South Dakota § 15-26A-66 - Length of briefs.

§ 15-26A-66. Length of briefs.

(a)    Monospaced Typeface. Appellant and appellee briefs in monospaced typeface shall not exceed forty pages. A reply brief and amicus curiae brief shall not exceed twenty pages. A supplemental brief shall not exceed ten pages. Monospaced type shall be no more nor no less than ten characters per inch (10 cpi).

(b)    Proportionally Spaced Typeface. Appellant and appellee briefs in proportionally spaced typeface shall not exceed thirty-two pages. A reply brief and amicus curiae brief shall not exceed sixteen pages. A supplemental brief shall not exceed five pages. Nonetheless, briefs may exceed these page limitations if they otherwise comply with the type volume limitations in § 15-26A-66(b)(2). A proportionally spaced typeface must include serifs, but sans serif type may be used in headings and captions. A proportionally spaced typeface must be 12-point or larger, in both body text and footnotes.

(1)    Type Style. Briefs must be set in a plain, roman style, although italics may be used for emphasis. Case names must be italicized or underlined. Boldface can only be used for case captions, section names, and argument headings. The use of all-capitals text may be applied only for case captions and section names. Nevertheless, quoted passages may use the original type styles and capitalization.

(2)    Type Volume Limitation. Appellant and appellee briefs are acceptable if they contain no more than the greater of 10,000 words or 50,000 characters. A reply brief and amicus curiae brief are acceptable if they contain no more than half the type volume specified for appellant and appellee briefs.

(3)    Headings, footnotes, and quotations count toward the word and character limitations. The table of contents, table of cases, jurisdictional statement, statement of legal issues, any addendum materials, and any certificates of counsel do not count toward the limitations.

(4)    Certificate of Compliance. A brief submitted under § 15-26A-66(b) must include a certificate by the attorney, or an unrepresented party, that the brief complies with the type volume limitation. The certificate must state the number of words or characters in the brief. The person preparing the certificate may rely on the word or character count of the word-processing system used to prepare the brief.

(c)    Upon approval of the Supreme Court, page or word limitations for briefs may be exceeded. A written request for such approval to exceed limitations shall be filed at least ten days prior to the filing date of the brief, specifying in detail the reasons why additions are necessary and stating the number of additional pages or words requested.

Source: Supreme Court Rule 79-1, Rule 12 (7); SDCL Supp, § 15-26A-48; Supreme Court Rule 80-3; SL 1993, ch 394 (Supreme Court Rule 93-11); SL 1999, ch 278.