Donna Oien Jones, Petitioner and Appellant v. State of South Dakota, Respondent and Appellee

Summary

The Supreme Court of South Dakota reversed the denial of post-conviction relief to Donna Oien Jones, holding that the record contained no evidence of a knowing and intelligent waiver of her right to effective assistance of counsel because the trial judge's warnings about her attorney occurred outside her presence and the only colloquy with her concerned Fifth Amendment rights, not counsel's competence. The court further held that Jones was denied effective assistance under both South Dakota's prior standard and the newly announced two-prong deficient-performance-and-prejudice test of Strickland v. Washington, pointing to counsel's pain and medication, lack of preparation, failure to object to the State's key tape recording, prejudicial 'high risk' strategy, and self-interested advice against taking an appeal. Justice Henderson concurred in the result but would have held that Jones waived her right to effective assistance at trial, grounding relief solely on counsel's ineffective advice against appeal.