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Mark Salter
2018 - Present
2031
7
Mark Salter is a judge of the South Dakota Supreme Court District 2. He assumed office on July 9, 2018. His current term ends on January 7, 2031.
Salter ran for re-election for judge of the South Dakota Supreme Court District 2. He won in the retention election on November 8, 2022.
Salter was appointed on May 24, 2018, by Governor Dennis Daugaard (R), to represent the state's Second Supreme Court District.[1] To learn more about this appointment, click here.
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country. As part of this study, we assigned each justice a Confidence Score describing our confidence in the degree of partisanship exhibited by the justices' past partisan behavior, before they joined the court.[2] Salter received a confidence score of Mild Republican.[3] Click here to read more about this study.
Biography
Salter received his undergraduate degree from South Dakota State University in 1990 and his J.D. from the University of South Dakota School of Law in 1993.[4] Following law school, Salter served as a law clerk in the Third Judicial District of Minnesota. In 1993, he entered the United States Naval Reserve and began active duty in 1994. He served in the Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps as a prosecuting attorney and as a defense attorney. He was released from active duty in 1997.[1]
From 1997 to 2004 Satler was an attorney with Cutler & Donohoe, during this time, Salter spent one year as a deputy state attorney for Turner County. Satler was an attorney with the U.S. Attorney's Office from 2004 until 2009 when he became Chief of the Appellate Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office. He served as Chief of the Appellate Division until he was appointed by Gov. Daugaard (R) in August 2012 to succeed William J. Srstka in the South Dakota Second Judicial Circuit.[4] He was re-elected to the Second Circuit in 2014 for a term that would have expired in 2022.[5] He was appointed on May 24, 2018, by Governor Dennis Daugaard (R), to represent the state's Second Supreme Court District.[1]
Elections
2022
See also: South Dakota Supreme Court elections, 2022
South Dakota Supreme Court District 2, Mark Salter's seat
Mark Salter was retained to the South Dakota Supreme Court District 2 on November 8, 2022 with 80.1% of the vote.
Retention Vote |
% |
Votes |
|||
| ✔ | Yes |
80.1
|
228,724 | ||
No |
19.9
|
56,676 | |||
Total Votes |
285,400 | ||||
|
|
2014
- See also: South Dakota judicial elections, 2014
Salter ran for re-election to the Second Judicial Circuit in 2014. He was unopposed in the general election on November 4, 2014.[5]
Campaign themes
2022
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Mark Salter did not complete Ballotpedia's 2022 Candidate Connection survey.
Appointments
2018
South Dakota Supreme Court Justice Glen A. Severson retired in June 2018. He joined the court in 2009.
Under South Dakota law, supreme court justices are appointed by the governor from a list of at least two names provided by the South Dakota Judicial Qualifications Commission. Severson's replacement was Republican Governor Dennis Daugaard's second appointment to the five-member supreme court.
Analysis
Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)
Last updated: June 15, 2020
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country as of June 15, 2020.
The study presented Confidence Scores that represented our confidence in each justice's degree of partisan affiliation. This was not a measure of where a justice fell on an ideological spectrum, but rather a measure of how much confidence we had that a justice was or had been affiliated with a political party. The scores were based on seven factors, including but not limited to party registration.[6]
The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[7]
- Mild Republican
- Strong Republican
This justice's Confidence Score, as well as the factors contributing to that score, is presented below. The information below was current as of June 2020.
Mark
Salter
South Dakota
- Partisan Confidence Score:
Mild Republican - Judicial Selection Method:
Assisted appointment through hybrid judicial nominating commission - Key Factors:
- Was a registered Republican as of 2020
- Appointed by a Republican governor
- State was a Republican trifecta at time of appointment
Partisan Profile
Details:
Salter was a registered Republican as of 2020. He was appointed by Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R). South Dakota was a Republican trifecta when he was appointed to the court.
State supreme court judicial selection in South Dakota
- See also: Judicial selection in South Dakota
The five justices of the South Dakota Supreme Court are appointed by the governor from a list of at least two names provided by the South Dakota Judicial Qualifications Commission.[8] The commission is made up of seven members: two circuit court judges, three lawyers, and two members of the public. The judges are elected by the judicial conference, the lawyers are chosen by the state bar association, and the members of the public are appointed by the governor.[9]
Newly appointed judges serve for at least three years, after which they must run in a yes-no retention election during a regularly scheduled general election. Subsequent terms last eight years.[10]
Chief justice
The chief justice of the court is chosen by peer vote and serves in that capacity for four years.[10]
Qualifications
To serve on this court, a judge must be:
- a U.S. citizen;
- a resident of South Dakota;
- a voting resident within his or her respective district;
- licensed to practice law in the state; and
- under the age of 70.*[10][11][12]
Vacancies
If a judge retires before the end of his or her term, a judicial nominating commission recommends candidates to the governor, and the governor selects a successor from that list. The new appointee serves for at least three years before running in a yes-no retention election.[10]
The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.
See also
2022 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 South Dakota State News, "Gov. Daugaard To Appoint Judge Mark E. Salter To South Dakota Supreme Court," archived November 26, 2018
- ↑ We calculated confidence scores by collecting several data points such as party registration, donations, and previous political campaigns.
- ↑ The five possible confidence scores were: Strong Democrat, Mild Democrat, Indeterminate, Mild Republican, and Strong Republican.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 South Dakota Unified Judicial System, "Gov. Daugaard names Mark Salter to Second Circuit Court bench," accessed July 16, 2021
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 South Dakota Secretary of State, "Current candidates for primary election - 6/3/2014," updated May 6, 2014, accessed May 8, 2014pg. 60
- ↑ The seven factors were party registration, donations made to partisan candidates, donations made to political parties, donations received from political parties or bodies with clear political affiliation, participation in political campaigns, the partisanship of the body responsible for appointing the justice, and state trifecta status when the justice joined the court.
- ↑ An Indeterminate score indicates that there is either not enough information about the justice’s partisan affiliations or that our research found conflicting partisan affiliations.
- ↑ South Dakota Secretary of State, "Judicial System," accessed April 15, 2025
- ↑ South Dakota Unified Judicial System, "Judicial Qualifications Commission," accessed April 15, 2025
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 American Judicature Society, "Methods of Judicial Selection: South Dakota," archived October 2, 2014
- ↑ Under the South Dakota code, a supreme court justice who turns seventy while in office must be "automatically retired on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of January next after the general election at which members of the Legislature are elected."
- ↑ Justia US Law, "Section 16-1-4.1: Mandatory retirement of justices at age seventy—Conclusion of pending matters," accessed September 10, 2014
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Federal courts:
Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: District of South Dakota • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: District of South Dakota
State courts:
South Dakota Supreme Court • South Dakota Circuit Courts • South Dakota Magistrate Courts
State resources:
Courts in South Dakota • South Dakota judicial elections • Judicial selection in South Dakota
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