In the event the death penalty for a Class A felony is held to be unconstitutional by the South Dakota Supreme Court or the United States Supreme Court, the court having jurisdiction over a person previously sentenced to death for a Class A felony shall have such person brought before the court, and the court shall sentence such person to life imprisonment.
S.D. Codified Laws § 23A-27A-14
Life imprisonment when death penalty held unconstitutional
Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case State v. Rhines (1996)
Most recently applied in Piper v. Weber (July 2009)
Source: SL 1979, ch 160, § 16.
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.