S.D. Codified Laws § 22-3-1

Persons capable of committing crimes--Exceptions

Applied in 25 court decisions — leading case State v. Kiehn (1972)

Most recently applied in State v. Dutton (June 2023)

Source: SDC 1939, § 13.0201; SL 1968, ch 28, §§ 1, 2; SL 1976, ch 158, §§ 3-1, 3-5; SL 1983, ch 174, § 3; SL 1985, ch 192, § 10; SL 2005, ch 120, § 370.

How often courts cite this section

citing decisions per year

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.

Any person is capable of committing a crime, except those included in the following classes:

(1) Any child under the age of ten years;

(2) Any child of the age of ten years , but under the age of fourteen years, in the absence of proof that at the time of the committing the act or neglect charged, the child knew its wrongfulness;

(3) Any person who committed the act or made the omission charged under ignorance or mistake of fact which disproves any criminal intent. However, ignorance of the law does not excuse a person from punishment for its violation;

(4) Any person who committed the act charged without being conscious thereof; or

(5) Any person who committed the act or made the omission charged while under involuntary subjection to the power of superiors.

Official source: South Dakota Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain South Dakota statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.