Any department or institution that makes or takes any photograph, impression, measurement, description, or record including confidential criminal investigative information, taken or made as provided for in § 23-5-6 shall be filed and preserved by the department or institution. The department or institution may not publish, transfer, or circulate any impression, measurement, description, record, or photograph, except a criminal booking photograph, for a crime classified as a felony pursuant to § 22-6-1 outside the department or institution except to a duly authorized law enforcement officer. If the subject of a measurement, description, or other record becomes a fugitive from justice, or escapes from a penal institution then the measurement, description, or record may be exhibited to the public. This section does not apply to the release of information allowed pursuant to § 24-2-20. Any criminal booking photograph for a crime classified as a felony pursuant to § 22-6-1 is a public record pursuant to chapter 1-27.

Nothing in this section requires any law enforcement agency to provide or reproduce a criminal booking photograph older than six months from the date the criminal booking photograph was taken. An agency requested to provide or reproduce a criminal booking photograph is entitled to recover costs of retrieval or reproduction pursuant to § 1-27-35.

Ask a legal question, get an answer ASAP!
Click here to chat with a lawyer about your rights.

Source: SDC 1939 & Supp 1960, § 34.1614; SL 2001, ch 118, § 1; SL 2017, ch 100, § 1.