SD (Appellant) v Crimsonexus (Respondent) 2025 SDSC 7
State of SimDemocracy (Appellant) v Crimsonexus (Respondent) [2025] SDSC 7
| Date of judgment | 16th May 2025 |
| Justices |
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| Held | The inferior court misinterpreted Article 26, Section 2 of the Criminal Code 2020, and a new ruling must be issued. |
| Ruling | 2-1 |
| Applicable precedent |
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MAJORITY OPINION by Justice Ivy Cactus
(with Justice Syndicality agreeing and Chief Justice TheLittleSparty dissenting)
Introduction
[1] The appellant is seeking an overturn and remand of the inferior court's decision in SD v Crimsonexus [2025] Crim 45, in which the court found that the defendant was not guilty of Police Brutality under Article 26 of the Criminal Code 2020 because they were not legally “empowered” to perform an arrest.
[2] The appellant also provides an alternate argument in which, if the court fails to overturn and remand the case back to the inferior court for a new ruling, it instead declares a mistrial so the case may be pursued under an alternative charge.
Summary of the Appellant's Argumentation
[3] The State offers a very multi-faceted argument for its case. The court will, in this section, attempt to break down the argument into its constituent parts, so that each individual argument may be properly addressed on its own merits and in full.
[4] The crux of the State’s first point is that the wording of Police Brutality is that no such empowerment is actually necessary. They turn first to the two individual sections of the Article, the first of which outlines how the law applies to “[a] law enforcement officer, or a person empowered to exercise such powers”, whereas the second applies merely to “[a] person”. Indeed, both of these sections lay out similar, but slightly different requirements for different ways to achieve Police Brutality.
- [4.1] The State continues that, based on the fact that one section specifies empowerment and the next doesn’t, it can only be presumed that the intent was to allow for those who are not legally empowered to perform arrests to be prosecuted under Police Brutality.
[5] The State then pulls from prior inferior court precedent, such as SD v Pasha [2021] Crim 3, in which the judge found that leaving the server to remove the “In Custody” role constituted resisting arrest. They then expand this to more theoretical grounds, referencing the Supreme Court case, In re The Elder Council Act of 2022 [2022] SDSC 2, in which the court found that confining groups of people into specific channels was an unconstitutional violation of liberty because it functionally acted as an arrest.
- [5.1] The State uses this to argue that simply being given the “In Custody” role constitutes being arrested, and though they neglect to state this directly, they imply that anyone who has the ability to give the “In Custody” role to someone is “empowered” to arrest them.
[6] The State takes a second to address the title of the Article, Police Brutality, preemptively (correctly, to their credit) assuming that the defendant is going to point to it in an attempt to establish authorial intent. In their argument the State outlines that, although the Police are indeed those responsible for catching criminals and enforcing law, the court should put limited interpretative weight on the title of the Article and instead apply the “Golden Rule” of English Common Law, as established in SimDemocracy law under In re Replacement of KingRed31 [2020] SDSC 21.
- [6.1] They argue, in essence, that if the purpose of the Article was to only prosecute police officers, the second section, which outlines “[a] person” would simply not have been included, and it would be an illogical reading of the law to take it this way.
- [6.2] It should be noted that the State’s proposed authorial intent and reading of the law are actually completely in alignment, and the only application of the Golden Rule they call in is asking the court to disregard the title of the Article.
[7] The State, with all of this in mind, then concludes that Judge Average787enjoyer misapplied the law in their conclusion that Article 26 required the accused to be legally empowered to perform arrests, and prays that the court correct this oversight and remand the case back to the inferior courts for a new ruling.
[8] The State then provides an alternative turn of events, for if the court sides with the inferior court judge in their ruling and declines to overturn and remand. They ask that the court use Article 3, Section 3 of the Criminal Code 2020, which states “[i]f a charge is not appropriate for a given action, yet may qualify as a criminal offense regardless, the judge may inform the prosecution and declare a mistrial,” to order the inferior court to declare a mistrial so that the Department of Justice may pursue a charge of Abuse of Permissions — which they argue is a more appropriate charge for the actions.
- [8.1] They seem to be composing the argument that the judge has not just the ability, but an affirmative duty to declare a mistrial when there are more appropriate charges and that, given the judge stated out of court that Abuse of Permissions may have stuck, they failed in their duty in this case and, as such, it is on the Supreme Court to step in and declare a mistrial.
