Last updated on 2023-01-28
The South Dakota Senate voted this afternoon to convict Jason Ravnsborg on both articles of impeachment, to remove Ravnsborg from office immediately, and to disqualify Ravnsborg from holding any public office in South Dakota.
The Senate convened at 8 a.m. today to begin its trial. Co-prosecutor and Clay County State’s Attorney Alexis Tracy offered opening arguments for the prosecution. Washington DC lawyer, Tulane law instructor, and impeachment expert offered opening arguments for Ravnsborg on legal theories and precedents pertaining to impeachment; Sioux Falls attorney Michael Butler followed with particulars of the case.
The prosecution called five of its eight anticipated witnesses, four of them investigators into the fatal crash of September 12, 2020, in which distracted driver Ravnsborg killed pedestrian Joseph Boever on the shoulder of Highway 14 just west of Highmore. The fifth, former Division of Criminal Investigation agent Brent Gromer, testified to the unusual, uncomfortable, and, it seemed, unethical attempt Ravnsborg made three days after the accident to get information from Gromer about what evidence investigators might be able to pull from his phone.
Jason Ravnsborg was in the Senate chamber, at the north table with his defense attorneys, through all of the prosecution’s testimony and his attorney Butler’s cross-examination of those witnesses. But when the prosecution rested at 2:07 p.m. this afternoon, Ravnsborg did not take the stand. In response to Senate President and Lieutenant Governor Larry Rhoden’s prompt, Butler said simply, “We have no witnesses to present, so we rest.”
Senators did avail themselves of the opportunity to ask questions. The most remarkable came from Senator R. Blake Curd, a doctor from Sioux Falls, who seemed to offer the defense a lifeline by asking North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Arnie Rummel if it was possible that everyone was telling the truth and that Ravnsborg could have suffered dissociative amnesia, a condition for which Dr. Curd read a definition involving victims of extreme stress and trauma forgetting details of the triggering events. Agent Rummel said he highly doubts that and pointed to the fact that Ravnsborg’s memory gaps seemed to pertain only to facts that would put blame on him. Rummel also noted that the definition Curd read mentioned “victims” but that Ravnsborg was not the victim here but the suspect. When Curd turned his question about dissociative amnesia to the defense, President Rhoden, who has not previously distinguished himself as a legal scholar, interjected with legal acumen that it perhaps was not a Senator’s place to offer Ravnsborg and his attorneys a legal defense that they had not offered in their arguments. Butler mildly said witnesses can recall things differently. For the prosecution, Tracy said simply that Ravnsborg didn’t have amnesia; he was given multiple opportunities to tell the truth, and he avoided telling the truth when the truth would reflect poorly on him.
Co-prosecutor and Pennington County State’s Attorney offered the prosecution’s closing statement. “By deed and by word,” Vargo began, “Jason Ravnsborg has forfeited his right to be attorney general of this great state.” He said the defense’s characterization of actions that led to a man’s death as “only a misdemeanor” was offensive and misleading. Vargo emphasized that Ravnsborg lied repeatedly, even in his use of an “On My Way” app on his personal phone to win rewards for not using his phone while driving even has he called and checked email and the Web on his work phone as he drove. “How honest is that?… How representative of South Dakota values is it to be lying for pennies per mile?” [I’m not convinced that last quote was strictly legally relevant, but as character indictment, it was pithy and deadly.]
Vargo played a video of Ravnsborg reversing his story about seeing a man at the scene of the crash and said, “We’ve heard better lies from five year olds. Vargo played a sequence of clips showing Ravnsborg’s evolving story to police about whether he used his cell phone while driving—from no, to checking the time, to checking headlines in the news, to “Do I look at that stuff, yes, I do it all the time.”
Vargo briefly addressed the impeachment theory and precedent raised by Garber in the opening statements, then turned back to the specifics or Ravnsborg’s impeachable offenses. “Historically and in this case, Jason Ravnsborg uses his office to get out of trouble.” Turning the question of whether Ravnsborg should be disqualified from holding office in the future, Vargo cited Ravnsborg’s statement in the police interview that he wouldn’t do anything different. “How about you just look where you’re going?” Vargo said, “That would be different, and Joe Boever would still be alive.” Vargo said Ravnsborg made clear with his statement that he was thinking only about himself. Vargo ended by saying that acquitting Ravsnborg would endorse the idea that some officials are too powerful to be held accountable and that elected officials are immune to the laws that the Legislature passes.
Professor Garber returned to the podium to repeat his impeachment theories. Stunningly, his closing statement seemed to add no new weight or detail to the defense’s position. Worse, it did not seem to offer any direct response to arguments or testimony during the trial itself. It sounded like Ravnsborg paid Garber to come all the way to South Dakota to save his bacon, and all he got were two canned speeches, with Garber apparently paying as little attention to the course of the trial today as Ravnsborg paid to Highway 14 the night he killed Joe Boever.
