At the time of the hearing the court, after full and complete inquiry, shall determine whether the petitioner or petitioners are fully aware of the purpose of the proceedings and the consequences of their act.
S.D. Codified Laws § 25-5A-16
Determination that petitioners know consequences
Applied in 7 court decisions — leading case Matter of TMB (1987)
Most recently applied in In Re the Termination of Parental Rights of Ibanez (June 2013)
Source: SL 1971, ch 165, § 6 (8).
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.