A South Dakota inmate who dismembered his victim after killing her is asking for a new trial. Stephen Falkenberg was found guilty in Yankton County of second-degree murder. He says the prosecutor at trial focused on the dismemberment even though it occurred in a different state after the victim was dead.
“Cut chop sever amputate decapitate dismember.”
Raleigh Hansman catches justices’ attention with words the state used throughout her client’s trial.
“Words that by their very utterance elicit a visceral, emotional reaction in a listener.”
Hansman admits that Stephen Falkenberg caused his girlfriend’s death in Yankton County and that he took her body to his family’s farm in Michigan, where he cut off her head, hands, and feet before dumping her in a creek.
But Hansman says Falkenberg pushed the victim during an argument, and she hit the wall and died. These circumstances might add up to manslaughter, but not second-degree murder.
Hansman says the state emphasized the dismemberment that occurred days later in a different jurisdiction, and by doing so indicated Falkenberg had a depraved mind, an element of second-degree murder.
But prosecutors say Falkenberg did more than give the victim a shove. Assistant Attorney General Chelsea Wenzel gives justices the state’s version:
“Defendant shoved Tammy against the wall and punched her in the face so hard that he fractured his hand in two places.”
Wenzel says Falkenberg later told some people that he had punched an icicle and told others that he fell on the ice. But she says his broken fingers resembled a boxer’s fracture.
“His injury was most consistent with a strike to the chin, cheekbone, or eye socket.”
Wenzel says later that same day, Falkenberg loaded the victim’s body into his truck and drove 600 miles, partly in a blizzard, to get to Michigan.
Wenzel says his actions were a continuous course of conduct, and his attempt to conceal his crime indicates he had a guilty conscience.
Justices will consider these arguments, as well as issues surrounding orders of restitution, and deliver an opinion at a later date.
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