interlocutory Appeal of SD v Dragoncrxst 2025 SDCR 22.

[8.2] The brief submitted to the Court of Review regarded primarily the constitutional question regarding where the right to a fair trial may be abridged by way of procedural restrictions on both the admission of new evidence or the restriction on submitting objections to prima facie admissible evidence after the procedural window for doing so closes.

[8.2.1] The appellant frames the same debate from the original case directly in the interlocutory appeal as follows:

[8.2.1.1] First, the appellant asserts that the prosecution willfully submitted incomplete evidence in a deliberate effort to present a certain vector of prosecutorial intention, when the prosecutorial intention in practice differed greatly. In so doing, the appellant alleges that the prosecutor endeavored to undermine the defendant’s right to a fair trial.

[8.2.1.2] Second, the appellant extrapolates what they believe to be the differentiating factor in this case regarding evidentiary submission, namely the alleged novelty of the argument used by the prosecution in leveraging otherwise admissible pieces of evidence to assert a line of reasoning which necessarily would have been objected to, had they not obfuscated the nature of their relation to the objectionable line of reasoning at the time of their admission.

[8.2.1.3] Finally, the appellant asserts that our system must permit objections to evidence at such a time as objectionable lines of reasoning based upon them come to light, as not permitting such would necessitate that objections be made during the permissible window based on some form of omniscience which is an unreasonable expectation. Given the fact that in this case in particular creates a challenge between the constitutional right to a fair trial, and the legislative procedure denying the submission of certain objections at certain times, the appellant asserts that such challenge has incorrectly been decided in favor of the legislative procedure by the lower court judge’s original decision, and that the decision must necessarily be vacated by the Court of Review.

[8.2.2] The Court of Review submitted a set of questions to the appellant and prosecution (who was serving as the respondent to the interlocutory appeal but not as respondent to this case), via the argumentation document, to which the prosecution replied to the effect of:

[8.2.2.1] The prosecution believed their original evidence was neither incomplete nor misrepresentative, but rather that the additional context belatedly supplied by the defense were, in fact, decontextualized, neither new nor vital, and fundamentally inadmissible.

[8.2.2.2] That the defense’s failure to participate properly in the pre-trial was the root issue regarding the timing of both the belated evidence, and that the defense was generally past its last opportunity to submit objections to the prosecution’s evidence, meaning that said evidence was necessarily no longer assailable.

[8.3] The Court of Review generally simultaneously sought answers to questions via the assigned Court of Review Thread, in which the following additional points were made:

[8.3.1] From the appellant:

[8.3.1.1] In response to why the appellant did not originally move to have the allegedly incomplete evidence suppressed via Article 13, §2.4 of the Courtroom Procedures Act 2025, the appellant asserted that persuasive precedent stated in State of SimDemocracy v. Notcommunist366 et al., [2025] Crim. 103 prohibited precisely such a request for suppression, and requested that the Court of Review specifically respond with clarification.

[8.4] Based on the above, and in more detail all the mentioned documentation, the Court of Review, as authored by Judge ppatpat found the following:

[8.4.1] First, the decision found that the evidence as supplied by the prosecution was valid, whereas the evidence submitted by the defense was not admissible.

[8.4.2] Second, the decision overturned SD v notcommunist366, Creative, & Acool [2025] Crim 103 [4] by determining that “Evidence not objected to at the time it is presented is admitted, regardless of its admissibility”.

[8.4.3] Third, the decision upheld SD v notcommunist366, Creative, & Acool [2025] Crim 103 [6] in that “For evidence to be ‘new’ the defense must not have seen, or have been reasonably expected to see, it before or during the period where it's allowed to be entered”.

[8.5] In their decision, the Court of Review made the following statements, which are of note for this hearing:

[8.5.1] The Court of Review refers in [8] to Article 13, §3 of the Courtroom Procedures Act 2025, defining “During any time when the evidence is presented” to mean something like “during the submission of evidence to the court during pre-trial”. Judge ppatpat specifically refers to the defense’s failure to object to the admission of such evidence during that period of time as equating to having “slept through the first time and now wants a second.”

[8.5.2] The Court of Review then asserts in [9] that “By failing to object at trial when the evidence was presented, the defence waived any Article 13 §2.4 incompleteness objection to the prosecution’s exhibits.”

[8.5.3] The Court of Review then makes several statements between [10] to [12.1] inclusive, which dismiss the defense’s evidentiary submissions due to a lacking of basis within the Courtroom Procedures Act 2025’s provisions for the admission of “new” evidence, without making any reference to the Evidence Act 2025’s particular requirements for the preservation of surrounding context to messages.

