Death, Illness, and Notification in South Dakota Prisons

There are two directions a death or a serious illness can travel through a prison wall, and a family usually only thinks about it when it is already happening.

One direction is from the outside in. Someone in the family is dying or has died, and you need the prison to tell your incarcerated person, and you are wondering whether they can be there for it. The other direction is from the inside out. Your person is the one who is sick, or who has died in custody, and you are trying to find out what happened and what you are allowed to do. This article walks both directions for South Dakota, run by the South Dakota Department of Corrections.

I am going to tell you something up front, because I learned it the hard way and I do not want it to land on you cold. An approval that has been granted is not the same as your person being there. Those are two different things, and the gap between them is where families get hurt.

When the Death or Illness Is on the Outside

If someone in the family is gravely ill or has died and you want your incarcerated person notified, the channel is the facility, usually through the inmate's unit team or the chaplain. Call the institution, explain the emergency, and be ready to provide verification, such as the funeral home's information or a death certificate for a death, or a hospital or physician confirmation for a serious illness. South Dakota staff verify the family member's critical condition or death, normally by contacting the attending physician, the hospital or nursing home, hospice, local law enforcement, or the funeral home, before considering a trip.

Notification tends to work, and South Dakota also allows a special phone call. When staff verify the emergency, they notify your person promptly, and a unit staff member or shift commander may authorize a special telephone call, including from a staff phone if your person has no funds, normally up to about ten minutes and monitored. Ask for that call.

Attending a Funeral or a Bedside Visit in South Dakota

Here South Dakota works differently from most states, and it is worth understanding clearly, because the difference can help your family. South Dakota uses a furlough, and for eligible people it is an unsupervised furlough, not a guarded escort with officers. Read the following as the realities the policy sets out.

It is for minimum custody. The furlough program is available to minimum custody inmates assigned to and residing in a minimum or low-medium custody facility, including a contract facility. If your person is at a higher custody level, this furlough is generally not available. That is the single biggest gate, so learn your person's custody level.

What it covers. A qualifying minimum custody inmate may be granted a furlough to visit an immediate family member who is terminally or seriously ill or critically injured, or to attend the funeral of an immediate family member. Immediate family is broadly defined: spouse, children and stepchildren, parents and stepparents, siblings and step-siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, and, at the Warden's discretion, a relative who was the inmate's primary caregiver. The relationship is verified through records or the visit list.

One bedside visit, plus a possible second trip for the funeral. The policy allows one bedside visit per immediate family member, and, with the Warden's approval, a second furlough to attend the funeral of that same person. So a family may be able to arrange both a goodbye before death and attendance at the funeral.

The family arranges and pays for transportation. This is the part that surprises people. Because it is an unsupervised furlough, the inmate must arrange their own transportation, provided by a family member or, with staff approval, a responsible adult friend on the approved visit list. The Department is not responsible for transportation costs. The person driving signs the furlough application, the inmate may not drive, and the inmate can withdraw only a small amount, up to about fifty dollars, for incidental expenses. Your person remains in the Department's legal custody the whole time and must sign an agreement to waive extradition before leaving.

Where and when. Travel is within South Dakota, including South Dakota Indian reservations, with out-of-state travel subject to the Warden's approval. Trips are normally arranged within daytime and evening hours, and the Warden, associate warden, or deputy warden sets the time and distance limits.

It is a privilege, reviewed case by case. The application goes from the unit team to the associate or deputy warden and then to the Warden, who makes the final decision based on public safety. A furlough is a privilege, not a right, and is never automatic.

Now the part I promised you.

I was told I had a five-hour furlough to attend my mother's funeral. I was told to get dressed and wait for the escort. I got dressed. I waited. The escort never came. Word going around was that the warden had been moved or was on leave, and the assistant warden denied it. Nobody walked up to me with a form. The day just passed. What I got, in the end, was a free phone call.

I tell you that not to make you bitter before you start, but to make you smart. An approval that exists on paper is not a person standing at a graveside. Administrators change. Acting wardens reverse decisions. Plans fall through. Even with South Dakota's more flexible furlough, if you are pinning the family's grief on the hope that your person will physically be there, you are building on sand. Plan the service around the family that can be there. If your person makes it, that is a mercy. If they do not, you were not depending on it, and the grief is heavy enough without that. And if your person is above minimum custody, lean on that phone call.

