South Dakota Codified Laws 29A-2-803. Effect of homicide on intestate succession, wills, trusts, joint assets, life insurance, andbeneficiary designations
(a) In this section:
(1) “Disposition or appointment of property” includes a transfer of an item of property or any other benefit to a beneficiary designated in a will, trust, or other governing instrument.
Terms Used In South Dakota Codified Laws 29A-2-803
- Beneficiary: A person who is entitled to receive the benefits or proceeds of a will, trust, insurance policy, retirement plan, annuity, or other contract. Source: OCC
- Conviction: A judgement of guilt against a criminal defendant.
- Decedent: A deceased person.
- Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
- Executor: A male person named in a will to carry out the decedent
- Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
- Intestate: Dying without leaving a will.
- Property: includes property, real and personal. See South Dakota Codified Laws 2-14-2
- Right of survivorship: The ownership rights that result in the acquisition of title to property by reason of having survived other co-owners.
- Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
(2) “Governing instrument” means a will, trust, or other governing instrument executed by the decedent.
(3) “Revocable,” with respect to a disposition, appointment, provision, or nomination, means one under which the decedent, at the time of or immediately before death, was alone empowered, by law or under the governing instrument, to revoke or cancel the designation in favor of the killer, whether or not the decedent was then empowered to designate the decedent in place of the decedent’s killer and whether or not the decedent then had capacity to exercise the power.
(b) An individual who feloniously and intentionally kills the decedent forfeits all benefits under this chapter with respect to the decedent’s estate, including an intestate share, an elective share, an omitted spouse’s or child’s share, a homestead allowance, exempt property, and a family allowance. If the decedent died intestate, the decedent’s intestate estate passes as if the killer disclaimed the killer’s intestate share.
(c) The felonious and intentional killing of the decedent:
(1) Revokes any revocable (i) disposition or appointment of property made by the decedent to the killer in a governing instrument, (ii) provision in a governing instrument conferring a general or nongeneral power of appointment on the killer, and (iii) nomination of the killer in a governing instrument, nominating or appointing the killer to serve in any fiduciary or representative capacity, including a personal representative, executor, trustee, or agent; and
(2) Severs the interests of the decedent and killer in property held by them at the time of the killing as joint tenants with the right of survivorship, transforming the interests of the decedent and killer into tenancies in common.
(d) A severance under subsection (c)(2) does not affect any third–party interest in property acquired for value and in good faith reliance on an apparent title by survivorship in the killer unless a writing declaring the severance has been noted, registered, filed, or recorded in records appropriate to the kind and location of the property which are relied upon, in the ordinary course of transactions involving such property, as evidence of ownership.
(e) Provisions of a governing instrument are given effect as if the killer disclaimed all provisions revoked by this section or, in the case of a revoked nomination in a fiduciary or representative capacity, as if the killer predeceased the decedent.
(f) A wrongful acquisition of property or interest by a killer not covered by this section must be treated in accordance with the principle that a killer cannot profit from the killer’s wrong.
(g) A final judgment of conviction establishing criminal accountability for the felonious and intentional killing of the decedent conclusively establishes the convicted individual as the decedent’s killer for purposes of this section. Absent a conviction, a determination by the court that there is a preponderance of evidence that the individual would be found criminally accountable for the felonious and intentional killing of the decedent conclusively establishes that individual as the decedent’s killer for purposes of this section.