[8.6] At the level of the petition which was submitted to initiate this hearing, the following primary arguments were raised by the appellant:

[8.6.1] First, that the Court of Review erred by overturning SD v notcommunist366, Creative, & Acool [2025] Crim 103 [6], specifically by way of the Court of Review’s assertion that the Courtroom Procedures Act 2025 only permits objections to evidence when that evidence is submitted to the court during the pre-trial, the act of which the Court of Review chooses to define as the sole instance of evidence being “presented to the court”.

[8.6.2] Second, that the Court of Review erred by asserting in this case, unlike a litany of other similar cases, that their interpretation of the text of the statute law comprising the Courtroom Procedures Act 2025 was held to be constitutional despite a lacking discussion of the constitutional question posed in the petition which asserted that the statute law conflicts with the constitutional right to a fair trial.

[8.6.3] Third, that the Court of Review erred in determining that, despite then-applicable persuasive precedent asserting that certain objections were not permitted to be entered, adherence to said precedent constituting a failure to submit such objections constituted a willful waiver of the holding of the ability to submit such objections generally.

[8.7] The respondent’s brief provided contest to each of the appellants' points, as well as attempting to illustrate the original case under debate.

[8.7.1] In response to the first point, the respondent argues that the Court of Review’s choice to overturn SD v notcommunist366, Creative, & Acool [2025] Crim 103 in part, as well as uphold SD v notcommunist366, Creative, & Acool [2025] Crim 103 in part, were both correct and textual.

[8.7.2] In response to the second point, the respondent asserts that the appellant is requesting an exception to statute law in line with previous cases, without actually having a similar case at hand which contains any contradiction which might result in statutory law being overturned.

[8.7.3] In response to the third point, the respondent challenges the assertion that the appellant’s claim that it was their choice to withhold objections apparently in line with previous precedent when, in actual fact, the appellant merely failed to foresee the prosecution’s line of reasoning and merely wants an opportunity to correct this error after the fact.

[8.7.4] Finally, the respondent attempts to offer a summary of the sequence of events which led to the petition landing before the Supreme Court in the particular form it has taken, that being an appeal against the Court of Review’s determination that evidence submitted by the prosecution and not duly objected to for admissibility concerns at the time of submission to the lower court, may then never be objected to later on grounds of admissibility concerns which arose after the due time for such objections. This summary includes the admission that the respondent did not expect section [16] of the Court of Review’s decision, as the defense had never actually objected to the prosecution’s evidence, but does assert that section [15] was correct in rejecting the defense’s attempt at belated submission of new evidence despite the contextual standards established in the Evidence Act 2025, as the respondent agrees with the prosecution in that the defense’s belated submission fails to meet the Evidence Act 2025’s standard for such.

The Ambit of the Petition and Various Other Issues

[9] In addition, the following list of points of interest which must be discussed should encapsulate the primary issues where they overlap:

[9.1] First, to regard the question of “misrepresentation of evidence” as argued by the appellant throughout this process:

::[9.1.1] In our criminal justice system, the presumption every citizen is entitled to is that of their innocence until proven otherwise. To this end, absolute refusal by a defendant or their representatives in a trial can not be taken to support the guilt of that party. It is always required that a prosecution prove, independently of a defense’s actions, the guilt of a defendant. While a defense is entitled to undermine the case presented by a prosecution, if a prosecution fails to concretely establish guilt, then the default outcome will be a not-guilty verdict. As such, a defense is not entitled to claim that a prosecution has undertaken “misrepresentation” in an effort to undermine a defense’s actions, except as to raise that a prosecution engaged in such an act is going beyond its mandate to establish the guilt of a defendant, which may subject a prosecution to being held in contempt of court.

[9.2] Second, to regard the manifest questions with regard to evidentiary “submission”, “admission”, “presentation”, and other such instances, their proper order and qualifications:

[9.2.1] The Courtroom Procedures Act, Part 2, Art. 7, offers conflicting requirements for evidentiary discovery before the court. §3.7 permits that after a plea other than “guilty” is offered, either side “may then admit evidence for use in the Trial, and make any necessary motions.” Challenging this, §5 requires that “Any evidence either party wishes to use during the trial must be submitted to the courts at the conclusion of the pre-trial.” Furthermore, §5.1 asserts that “Evidence that has been subpoenaed through a motion shall be admissible regardless.”

[9.2.2] With regard to the language used in these sections, it must then be understood that for evidence to be “admitted” or “submitted”, such must refer to evidence introduced into discovery during the pre-trial, or subpoenaed at any time.

[9.2.2.1] Note that, as written, §5.1 creates that evidence provided via subpoena is not subject to regular admissibility standards established in Article 13 of the Courtroom Procedures Act.

