S.D. Codified Laws § 22-3-5

This is the official text of S.D. Codified Laws § 22-3-5, 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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Accessory to crime--Misdemeanor excepted--"Render assistance" defined--Penalty

Official statutory text

A person is an accessory to a crime, if, with intent to hinder, delay, or prevent the discovery, detection, apprehension, prosecution, conviction, or punishment of another for the commission of a felony, that person renders assistance to the other person. There are no accessories to misdemeanors.

The term, render assistance, means to:

(1) Harbor or conceal the other person;

(2) Warn the other person of impending discovery or apprehension, other than a warning given in an effort to bring the other person into compliance with the law;

(3) Provide the other person with money, transportation, a weapon, a disguise, or any other thing to be used in avoiding discovery or apprehension;

(4) Obstruct anyone by force, intimidation, or deception in the performance of any act which might aid in the discovery, detection, apprehension, prosecution, conviction, or punishment of the other person; or

(5) Conceal, destroy, or alter any physical evidence that might aid in the discovery, detection, apprehension, prosecution, conviction, or punishment of the other person.

A violation of this section is a Class 5 felony. A violation of this section is a Class 4 felony if the person is an accessory to the crime of murder in the first degree pursuant to § 22-16-4 or murder in the second degree pursuant to § 22-16-7 .

Source: SDC 1939, § 13.0203; SL 1976, ch 158, § 3-3; SL 2005, ch 120, § 374; SL 2024, ch 79, § 1.

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.