An agent of the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation acted properly when he interviewed an Oglala Lakota suspect on the Pine Ridge Reservation. That’s the opinion of the South Dakota Supreme Court issued Thursday. The high court says the suspect’s statements to the agent can now be presented to the jury when he goes to trial.
The DCI interview in question took place in 2017 at a home in Martin where the suspect, Morgan Cummings, lived with his father.
DCI Special Agent Dane Rasmussen was accompanied by an agent with the BIA. The officers told the 18-year-old suspect they were with the Northern Plains Safe Trails Drug Enforcement Task Force investigating off-reservation burglaries.
Morgan Cummings went outside to Rasmussen’s vehicle while the BIA agent went inside the house to talk with the father.
Cummings was charged in the Sixth Circuit with burglary, destruction of property, and grand theft. During pretrial action, the judge allowed into evidence some property agents found at the Martin residence, but she suppressed Cummings’s statements to Rasmussen. The state appealed, leading to this interim ruling.
At oral arguments held in February 2020, Assistant Attorney General Stacy Hegge told justices that Rasmussen was within his rights to use the “knock and talk” method.
“It’s where an officer goes up to the door, seeks voluntary conversation, and is there… and the interaction is consensual.”
Cummings challenged Rasmussen’s jurisdiction as a state official going into Indian Country. But Hegge says precedent supports Rasmussen’s authority.
“Whether they’re lawfully present under the knock-and-talk method, it doesn’t spin on, it doesn’t turn on whether the officer was outside of his or her territorial jurisdiction.”
Hegge says Cummings was not under arrest or in custody when he spoke with Rasmussen.
“The interaction here was certainly consensual. Morgan was told he was free to leave, that the doors were unlocked, that he didn’t have to talk with the officer.”
In its opinion, the Supreme Court holds that Rasmussen did not infringe on any legitimate interest of a tribal government to make and follow its own laws, and that he did not conduct any non-consensual enforcement activities in Indian County. Cummings’s statements can be presented to a jury.