Butler offered a somewhat more responsive closing argument, challenging the contention that Ravnsborg committed any crime that fatal night in the course of carrying our any official duties. Butler said no serious person would think that identifying oneself as attorney general in a 911 call constitutes trying to use one’s office for personal benefit. Butler cast doubt on the contention that Ravnsborg had to have seen the body in the ditch in the minutes after the accident because if was dark and cloudy. He questioned Agent Rummel’s assertions about Ravnsborg’s apparent lack of credibility. Butler closed by warning Senators that voting to remove Ravnsborg from office might create a moment of good feelings, but such a feeling would not survive history if the Senate voted to impeach without the clear and convincing support of law and evidence.
The Senate debate on the articles of impeachment was brief. The Senate debated and voted on each article of impeachment separately, Article 1 on the crimes causing Joseph Boever’s death, Article 2 on malfeasance in office afterward. Senator Lee Schoenbeck of Watertown led the debate on Article 1 with an impassioned call for Senators to imagine someone they know being run down and killed the way Jospeh Boever died at Jason Ravnsborg’s hands. Schoenbeck cussed Ravnsborg out, saying with a gesture to the defense table and the podium just a few steps away that if Ravnsborg had wanted to vigorously defend himself, “There’s a mic right there, and that’s a damn short walk.” Schoenbeck noted with disdain that even as he sat in the Chamber, Ravnsborg chose “not share with us what the hell he was doing killing that person.”
Senator Schoenbeck was followed by speeches from Senators Troy Heinert, Gary Cammack, Jessica Castleberry, Helene Duhamel, Michael Diedrich, and David Wheeler in support or conviction. Unlike the House, where no members stood to justify their opposition to impeachment before casting their nays, two Senators, Arthur Rusch and Tim Johns, stood to argue the Senate lacked grounds for impeachment. Both are former circuit court judges, and such legal arguments coming from Rusch and Johns could have carried great weight.
Conviction required a two-thirds vote, 24 members. 24 members voted to convict on Article 1. The nays were nine Republicans (Johns, Rusch, Greenfield, Klumb, Kolbeck, Maher, Novstrup, Steinhauer, and Symens).
Two members, Senator Julie Frye-Mueller and Red Dawn Foster, were absent from the trial. Foster, a Democrat, would almost have assuredly have voted to convict. Had just one other Republican voted no, Foster’s absence would have acquitted Ravnsborg on Article 1.
That precarious question did not matter on Article 2. Rusch contended he saw enough evidence that Ravnsborg misused his office, in identifying himself as Attorney General in his 911 call after the accident and other ways, to justify conviction. Johns maintained the evidence on Article 2 was only “speculation and opinions” and not strong enough to remove an elected official. Senator Duhamel rose to say honesty matters, and Senator Wheeler said Ravnsborg’s lies violated his duty as our chief law enforcement officer. On Article 2, 31 Senators voted to convict and remove Ravnsborg from office. (Official roll call isn’t posted yet, but I think the only two nays I heard came from Johns and Novstrup.)
Only two Senators would have voted to keep Ravnsborg in office.
The Senate then punctuated its verdict by voting unanimously, on each article, to disqualify Jason Ravnsborg from ever holding “any office of trust or profit under the state.”
With those votes, the Senate removed Jason Ravnsborg from office and ensured he never will hold office in this state again.
Jason Ravnsborg is the first elected official in South Dakota ever impeached, convicted, and removed from office by the Legislature. Governor Kristi Noem now has the opportunity to appoint a replacement for Ravnsborg to carry out the duties of Attorney General until a new A.G. is inaugurated come January.
And maybe now the Army will rescind his promotion to Colonel.
Buckobear, he was never promoted. He initially was suspended from the list of nominees that DOD, then POTUS forwarded for the US Senate’s advise and consent. In my day it was r a r e for a promotion suspended officer to remain on the subsequent list without re-boarding, re-vetting. I suspect there is almost no chance he’ll have the opportunity to serve at a higher rank. Yet, strange things can occur.
They throwed the book at him….big surprise to me. Didn’t think either House was capable of consensus. Watch for the Government Accountability Board’s report regarding Governor Noem….it may be the reason he gets the maximum.
Gosh, he’d better come to Florida, he’s the DeSantis type. Hey Jason, Sarasota is a gathering place for right wing loonies. You’d do well here, killing a Democrat is a plus.
First, grudnutz says something truly funny, and accurate, then the SoDak senate does the right thing. Pigs are taking flight in flocks.
That the final vote was unanimous after holdouts balked on the first count suggests capitulation to the inevitable.
Or acquiescence.
My prediction was fully wrong. I thought Johns, Rusch, Greenfield, Klumb, Kolbeck, Maher, Novstrup, Steinhauer, and Symens had more sway among their partisan piss-ants.
Sometimes, Aitch, a turd stinks so bad that not even Brock Greenfield can pretend it’s a buffalo brat.
