I am often asked by clients and even other lawyers to opine on the length of their case. We ordinarily tell our clients to expect one year from the date of filing a notice of appeal.
On average, it appears that it takes the Court approximately three months from oral argument or conference to issue a decision. To be more specific, it takes the Court, on average, 86.03 days from oral argument or conference to issue a written decision.
The fastest time to decision this year was just sixteen days from the date of argument or conference. State v. Hale, 2018 S.D. 9, was a criminal case authored by Justice Severson. However, this statistic excludes State v. Wayfair, 2018 S.D. 62, which was issued fifteen days after conference following a remand from the United States Supreme Court. Twelve decisions were decided in thirty days or less from the time of argument or conference.
Two decisions took nearly one year. One criminal case, State v. Lar, 2018 S.D. 18, and an employment case, Riggs v. Bennet County Hospital, 2018 S.D. 51. Both were argued on briefs, and decisions were issued 303 days after conference.
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