Meet Dora DuFran and her cat house of Deadwood; Perle De Vere and the working girls of Cripple Creek; Annie Chambers of Kansas City; and Squirrel Tooth Alice of Sweetwater. In the wild west, prostitution was one of the few career options for women. Western history is filled with many colorful tales of shady ladies and legendary madams. [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive on Sep 21, 2008 - 15 comments

Scandalfilter: Former South Dakota legislator Ted Klaudt is arrested for raping his own foster children, along with a legislative page.
posted by bardic on May 19, 2007 - 118 comments

Don't like a judge's decision? If you live in South Dakota, don't bother appealing. Just sue the judge instead, with the help of the Judicial Accountability Initiative Law (possibly embedded sound), or Amendment E, a ballot initiative that would allow judges and other decision-makers to be stripped of their normal immunity, and then sued by anyone who felt they'd been wronged by a judgment of theirs. Judges could "lose their jobs or assets" for making an unpopular decision. Many people don't like it, but the majority of South Dakotans do not appear to be among them, even though their legislature is unanimously against it.
posted by oaf on Oct 15, 2006 - 58 comments

Elijah Page to be executed in South Dakota. On March 12, 2000, Page and two other brutally tortured and killed Chester Poage near Spearfish, SD.(very graphic description of events). It took Page, Briley Piper, and Darrell Hoadley nearly 3 hours to finally kill Poage. This will be the first execution in South Dakota in 59 years. (more inside)
posted by killThisKid on Aug 25, 2006 - 77 comments

Remember HB 1215, the bill banning almost all abortion in South Dakota? Cecilia Fire Thunder, President of the Oglala Sioux tribe in South Dakota, has a solution: “I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction.” An impassioned blogger has spoken to President Fire Thunder and is trying to drum up support for the proposed clinic.
posted by needs more cowbell on Mar 22, 2006 - 112 comments

Newsfilter: On Wednesday, the South Dakota state Senate voted, 23 to 12, to criminalize abortion. The new law makes it a felony for doctors to perform the procedure, except to save the life of a woman. "'The momentum for a change in the national policy on abortion is going to come in the not-too-distant future,' said Rep. Roger W. Hunt, a Republican who sponsored the bill. To his delight, abortion opponents succeeded in defeating all amendments designed to mitigate the ban, including exceptions in the case of rape or incest or the health of the woman. Hunt said that such "special circumstances" would have diluted the bill and its impact on the national scene."
posted by milquetoast on Feb 23, 2006 - 184 comments

South Dakota House approves sweeping abortion ban Although saying they personally abhor abortion, opponents made several unsuccessful attempts to make exceptions in cases of rape and incest, and to protect pregnant women whose health may be endangered.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood on Feb 10, 2006 - 50 comments

pendulum continues to swing back to the left
Meet Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth (D-SD)
posted by specialk420 on Jun 2, 2004 - 40 comments

Russell Means goes Republican. Strange times indeed.
posted by kablam on Feb 7, 2004 - 9 comments

The Crazy Horse Memorial is a monument in progress in the Black Hills of South Dakota (where Mount Rushmore is too.) Dedicated to Crazy Horse, the Oglala Lakota Sioux warrior famous for his role at Little Bighorn, it will be 641 feet long by 563 feet high when completed. There will be a night blast on June 26, weather permitting.
posted by homunculus on Jun 22, 2003 - 19 comments

SD proposing expanding jury powers to nullify unfair laws. South Dakota's proposed Amendment A would give juries the ability to accept a guilty verdit but let the offender go if it is shown that the law is either draconian or misguided - as is usually the case with victimless crimes like drug posession and 'in the bedroom' sex laws. Jury nullification: a necessary check on our over-legislated society or a potential breakdown of the modern justice system?
posted by skallas on Sep 23, 2002 - 21 comments

It's the Law in South Dakota: Convert to Islam, Lose Your Child Citing a woman's conversion to Islam as a sign of "bizarre behavior" that made her unfit to be a mother, a South Dakota judge removed her 5-year old son Trevor and gave temporary custody of him to his grandparents. "My wife and I are very concerned about Trevor's safety," explained Conrad Rederth, the child's grandfather. "Trevor's mother has engaged in some bizarre behavior, including wearing Muslim garb and declaring herself a Muslim." (Via alt.muslim)
posted by laz-e-boy on Jul 12, 2002 - 63 comments

At Si Tanka Huron University, a school of 400 in South Dakota, as many as 50 people may have been exposed to HIV by having sex with an HIV-positive basketball player or two of the women he slept with, according to today's New York Times.
posted by rcade on May 1, 2002 - 22 comments

Drug War Roundup II. An Indian in South Dakota tried to grow hemp on the rez for the last two years. The DEA comes around harvest time with the weed whackers. He’s going to try again. A Colorado Supreme Court ruling issued Monday gives booksellers the toughest First Amendment rights in the country. The case started when Tattered Cover fliers were found at a meth lab. Also on Monday, the San Francisco appeals court heard a government lawyer argue that "there’s no way of knowing" if someone can get high eating foods containg hemp oil, like potato chips and soda. NORML is using a Mike Bloomberg quote about smoking marijuana, "You bet I did. And I enjoyed it," in a campaign to legalize the weed, man.
posted by raaka on Apr 9, 2002 - 24 comments