Any error, defect, irregularity, or variance which does not affect substantial rights shall be disregarded.
S.D. Codified Laws § 23A-44-14
(Rule 52(a)) Defects not affecting substantial rights disregarded
Applied in 62 court decisions — leading case State v. Nelson (1998)
Most recently applied in State v. Smith (July 2023)
Source: SDC 1939 & Supp 1960, §§ 34.2902, 34.3002; SDCL, §§ 23-1-2, 23-32-20; SL 1978, ch 178, § 547.
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.