Rhines appealed on the grounds that his sentence was arbitrary and injust. Like most of the Northern Plains states, South Dakota is an infrequent user of capital punishment and he argued that his crime was nothing exceptional and that the state currently had 17 men convicted of first degree murder locked up who merely got life without parole, some during the same time period of his crime. His attorneys believed the jury in this very conservative state had singled him out for being gay--while deliberating, one juror sent a note to the judge asking if Rhines would be able to live an openly gay lifestyle in prison were he sentenced to life. Would he have a cellmate? Would homosexual lovers of his be allowed to have conjugal visits? The judge declined to answer any of these queries.

Some of the jurors seemed well convinced that spending the rest of his life in a prison surrounded by other men was exactly what Rhines wanted, the equivalent of Brer Rabbit and the briar patch, and this could be avoided by putting him on death row where he would spend 23 hours a day in a cell with one hour out each day for showering and exercise. The defense believed he didn't get a fair trial and his 5th Amendment rights were violated, but this argument got them nowhere.

Governor Kristi Noem signed Rhines's death warrant in September 2019 and he was executed November 4 at the state pententiary in Sioux Falls after a last meal consisting of fried chicken, cantalope, lefse, yogurt, licorice, ice cream, root beer, and coffee. Currently, Briley Piper, convicted of involvement in the torture-death of a man in Spearfish in 2000, is the only death row inmate in South Dakota.