Background
On February 2, 2024, Derrek Braveheart was sitting in his truck outside a Family Dollar store in Rapid City, South Dakota, when Johnathan Odom — a stranger — approached the driver’s side window and began yelling at him. Odom struck Braveheart through the open window multiple times. Braveheart exited the truck with his lawfully concealed handgun and chambered a round. After a fourth slap, Odom stepped several feet back, raised both arms to shoulder height, and said “shoot me then.” Approximately three seconds later, Braveheart raised his weapon and fired a single shot into Odom’s chest. Odom died from the wound. The entire confrontation was captured on a cell phone video recorded by Braveheart’s girlfriend.
A Pennington County grand jury indicted Braveheart on one count of second-degree murder and three counts of first-degree manslaughter. Before trial, Braveheart moved to dismiss under South Dakota’s statutory immunity provision, SDCL 22-18-4.8, arguing he acted in lawful self-defense when Odom unlawfully entered his occupied vehicle. The circuit court denied the motion, finding the State rebutted his prima facie immunity claim by clear and convincing evidence because “any threat of harm had dissipated” by the time Braveheart fired. At trial, the jury convicted Braveheart of first-degree manslaughter under SDCL 22-16-15(3) and the circuit court sentenced him to thirty years in prison.
Braveheart appealed on two grounds: that the circuit court clearly erred in denying his pretrial immunity motion, and that the evidence was insufficient to sustain his conviction. The Supreme Court ordered supplemental briefing on whether the immunity issue becomes moot following a conviction.
The Court’s Holding
The court first addressed sufficiency of the evidence, affirming the conviction. It held that the evidence — particularly Carroll’s cell phone video — was sufficient for a rational jury to find that Braveheart could not have reasonably believed deadly force was necessary at the moment he fired. By that point, Odom had stepped backward away from Braveheart, raised his arms, and invited Braveheart to shoot him. The court also rejected Braveheart’s legal argument that the SDCL 22-18-4.5 presumption — that a person unlawfully entering an occupied vehicle is presumed to intend an unlawful act involving force or violence — was equivalent to proof of a “forcible felony” sufficient to justify deadly force. That presumption concerns intent to commit an unlawful act; it does not establish the predicate felony that the deadly-force statutes require, and Braveheart identified no cognizable forcible felony on the facts presented.
Having affirmed the conviction, the court then held that Braveheart’s challenge to the pretrial immunity ruling was moot. Because statutory immunity under SDCL 22-18-4.8 exists to spare a defendant the burden of standing trial, its purpose is extinguished once trial occurs and results in a final judgment of conviction. A reviewing court cannot transport the proceedings back in time to correct a pretrial immunity ruling when guilt has already been established beyond a reasonable doubt. The court noted that defendants adversely affected by a circuit court’s immunity ruling have the ability to seek interlocutory review under SDCL 23A-32-12, and that the appropriate moment to vindicate an immunity right is before trial, not after.
Key Takeaways
- A claim of error in a pretrial statutory immunity ruling under SDCL 22-18-4.8 is rendered moot by a final jury conviction; the purpose of immunity — avoiding trial — cannot be restored retroactively by an appellate court.
- The SDCL 22-18-4.5 presumption that an individual unlawfully entering an occupied vehicle intends an unlawful act involving force or violence does not equate to proof of a “forcible felony” under SDCL 22-18-3.1; a defendant invoking deadly force to prevent a forcible felony must identify an actual predicate felony.
- Even where an aggressor initiates a physical confrontation, the necessity requirement of South Dakota’s 2021 self-defense scheme means a defendant must reasonably believe deadly force is necessary at the moment it is used; a retreating, unarmed aggressor who has stepped back and invited being shot can negate that necessity.
- Defendants who lose pretrial immunity hearings should seek interlocutory review immediately — waiting to raise the issue on direct appeal after conviction forfeits meaningful relief.
Why It Matters
This decision is the South Dakota Supreme Court’s first clear statement that statutory self-defense immunity under the 2021 Act is “temporal and evanescent” — it exists to prevent trial, not to unwind one. By declaring the pretrial immunity issue moot after conviction, the court effectively requires defendants who believe they are immune from prosecution to seek emergency interlocutory review before trial begins, or risk losing the ability to challenge that ruling entirely. Defense attorneys handling stand-your-ground cases in South Dakota must now treat a lost immunity hearing as a trigger for an immediate petition under SDCL 23A-32-12, not a preserved issue for direct appeal.
The opinion also provides important doctrinal clarification on the interplay between South Dakota’s 2021 self-defense statutes. The court draws a firm line between the SDCL 22-18-4.5 occupied-vehicle presumption and the forcible-felony requirement for justified deadly force — a distinction that will constrain arguments in future cases where defendants try to use a single presumption to satisfy multiple statutory elements. Read together with the court’s necessity analysis, the decision signals that even in a stand-your-ground state, the circumstances at the precise moment of a fatal shot — not the arc of the confrontation as a whole — remain the critical inquiry.