Background
On the evening of July 27, 2024, South Dakota Wildlife Conservation Officers Joshua Vanden Bosch and Taylor Kirchener were patrolling the Missouri River between Union County, South Dakota, and Dakota County, Nebraska. They stopped a boat operated by Gary Dean Ogden Jr. for lack of required navigational lights and asked him to move toward the middle of the river for a safety check. After observing signs of intoxication, the officers arrested Ogden and transported him to the Union County jail. He was subsequently charged with boating under the influence (two alternative counts), failure to display required boat lights, obstructing law enforcement, and resisting arrest.
Ogden moved to dismiss all charges for lack of jurisdiction, arguing that the relevant events occurred on the Nebraska side of the river. He contended that the South Dakota–Nebraska Boundary Compact of 1989 (the 1989 Compact), enacted by both states and approved by Congress, fixed the permanent compromise boundary at the centerline of the designed channel of the Missouri River, and that this federal compact preempted South Dakota statutes (SDCL 41-15-2 and 42-8-67) that purported to grant conservation officers jurisdiction over boundary waters out to the furthermost shoreline. After an evidentiary hearing at which Officer Vanden Bosch testified and body-camera footage was admitted, the magistrate court found that at the time of the stop Ogden was near the Nebraska shoreline and on the Nebraska side of the centerline of the designed channel. It concluded that South Dakota’s broader jurisdictional statutes were preempted by the 1989 Compact and dismissed the case.
The State initially filed a direct appeal, which the South Dakota Supreme Court dismissed because no right of direct appeal from a magistrate court order exists under SDCL 23A-32-5. The State then filed a notice of entry of order on February 18, 2025, and nine days later petitioned for an intermediate appeal. The Supreme Court granted the petition and agreed to hear three questions: whether the petition was timely, whether the magistrate court erred by taking evidence on the jurisdictional motion, and whether the dismissal for lack of jurisdiction was correct.
The Court’s Holding
The Supreme Court held that it had appellate jurisdiction because the State’s petition was timely filed. The ten-day deadline under SDCL 23A-32-6 does not begin to run from a party’s mere knowledge that an order exists. The magistrate court’s email informing the parties it had entered a dismissal order, and the Odyssey electronic-filing system’s automatic notification, did not constitute “written notice of entry of order” because neither attached a copy of the order and the State never conceded they did. The clock did not start until the State itself filed a notice of entry on February 18; the petition filed nine days later was within the statutory window.
On the merits of the magistrate court’s procedure, the Supreme Court held there was no abuse of discretion. A challenge to a court’s jurisdiction — as distinct from an attack on the sufficiency of the charging evidence — may be raised at any time under SDCL 23A-8-3(3) and provides express statutory grounds for dismissal under SDCL 23A-8-2(7). When resolving a jurisdictional challenge, a court does not improperly “inquire into the legality or sufficiency of the evidence”; it determines only whether it has the power to hear the case at all, and it is entitled to hold hearings, receive testimony, and review documents to make that determination.
On the central jurisdictional question, the Court affirmed the dismissal. The 1989 Compact is both a contract between the two states and a federal statute enacted by Congress, and it fixes the South Dakota–Nebraska boundary at the centerline of the designed channel of the Missouri River. The magistrate court’s factual finding — supported by Officer Vanden Bosch’s testimony and body-camera video — that Ogden was on the Nebraska side of that centerline at the time of the stop was not overturned. South Dakota’s statutory grant of conservation-officer jurisdiction extending to the furthermost shoreline was preempted by the federal compact. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the dismissal in all respects.
Key Takeaways
- The 1989 South Dakota–Nebraska Boundary Compact, as a congressionally approved interstate compact and federal statute, fixes the states’ shared boundary at the centerline of the Missouri River’s designed channel and preempts state statutes purporting to extend South Dakota law-enforcement jurisdiction to the Nebraska shoreline.
- An Odyssey electronic-filing notification or a judge’s informal email announcing an order does not constitute “written notice of entry of order” under SDCL 23A-32-6; the ten-day appeal clock does not run from a party’s mere knowledge that an order was entered.
- A magistrate court resolving a pretrial jurisdictional motion may take live testimony and receive exhibits; doing so is not an improper inquiry into the sufficiency of charging evidence.
- Lack of criminal jurisdiction is expressly enumerated as a ground for dismissal under SDCL 23A-8-2(7) and may be raised at any point in the proceedings — it is not limited by the nine “exclusive” grounds sometimes cited from Vatne.
Why It Matters
For law enforcement and prosecutors in the Missouri River border region, this decision establishes that South Dakota conservation officers have no authority to arrest individuals located on the Nebraska side of the river’s designed-channel centerline, regardless of state statutes suggesting otherwise. Officers patrolling boundary waters who cannot establish that a suspect was on the South Dakota side of the compact boundary at the time of the relevant conduct risk having charges dismissed for lack of jurisdiction — making precise location documentation at the time of any stop critical to prosecution.
More broadly, the Court’s treatment of the “written notice of entry” requirement offers practical guidance to all practitioners handling magistrate-court criminal matters in South Dakota. An informal judicial communication — even one explicitly referencing an order — does not start the appeal clock. Only a formal notice of entry of order, filed and served in compliance with SDCL 23A-32-6 and the associated civil procedural rules, triggers the ten-day window for petitioning for an intermediate appeal.