S.D. Codified Laws § 22-3-1

This is the official text of S.D. Codified Laws § 22-3-1, part of South Dakota’s Codified Laws — part of the compiled statutory law of South Dakota, published by the state as "Codified Laws." Browse the sections below, each linked to its official government source.

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Persons capable of committing crimes--Exceptions

Official statutory text

Any person is capable of committing a crime, except those included in the following classes:

(1) Any child under the age of ten years;

(2) Any child of the age of ten years , but under the age of fourteen years, in the absence of proof that at the time of the committing the act or neglect charged, the child knew its wrongfulness;

(3) Any person who committed the act or made the omission charged under ignorance or mistake of fact which disproves any criminal intent. However, ignorance of the law does not excuse a person from punishment for its violation;

(4) Any person who committed the act charged without being conscious thereof; or

(5) Any person who committed the act or made the omission charged while under involuntary subjection to the power of superiors.

Source: SDC 1939, § 13.0201; SL 1968, ch 28, §§ 1, 2; SL 1976, ch 158, §§ 3-1 , 3-5 ; SL 1983, ch 174, § 3; SL 1985, ch 192, § 10; SL 2005, ch 120, § 370.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.