Summary of the Respondent’s Argumentation
[9] The respondent, similarly to the appellant (albeit in a much more structured way), provided a wide array of arguments for their petition. The court will attempt to summarize them in the same way it did in the prior section, highlighting where they respond directly to the appellant’s arguments when applicable.
[10] The respondent opens by pointing to the word “arrest” used in Article 26 of the Criminal Code. They argue that an arrest is not merely assigning someone the “arrested” role, but following the legal process of an arrest, and that merely giving somebody the role is better charged under something such as Abuse of Permissions.
- [10.1] This argument is best read as a response to the appellant’s points in [5], offering an alternative interpretation of an arrest not as the act of restriction but as the legal process attached to detainment.
- [10.2] Later on, the respondent would point to the legislative intent of the article based on the title “Police Brutality”. They argue that this clearly points to the Senate’s intent to limit the scope of Article 26 to just apply to legally empowered police officers.
[11] They then go into the meaning of Section 2 of Article 26, which the appellant tries to outline as offering a path for someone who is not a police officer to be charged with Police Brutality (as seen in [4]). The respondent agrees in part that the section allows people who aren’t legally empowered to perform arrests to be charged under the Article, but only if they act under the color of authority, meaning they try to unlawfully use the legal process of an arrest through impersonation or otherwise.
- [11.1] They go on to make a rather convoluted analogy about editing the Constitution and how it would amount to vandalism and not “unlawful procedural conduct”, unless it was a rogue senator. The point being that giving the arrested role is paramount to changing the Constitution’s wording illegally, versus an illegal arrest, which would be equated to some type of illegal use of legal authority to amend the Constitution illegally.
- [11.2] This is a classic example of “analogy that manages to make what the lawyer is going for less clear”. Take it simply as an extension of the argument that giving somebody the “In Custody” role is not equivalent to performing an illegal arrest on them.
[12] They conclude by making a rebuttal of the appellant’s points in [8], arguing that the prosecution was fully aware of Abuse of Permissions as a possible charge, and as such used their prosecutorial discretion in choosing against it. To support this, they reference SD v Panzzrr [2025] Crim 54 in which Judge BenBookWorm declined to send it back to the Department of Justice to charge under a different Article because they had already priorly used their discretion in choosing their final charge.
The Ambit of Article 26, Section 1
[13] Article 26, Section 1 reads:
“§1. A law enforcement officer, or a person empowered to exercise such powers, commits the offense of police brutality if they: §1.1. Arrest or detain a person on fabricated charges, with the intention to arrest or detain based on knowingly fabricated charges or, §1.2. Arrest or detain a person without appropriate reasoning, with either the intention to arrest or detain without appropriate reasoning, or with recklessness as to whether or not appropriate reasoning was given.”
[14] The appellant, in [5], argued that an “arrest” is simply the action of giving somebody the “In Custody” role, whereas the respondent was partial to the interpretation that it is instead the larger legal process that constitutes an arrest.
[15] Both agree, though, that the first section is targeted entirely at law enforcement officers or others legally empowered to carry out an arrest. The court agrees. It is clear in the wording of the subsections that section 1 is meant to target “detentions without proper reasoning or fabricated charges,” as the appellant put it — the “or” for “a person empowered to exercise such powers” simply serves to cover bases for non-SDBI employees who are in the legal position to bring charges, such as State Attorneys.
- [15.1] Readers of the original filing may be surprised to read that the state conceded the issue of “empowered”, given it was central to the original arguments (see: [5.1]). It can only be assumed that, under closer interpretive scrutiny, the meaning of this section became clearer to all involved.
[16] The defendant, Crimsonexus, was not “empowered” to legally perform arrests, and, as such, the inferior court was correct in not applying this section to the case at hand.
The Ambit of Article 26, Section 2
[17] Section 2, in contrast, is far more contentious. The appellant alleges it can be applied to those not legally empowered to perform arrests, whereas the respondent alleges it simply applies to unlawfully using the legal process of an arrest to detain — with none of the necessity for fabricated charges nor inappropriate reasoning.
[18] Both sides make reference to the “Golden Rule” of English Common Law in their points for and against this section being taken to apply to just the police. The “Golden Rule” is best seen as the concept “that a textualist approach to interpretation of the law is generally reasonable, but that such an approach should be set aside if not doing so would lead to undesirable or unforeseen consequences.”, as outlined in In re Replacement of KingRed31 [2020] SDSC 21.
