Shalom Baer Gee, Rapid City Journal
Three of the six Mitchell Post 18 American Legion baseball players accused of rape in Pennington County are set for a transfer hearing in July. The hearing will determine whether their cases are moved to juvenile court and behind closed doors and out of the public eye.
Last summer, the state alleged two 16-year-old victims were assaulted between June 1 and June 4 while the team visited Rapid City for a baseball tournament.
In an Aug. 2, 2023 indictment, a Pennington County grand jury officially charged 18-year-old Hudson Haley, 17-year-old Karter Sibson, 18-year-old Carter Miller, 18-year-old Lincoln Bates, 17-year-old Peyton Mandel and 19-year-old Landon Waddell with second-degree rape and aiding and abetting second-degree rape against one of the alleged victims.
Haley faces an additional count of second-degree rape against the alleged second victim, and Waddell faces a count of aiding and abetting second-degree rape against that same victim.
On Tuesday, Circuit Court Judge Robert Gusinsky granted Sibson, Miller, and Mandel’s requests for a transfer hearing. He set the hearing for July 1 and July 2.
At that hearing, the young men’s defense attorneys will argue that the cases should be heard in juvenile court. In South Dakota, minors who are over 16 and charged with a class A, B, C, 1 or 2 felony are tried in adult court. Second-degree rape is a class 1 felony, automatically placing the minor’s cases in adult court.
There is an assumption under the law that it’s in the public’s best interest for a minor’s case to be heard in adult court in higher felony cases, so the burden sits with the defense to convince a judge to move the case.
Angela Colbath, Sibson’s defense attorney, said she plans to have a doctor from Colorado testify as an expert at the hearing. Miller’s defense attorney, Matthew Skinner, said he expects the same expert to testify for his client. Rensch said he is not sure if he’ll use the same expert for Mandel.
The other three defendants — Haley, Bates and Waddell — are scheduled for a status hearing on July 1. Both the defense attorneys and the state agreed it would be best to await the outcome of the transfer hearing before setting a trial date since all six of the teenagers are codefendants.
The case has garnered national news attention. On Oct. 6, 2023, Colbath filed a motion for the court to limit pretrial publicity. She referenced several news stories, including an interview Pennington County State’s Attorney Lara Roetzel gave with Chris Cuomo on NewsNation.
“Information regarding this case is saturating potential jurors in Pennington County,” Colbath said.
On Oct. 12, 2023, Gusinsky placed a gag order on both the Pennington County State’s Attorney’s Office and all the defendants’ attorneys.
Gusinsky wrote in his order that he took notice of the emotional nature of the case, the extensive local and national media coverage it has generated, and the number of press releases issued and interviews given by the state’s attorney to the media and the factual assertions and opinions in them.
“… the pretrial publicity will likely interfere with the parties’ respective rights to a fair trial by an impartial jury,” he wrote.
In Davison County, two Mitchell Baseball Association board members face criminal charges for allegedly knowing about the crimes and failing to report them to law enforcement.
Luke Norden, 43, of Mitchell, is charged with two counts of intentional failure to report the abuse or neglect of a child and two counts of misprision of a felony. The charges stem from June 27, 2022 and June 22, 2023. Jeremy Borgan, 48, of Mitchell, is charged with one count of intentional failure to report the abuse or neglect of a child on June 19, 2023.
Norden and Borgan both pleaded not guilty, and their cases are ongoing.