To use or attempt to use or offer to use force or violence upon or toward the person of another is not unlawful if necessarily committed by a public officer in the performance of any legal duty or by any other person assisting the public officer or acting by the public officer's direction.
S.D. Codified Laws § 22-18-2
Justifiable force used by public officer in performance of duty--Assistance or direction of officer
Applied in 8 court decisions — leading case United States Means v. Solem (1980)
Most recently applied in State v. Warfield (March 2026)
Source: SDC 1939, § 13.2402 (1); SL 2005, ch 120, § 6.
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.