[19] The court does not believe this applies here. The law, in a straightforward textualist reading, draws a distinction between the first section, in how it references a law enforcement officer or similarly empowered individual, and the second section, which references simply “[a] person”. If these were intended to both be applied solely to law enforcement officers, there would be no reason to write it this way. Indeed, the second section would serve no identifiable purpose if it only pertained to law enforcement officers.
- [19.1] Whereas the first section covers cases of “abuse of process” by a police officer or other empowered individual, the second section covers more directly someone “detaining” another without “authorization by law”.
[20] The court, thus, sides with the appellant on this issue. Section 2 of Article 26 does not require the accused to be a police officer or “empowered” individual, and it was an oversight by the inferior court to only consider the first section in its verdict.
On the Supreme Court’s Jurisdiction
[21] The Supreme Court is not a court of first instance for the purpose of appeals, and therefore it is not its job to evaluate every single issue related to the case; instead, it has the duty of reviewing the inferior courts’ decisions in questions of law to make sure the law was interpreted correctly.
[22] This precludes the court from accepting certain arguments or entertaining certain questions that the inferior court did not rule on. It is not the court’s place, as such, to rule on questions such as the meaning of arrest or detainment. Due to this, issues raised by the parties in [5] and [10] will be left to the consideration by the court of first instance, be it in the remanded verdict or at some point in the future.
Verdict
[23] The inferior court misapplied the law by requiring the accused to be a police officer or otherwise empowered for the purposes of Article 26, Section 2, and the case is hereby remanded back to the inferior court for a new ruling, in which the court may only consider evidence and arguments presented to it in the original trial.
DISSENTING OPINION by Chief Justice TheLittleSparty
[24] While I am entirely sympathetic to the desire for wrongdoing to be rightly brought to justice, I simply cannot overlook the fact that this case was direly mishandled, and that the procedural misstep precludes a new judgement on grounds of double jeopardy.
[25] I rely on two avenues of argumentation as to why a new judgement should not be awarded. Specifically, I believe the State erred in its application of the incorrect charge, with two distinct and individually damning consequences.
- [25.1] First, there is the end effect that granting a new judgement or mistrial would serve to violate the rights of the defendant to not be subjected to double jeopardy. Justice Ivy Cactus expands greatly upon both this, and the related argumentation presented in this appeal in In re Criminal Code Article 3, Section 3 [2025] SDSC 8, so I will not expand this any further than to say that I feel that it applies to this case. What I will add however, is that Article 3, Section 1 of the Criminal Code obligates the Prosecution to pursue the most applicable charges. Given that the Appellant, Respondent, and Judge presiding over the original case all agree that Misuse of Permissions would have been a suitable charge, whereas there is clearly great contention as to the validity of the charge of Police Brutality, I am confident in saying that the Prosecution failed to bring the most applicable charge, and therefore forfeits the ability to request another decision either via direct remand or mistrial, as per In re Criminal Code Article 3, Section 3 [2025] SDSC 8.
- [25.2] Second, I believe that in erring by charging Police Brutality, the State highlighted a fatal flaw within Article 26 of the Criminal Code 2020, that being that Art. 26, Section 2, is invalid by the nature of having other more applicable charges for any instance which satisfies its own criteria. For an individual to "arrest or detain a person without authorization by law", it is absolutely necessary for that individual to be committing Misuse of Permissions and/or Abuse of Power, both of which can be said to supersede Police Brutality by virtue of the body of established precedent. Due to the requirement that a more applicable charge exist simultaneously with any violation of Article 26, Section 2, I find that Justice Ivy Cactus' interpretation of Section 2 being applicable to any instance of a Misuse of Permissions or Abuse of Power relating to unlawful detention to be simultaneously unnecessarily narrow in scope, to avoid the greater parallelism of superseding crimes, while also being unjustifiably broad in the notion that the section ought to be removed from its reference to legally empowered individuals who conduct illegal detentions.
[26] It is with those considerations that I feel that either avenue of argumentation is sufficient grounds to reject the appeal, and to uphold the ruling of the lower court, either on the grounds that the wrong charge was brought forward, failed, and thus another decision would constitute double jeopardy, or that the crime itself is fundamentally invalid, and thus constitutes failure to bring forward the correct charge, etc, etc.
Citations
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