In case of a hung jury during the penalty phase of the trial, a life sentence is issued, even if a single juror opposed death (there is no retrial).
[6] First-degree murder is a Class A Felony in South Dakota, punishable by death or life imprisonment without parole.
It is the only Class A Felony in the state and can be punished with death if (and only if) it involves any of the following aggravating factors:[7] South Dakota executed four men between 1877 and its admission to the union in 1889, and 10 men between that time and the abolition of South Dakota's death penalty in 1915.
[17] On January 1, 1979, Governor Bill Janklow signed South Dakota's post-Furman death penalty statute.
[1] A further two men, including self-proclaimed serial killer Robert Leroy Anderson, killed themselves while on death row.