All hearings in actions under this chapter and chapter 26-8A, 26-8B, or 26-8C are closed unless the court finds compelling reasons to require otherwise. However, all pleadings and hearings shall be open and a matter of public record if a juvenile is summoned into court for an offense which if committed by an adult would constitute a crime of violence as defined in subdivision 22-1-2(9) or a crime involving a drug offense in violation of § 22-42-2 or 22-42-3, and at the time of the offense the juvenile was sixteen years of age or older.
S.D. Codified Laws § 26-7A-36
Hearings closed unless court compelled otherwise--Exceptions
Applied in 9 court decisions — leading case State v. Harris (1993)
Most recently applied in State v. Slota (March 2015)
Source: SDC 1939, § 43.0327; SL 1968, ch 164, § 16; SL 1991, ch 217, § 45B; SDCL, § 26-8-32; SL 1996, ch 174.
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.