When the Illness or Death Is on the Inside

The other direction is harder, because you have less control and the information comes slower.

If your person is seriously ill in custody. Push for medical information, knowing that medical privacy rules limit what staff will share unless the incarcerated person has authorized release of information to you. Encourage your person, while able, to sign a release naming you. If the condition is terminal or grave, learn about South Dakota's compassionate parole now, not later.

South Dakota compassionate parole. South Dakota has a compassionate parole law, decided by the Board of Pardons and Paroles. It has a medical track and age-and-time-served tracks. A terminally ill person can qualify on the medical basis. There are also geriatric paths, generally for a person sixty-five or older who has served a long term for a lower-level felony, and for a person seventy or older who has served many years of a non-death sentence. Almost everyone is eligible except a person sentenced to death.

How it starts, and what families should know. The process is initiated inside the system: the Warden or the prison's health care provider refers a potentially eligible person to the Secretary of Corrections, and if the Secretary finds the person meets the criteria, the Secretary refers the case to the Board of Pardons and Paroles, which schedules a discretionary hearing, generally within about three months. The referral has to include the diagnosis, level of incapacitation, and prognosis, a release plan describing the person's medical needs, and information on how the cost of medical care will be covered.

What families can do here. Because the referral starts with the Warden or the prison medical provider, the most useful thing you can do is push the medical side. Make sure the prison's health care provider and the Warden know about the diagnosis and prognosis, ask in writing that your person be referred for compassionate parole consideration, and help line up the release plan: where your person would live, who would provide care, and how it would be paid for, whether through Medicaid, Medicare, veterans benefits, or another source. Document everything, and consider an attorney. Start early, because the steps take time and a terminal illness does not wait.

If your person dies in custody. The Department notifies the family using the emergency contact your person has on record, which is exactly why that contact must be correct now. Make sure the listed person is reachable and will tell the rest of the family. The Department generally gives the family time to notify others before a name is released publicly.

The coroner, the investigation, and the autopsy. South Dakota handles a death in custody through the county, not the prison. The county coroner, or a sheriff's office assuming coroner responsibilities, takes the case, and by state protocol the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation handles the death investigation. The coroner determines the cause and manner of death and whether an autopsy is performed. This means a prison death is examined by county and state authorities outside the prison, which can matter to families who want an independent review.

Getting answers, and claiming the body. The Department has said plainly that anyone seeking the cause or manner of an inmate's death should contact the county coroner or medical examiner in the county where the death occurred, because medical privacy rules limit what the Department itself will release. Certified copies of the final coroner's report may be available from that county office when the death is determined to be a public record. The body is released to the next of kin, generally through a funeral home, once the coroner's work allows. Make your intention to claim your person known promptly, and be clear about who the legal next of kin is, because disputes between family members slow everything down. The death certificate is available through South Dakota vital records. If the family cannot afford a funeral, ask the funeral home and the county about assistance.

What Families Can Do Before a Crisis

Most of the pain in these situations comes from decisions that were never made in calm times. A few things you can do now, while no one is dying:

Make sure your person has the correct emergency contact and next of kin recorded with the Department, and keep it current. This determines who the prison calls.

Have your person sign a release of information naming the family members who should be allowed to speak with medical staff. Without it, privacy rules will keep you in the dark.

Learn your person's custody level, because the funeral and bedside furlough is for minimum custody, and a family member or approved friend has to provide and pay for the transportation. Knowing this in advance lets you plan the ride.

If your person is terminally ill or is older and has served a long time, do not wait. Ask in writing that the Warden or prison health care provider refer your person for compassionate parole, and start building the release and care plan.

Keep the funeral home's contact information ready, both to verify an outside death so your person can be notified or furloughed, and to claim your person if they die inside.

State Resources

South Dakota Department of Corrections: contact the institution and your person's unit team directly; use the SDDOC website and offender locator for facility contacts.

South Dakota Board of Pardons and Paroles: for compassionate parole of a terminally ill or aging incarcerated person.

County Coroner or Medical Examiner, and the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation: for the cause and manner of death, the autopsy, and the death investigation in the county where the death occurred.

South Dakota Department of Health, Vital Records: for certified copies of the death certificate.

South Dakota 211: dial 2-1-1 for grief support, funeral assistance resources, and counseling referrals.