If any person, who has been accused of theft, restores or returns the property allegedly stolen before an indictment or information is laid before a magistrate, such fact may be considered in mitigation of punishment. The restoration or return of the property is not a defense nor may it be considered by the finder of fact.
S.D. Codified Laws § 22-30A-10.1
Return of stolen property considered in mitigation of punishment--Return not a defense
Applied in 3 court decisions — leading case State v. Krouse (2022)
Most recently applied in State v. Krouse (August 2022)
Source: SL 1977, ch 189, § 58; SL 1986, ch 183, § 1; SL 2005, ch 120, § 60.
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.