SD Supreme Court upholds attempted murder conviction

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PIERRE — The South Dakota Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a Rapid City man’s convictions for a 2009 shooting outside an annual basketball tournament that features teams from predominantly American Indian high schools in the region.

Simon Torres, now 22, was sentenced to 50 years in prison after a jury convicted him of attempted murder and commission of a felony with a firearm for the shooting of Shane Bordeaux.

The state’s highest court unanimously upheld the trial judge’s decision to admit a blurry video recording of the shooting and photos of the victim’s wounds as evidence in the trial.

Lawyers in the case were not immediately available Thursday to comment on the ruling.

Witnesses said Torres shot Bordeaux four times with a .22-caliber handgun on Dec. 16, 2009, outside the Rapid City arena where the Lakota Nation Invitational basketball tournament was being held. Extensive medical treatment was required to save Bordeaux’s life, according to court documents.

In his appeal, Torres argued that his trial was unfair because the judge allowed the jury to see a bystander’s blurry video of the shooting with digital labels added to identify the shooter and victim.

The video, recorded by a cellphone, did not identify people by name, but Torres said the tags labeling the shooter and victim amounted to manipulation of evidence to fit the prosecution’s theory of the case.

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