[3] While serving as Attorney General Meierhenry argued before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of South Dakota six times, victoriously on 3 occasions and on the losing end on the other trio.
This case involved whether a church-operated school was exempt under federal law from unemployment compensation taxes.
Attorney General Meierhenry argued on behalf of the state, but the Court ruled 5-4 the life in prison was cruel and unusual for “relatively minor criminal conduct.” (The defendant in this case, and in the next two, was Herman Solem, at the time the warden of the South Dakota State Penitentiary.
When a prison inmate brings a habeas corpus case, challenging the legality of his imprisonment, the stated defendant is the warden.)
He challenged the conviction, arguing that the crime had occurred on the Rosebud Indian Reservation, and therefore the state lacked jurisdiction.
The Court unanimously ruled for Bartlett, holding that the land in question was still part of the Rosebud Indian Reservation.
[5] He was the husband of the first female Associate Justice of the South Dakota Supreme Court, Judith Meierhenry who served in that capacity from 2002 to 2011.