Any property, which is not contraband, seized or confiscated by law enforcement personnel, ostensibly for use as evidence in a criminal prosecution, shall be preserved, maintained, or stored at the expense of the county where the criminal offense occurred. If the property is not contraband and is owned by a victim of the crime being investigated, the property shall be photographed by the appropriate law enforcement personnel and returned to the victim of the crime within thirty days of completion of forensic analysis unless the prosecuting attorney deems it essential to the prosecution of the case to retain the evidence. The photographs shall accurately and correctly represent the property and are admissible evidence pursuant to article X of chapter 19-19 in any resulting criminal proceeding.
S.D. Codified Laws § 23A-37-14
Photographing and return of property of victim seized as evidence--Admissibility of photographs
Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case State v. Moran (2003)
Most recently applied in State v. Rogers (March 2025)
Source: SL 1985, ch 198, § 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.