Unless specific provision is made by law, any person who attempts to commit a crime and, in the attempt, does any act toward the commission of the crime, but fails or is prevented or intercepted in the perpetration of that crime, is punishable for the attempt at a maximum sentence of one-half of the penalty prescribed for the underlying crime. Unless specific provision is made by law, any person who attempts to commit a Class A, Class B, or Class C felony is guilty of a Class 2 felony.
S.D. Codified Laws § 22-4-1
Attempt--Punishment
Applied in 41 court decisions — leading case State v. Smith (1999)
Most recently applied in Interest of J.A.D., III (February 2026)
Source: SDC 1939, § 13.0401; SL 1972, ch 137; SL 1976, ch 158, § 4-1; SL 2005, ch 120, § 377; SL 2023, ch 67, § 1.
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.