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S.D. Codified Laws § 49-31-31

Contact by telephone or other device--Threatening, harassing, or misleading contacts--Penalty

Applied in 9 court decisions — leading case State v. Hauge (1996)

Most recently applied in State v. Peneaux (March 2023)

Source: SL 1967, ch 30, § 1; SL 1983, ch 15, § 121; SL 2008, ch 240, § 1; SL 2011, ch 206, § 1; SL 2022, ch 170, § 1.

How often courts cite this section

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citing decisions per year

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.

It is a Class 1 misdemeanor for a person to use a telephone or other electronic communication device for any of the following purposes:

(1) To contact another person with intent to terrorize, intimidate, threaten, harass, or annoy such person by using obscene or lewd language or by suggesting a lewd or lascivious act;

(2) To contact another person with intent to threaten to inflict physical harm or injury to any person or property;

(3) To contact another person with intent to extort money or other things of value;

(4) To contact another person with intent to disturb that person by repeated anonymous telephone calls or intentionally failing to replace the receiver or disengage the telephone connection; or

(5) Except as allowed in § 49-31-31.2, to contact or to attempt to contact another person and, in so doing, intentionally cause to be displayed as caller identification, a fictitious or misleading name or telephone number:

(a) To defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value from another person; or

(b) Of another person who has not granted the person the right to display that other person's name or phone number, as applicable.

It is a Class 1 misdemeanor for a person to knowingly permit a telephone or other electronic communication device under his or her control to be used for a purpose prohibited by this section.

Official source: South Dakota Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain South Dakota statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.