Janklow is entitled to the ordinary course of appeals before the sentence is final. What will be interesting to see is whether he'll take the high road and resign, or fight to the bitter end.
My guess is that he'll fight, because he could have taken the high road before the trial, which was a slam dunk against him, anyway. His political career was already toast. The Republicans need to jettison him, and if he had an ounce of class, he'd make it easy. If he fights to keep his job, any Democrat opponent of his would win his seat, something we don't need in a state where we're trying to unseat Daschle.
We have learned from the Terri Schiavo case that an "appeal" won't help Janklow -- necessarily. The original trial finding will stand. The appeal can be based only on procedural errors by the prosecutor. Even if new evidence turns up now, it cannot be used in the appeal.
I guess Janklow found out that he WAS not as popular in SD as EMK IS in MA.