[9.2.3] The Courtroom Procedures Act, Part 2, Article 8, §1.3, (along with numerous other subsections) establish that during the trial procedure, the act of one party displaying their evidence for argumentation and cross-examination uses the operative word “present” rather than “submit” or “admit”. This is reinforced in §3 which asserts that the correct practice for introducing new evidence during trial, is that either party after finding such new and vital evidence may motion to recess and to have such evidence “admitted”.

[9.2.4] The Courtroom Procedures Act, Part 3, Article 13, §3 states that at “any time when the evidence is presented; either party to the legal proceeding may raise an objection regarding a violation of procedures or rules of evidence.” As such, the Court of Review through Judge ppatpat demonstrably erred in asserting that “Evidence not objected to at the time it is presented is admitted, regardless of its admissibility”, as evidence is not presented at the time of admission. These are legally two distinct points in time, the first being “admission” during the pre-trial or at any time subject to subpoena, and the second being “presentation”, which is any time during the trial process when a piece of evidence is used in any way, with statutory procedure explicitly permitting objections at the latter of these two times. This same provision was existent during SD v notcommunist366, Creative, & Acool [2025] Crim 103, meaning that Justice Ivy Cactus erred in his decision as well.

[9.3] With regard to the particular facts of this case and how it interacts with previous precedent in the nature of evidentiary admission:

[9.3.1] The defense stated that they reserved objecting to what they viewed as “incomplete” evidence submitted by the prosecution as they were adhering to then-relevant precedent in the form of Justice Ivy Cactus’s decision in SD v notcommunist366, Creative, & Acool [2025] Crim 103 which did in fact incorrectly assert that objections on the admissibility of evidence was prohibited after the evidence was admitted during pre-trial. The Court of Review’s assertion that this adherence to precedent constituted a voluntary waiver of the right to object on grounds of admissibility. This illustrates substantial error on the part of the Court of Review, as they both acknowledge the error in Justice Ivy Cactus’ decision, while simultaneously asserting that the appellant is too late to benefit from their attempted, albeit further in error, correction.

Decision

[10] The Court of Review’s verdict is thrown out in its entirety, with the following newly binding precedent explicitly correcting the errors found therein:

[10.1] Evidence submitted during the pre-trial process is to be considered “evidence entered into discovery”. As per statutory law, evidence subpoenaed is to be considered “evidence entered into discovery” even if it is subpoenaed after the end of the pre-trial process. Evidence subpoenaed is however still subject to evidentiary standards from the Courtroom Procedures Act, Part 3, Article 13, §2. Evidence which is “new and vital” in accordance with the Evidence Act 2025 and the test established in SD v notcommunist366, Creative, & Acool [2025] Crim 103 [6], duly motioned for admission, shall be considered “evidence entered into discovery” upon approval from the presiding judge.

[10.2] SD v notcommunist366, Creative, & Acool [2025] Crim 103 [4] is overturned as it directly contradicts statutory law in the Courtroom Procedures Act, Part 3, Article 13, §3.

[11] The case is remanded to the inferior court, to resume at the time of the prosecution’s first instance of evidentiary presentation for argumentation, with the above-noted precedent in force.

CONCURRING OPINION by Justice Ivy Cactus

[12] This case troubled me quite a bit. I think that, in the end, the majority reached a textually correct reading of the law. That being said, there are questions about the current structure and fairness of our criminal trials and civil hearings under the current Trial and Pretrial Procedures Act. I will try to outline my concerns here.

[13] The relevant piece of interpretation can be found in [9.2.4], where the court lays out that evidence can be objected to both in and outside of pre-trial. This would allow evidence to be thrown out, or perhaps imply that any faulty evidence must be thrown out, while not giving any chance to resubmit it properly (save lack of foundation objections). This runs into issues such as allowing the State to sit on objections then throw out the defendant’s evidence in trial, allowing the innocent to be found guilty on technicality with no chance of intervention. I concede that this certainly follows from the wording of the law, but it points me towards a broader complaint with the way the law is currently written.

[14] Pretrial once existed in SimDemocracy for two purposes, to schedule a time for trial and to get evidentiary issues out of the way so that trial may proceed smoothly, with everyone knowing all usable information ahead of time. In the current system as written, this is not the case. Under this ruling, evidentiary matters are open season for trial and pre-trial. The question becomes, why bother with a pre-trial anymore? There are several reasons people point to, such as not to taint the jury (completely irrelevant in SimDemocracy) or to allow people to plead guilty or receive bail prior to trial (something that would simply occur at the beginning of trial, as overall there would be less hearings and faster proceedings). I do not believe that removing pre-trial is the correct move, I would much prefer seeing the legislature step in to clarify the issues outlined here. That being said, if you can’t make it useful, or even unique in its properties, it should probably be removed.

[15] That said, I can not disagree with the majority that said unfortunate reading is, indeed, correct. Thus, I concur.