No part of the code of laws enacted by § 2-16-13 shall be construed as retroactive unless such intention plainly appears.
S.D. Codified Laws § 2-14-21
Code not retroactive
Applied in 29 court decisions — leading case Dahl v. Sittner (1991)
Most recently applied in State v. Smith (July 2023)
Source: SDC 1939, § 65.0202 (22).
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: South Dakota Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain South Dakota statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.