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Thursday, May 14, 2026

Has SD always used lethal injection for executions?

Michael Klinski, South Dakota News Watch
no

South Dakota executed prisoners via hanging and the electric chair until the state carried out its first lethal injection execution in 2007.

Five people have been executed via lethal injection since 2007, when Elijah Page was the first in 60 years. Page was convicted of the torture and murder of Chester Allan Poage in 2000. Briley Piper remains the only person on death row. He was also involved in the killing of Poage and could face execution this year.

Jack McCall was the state’s first execution by hanging in 1877. He was convicted of killing Wild Bill Hickok. 

Including McCall, 14 people were executed by hanging until 1915, when the state banned the death penalty. It was reinstated, and George Sitts was executed by electrocution in 1947. 

The state changed the method of execution to lethal injection in 1984, though it would take more than 30 years for the first.

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