PIERRE — Threatening a police officer on Facebook could land people in jail for up to a year under the terms of a bill that passed the state Senate on Thursday.
That’s less time behind bars than the bill’s sponsor wanted.
Sen. Tim Reed, R-Brookings, presented his bill as a way to update state laws on threats of serious bodily harm or death to law enforcement to include threats made electronically.
Originally, Senate Bill 77 did three main things: include electronic threats in the existing law, affix a felony penalty of up to five years in prison to such threats, and remove the word “serious” from the definition of threatened bodily harm.
Under current law, written threats via mail are a class 1 misdemeanor.
“If you’re going to threaten harm, whether it be ink and paper or on social media, I believe the consequence should be greater than a misdemeanor,” Reed said.
Slightly more than half of his fellow senators disagreed.
Sen Jim Mehlhaff, R-Pierre, moved to amend the bill and reduce the penalty to a class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail.
The notion that a one-off social media threat would serve as a basis for a felony, particularly for young people, didn’t sit well with Mehlhaff. The senator served on an interim committee in 2023 studying ways to keep young adults out of prison through targeted diversion programs.
“I’m thinking about the impulsive nature of social media, the impulsive nature of young people, and the impulsive nature sometimes, frankly, of people my age,” Mehlhaff said.
Sen. Herman Otten, R-Tea, agreed. A felony follows a person around for years, he said. It makes it harder to get a job or an apartment and affects voting and firearms rights.
“In the state of South Dakota, we make far too many people felons,” Otten said.
Reed countered that lowering the penalty for threatening police officers disregards the potential seriousness of an electronic threat.
“Are we going to make it OK to do something flippant like that?” Reed said, making a point a handful of other opponents to the amendment also made.
Mehlhaff’s amendment passed nonetheless, on a vote of 17-14.
The amended SB 77 passed 27-4. The bill now moves to a House of Representatives committee.