Background
On August 20, 2023, Joseph Bendel and his longtime friend Douglas Lindberg, Jr., spent the day drinking heavily at a rural Grant County farmstead. An eyewitness, Timothy Loehrer, observed Lindberg put Bendel in a sudden chokehold near a firepit. Afterward, rather than disengaging, Bendel grabbed a two-by-four board and chased Lindberg approximately 50 yards, striking him multiple times. After Lindberg fell to the ground, Bendel continued beating him with the board approximately 12 to 15 more times. Lindberg suffered a skull fracture, subdural brain hemorrhage, collapsed lungs, and multiple broken bones. He died early the next morning. Bendel was 6’4″ and 240 pounds; he had no visible injuries after the incident. He fled the scene, spent the evening at a casino, and slept under a bridge before being arrested.
Bendel was indicted on second-degree murder, first-degree manslaughter, and aggravated assault. Before trial, he moved to dismiss under SDCL 22-18-4.8, asserting statutory immunity on the ground that his use of deadly force was justified self-defense. The circuit court (Judge Dawn M. Elshere, Third Judicial Circuit) held an evidentiary hearing, found clear and convincing evidence rebutting the self-defense claim—crediting Loehrer’s eyewitness account—and denied immunity. Bendel also sought to introduce testimony about Lindberg’s alleged violent and criminal acts on July 28, 2023, including thefts and threats to kill others; the court excluded that evidence while permitting evidence of a June 21, 2023 assault by Lindberg on Bendel and Bendel’s knowledge that Lindberg had been in prison.
At trial in October 2024, the jury acquitted Bendel of second-degree murder but convicted him of first-degree manslaughter (heat of passion). The circuit court sentenced him to 60 years in the penitentiary, with 20 years suspended. Bendel appealed, challenging the pretrial immunity denial, the evidentiary exclusion, the sufficiency of the evidence, and alleged cumulative error.
The Court’s Holding
The South Dakota Supreme Court affirmed on all grounds. As to the pretrial immunity ruling, the court held—as a matter of first impression—that once a case proceeds to trial and results in a final judgment of conviction, any challenge to a pretrial denial of statutory immunity under SDCL 22-18-4.8 is moot. The immunity statute protects a qualified defendant from being subjected to a “criminal prosecution” at all. Once prosecution has run its course and a conviction entered, there is no effectual relief a reviewing court can grant: the very harm immunity was designed to prevent—being prosecuted—has already occurred. The court noted that a companion case decided the same day, State v. Braveheart, 2026 S.D. 36, reached an identical conclusion. The court also held that neither the right-of-appeal statute (SDCL 15-26A-3(2)) nor SDCL 22-18-4.8 itself provides a direct appeal of right from a pretrial immunity denial; the proper vehicle is a petition for intermediate discretionary review under SDCL 23A-32-12.
The court further held that the public interest exception to mootness did not apply because the circuit court’s immunity ruling was a fact-specific determination affecting only Bendel’s case, not one affecting “the legal rights or liabilities of the public at large.” On the excluded other-act evidence, the court found no abuse of discretion: Bendel sought to introduce Lindberg’s July 28 statements through Bendel’s own testimony, presenting those statements as hearsay without independent evidence that the acts occurred or that Lindberg was the actor, as required under Rule 404(b). The circuit court properly weighed the probative value against the prejudicial effect and permissibly excluded the evidence, having already allowed Bendel to testify about the June 21 assault and Lindberg’s criminal history—evidence sufficient to support the self-defense theory before the jury.
Key Takeaways
- A pretrial denial of self-defense immunity under SDCL 22-18-4.8 is rendered moot by a subsequent trial and conviction; the defendant must seek interlocutory review via petition under SDCL 23A-32-12 before trial, or the issue is unreviewable on direct appeal.
- The public interest mootness exception does not save a fact-specific immunity ruling that affects only the individual defendant’s case.
- Rule 404(b) other-act evidence offered to show a defendant’s reasonable fear of the victim must be supported by sufficient evidence that the acts actually occurred and that the victim was the actor; a defendant’s account of what the victim allegedly told him, standing alone, does not satisfy that foundation requirement.
- Pursuing and repeatedly striking a fleeing, grounded victim who had already ceased aggression is inconsistent with a lawful self-defense claim, as a matter of credibility and sufficiency.
Why It Matters
This decision resolves a significant procedural gap in South Dakota’s stand-your-ground immunity scheme. By holding that an immunity challenge is moot after conviction, the court places meaningful urgency on defendants to seek and obtain interlocutory relief before trial—if they fail to do so, they cannot relitigate the immunity question on direct appeal regardless of how the trial turns out. Defense practitioners in South Dakota must now treat the petition for intermediate discretionary review under SDCL 23A-32-12 as the critical, and likely only, vehicle for testing a denied immunity claim.
The decision also reinforces evidentiary limits on victim-history evidence in self-defense cases. Courts may permissibly exclude hearsay accounts of a victim’s prior bad acts when the defendant cannot offer corroborating, independent proof that the acts occurred, even where some victim-history evidence is already admitted. Together with Braveheart, decided the same day, the ruling establishes a consistent doctrinal framework governing South Dakota’s self-defense immunity statute at the appellate level.