I watched the hearings during breaks from work as I have a flexible schedule and Killer Ravnsborg’s disinterested, blase, smug demeanor was truly disgusting and insulting. I am beyond surprised, not to mention delighted and relieved, that the Senate actually did the right thing for once and put accountability above party. He never showed even a tiny bit of shame or introspection and he more than deserves this. He was unqualified, inexperienced and incompetent and never should have been AG in the first place.
Several years ago I hit a deer late at night driving from Yankton to Wagner and, upon contacting my husband, he told me to call our insurance first for a tow, and then the local police. When the sheriff’s deputy arrived, he walked around looking for the deer and then came back and said he couldn’t find anything and was going to walk back further, and look deeper into the ditches, to find it.
During the time he was gone I suddenly worried that I may have hit a person instead of a deer. I knew it wasn’t likely, but, emotionally, those were among the worst five minutes I’ve ever experienced in my life. I cannot describe the horror, terror and shame I felt when I thought I may have hit a person. And that was just for a few minutes. The deputy found the deer, of course, and I calmed down, but I’ve never forgotten those five minutes and I simply cannot imagine knowing you’ve hit and killed someone with your car, through your own carelessness or negligence, and not only having no shame or remorse but continuing on with your high profile job as if nothing had happened, and lying and covering it up while trashing your victim and claiming nonsense like suicide and whatnot.
Ravnsborg needs to be disbarred and prevented from ever working in any capacity in the law whatsoever. He is pond scum on top of landfill trash.
Laurisa, aside from your favorable review of Ravnsborg in your final sentence, I agree with you.
The death Ravnsborg caused may only be exceeded by the deaths and suffering caused by his nemesis Noem and the Republican legislators — including the lack of response to the pandemic, the failure to expand Medicaid coverage in SD, and attacks on LGBTQ+ and indigenous people.
John is correct: Ravnsborg has not yet received his promotion. I contacted the Army a couple weeks ago and asked about the status of Ravnsborg’s promotion; the spokesman said he could not comment on Ravnsborg’s status due an ongoing investigation.
My favorite part was when Rumblestrip’s attorney, Butler, called the victim, Jason Boever.
Ehrisman, what did you think of the fact that Butler called Ravnsborg “Ravvensburg” 100% of the time.
Personally, I think it was a purposeful show of contempt for a client who was willing to pay Butler’s exorbitant fee to try to make a silk purse out of a boar’s scrotum.
Ehrisman, what did you think of the fact that Butler called Ravnsborg “Ravvensburg” 100% of the time?
Personally, I think it was a purposeful show of contempt for a client who was willing to pay Butler’s exorbitant fee to try to make a silk purse out of a boar’s scrotum.
Maybe, just maybe, if he had shown a single ounce of contrition he would still be in office. And the number of his followers who conflate cause in fact with legal responsibility shows the collective cognitive capacity of his knuckle dragging fanbase. Fade into the shadows and see if you can find your chin there, you sociopath.
Dicta, I think we heard some of that sentiment in Senator Schoenbeck’s opening speech during floor debate on Impeachment Article #1. Even facing his fellow Republicans in the Senate yesterday, Ravnsborg would not make the short walk to the microphone, to that place of privilege below the Senate President where almost no one, not even Senators, gets to speak, where he could finally have looked the Senators in the eye and told them what he was doing and that he was sorry. The rules Schoenbeck wrote for the trial gave Ravnsborg personally and uniquely unlimited time to speak. Ravnsborg refused to do so. Instead, he maintained that too-cute-by-half lawyerly silence, letting Butler adopt the pretense that his silence would demonstrate his belief that the prosecution hadn’t made its case instead of offering his own vigorous rebuttal or just a flat-out apology and plea for mercy.
And even after nine Senators put on the record that they don’t think screwing around behind the wheel so distractedly that you kill a man is an impeachable offense, and even after Tim Johns and Al Novstrup held out to vote No on Article 2 and say an Attorney General can lie and abuse his office and stay in power, even those moral twits got in line with the rest of their colleagues and said they never want to see Jason Ravnsborg on another ballot or at another Lincoln Day Dinner again.
Yeah, Jason Ravnsborg might still be Attorney General today if he has been straight with us and apologized on September 13, or if he’d taken the Governor’s advice that week and taken a leave of absence. Or at the very least, he might have a shot at returning to his old sinecure of being special assistant deputy state’s attorney in Dan Lederman’s county. Now he’s got nothing but the Republican Senate’s affirmation of the facts that should have been clear to Republican delegates and a majority of South Dakota voters four years ago: that Jason Ravnsborg is not fit to hold public office.
Once again…Al Novstrup failed to do the will of the people. This gets old.
There is so very much here to unpack from the trial, the flakey assertion by Sen. Blake Curd, Sen. Lee Schoenbeck’s brilliant speech and Sen. Troy Heinert’s appeal to the hearts and minds of the Senate … wow. I hope this remains available for generations to watch and learn.
I’ll just add here that Lee clearly did not have the hard count he needed when the hearing started. My guess is he knew where three or four swing votes were, but didn’t have a lock on them.
Of the nine Republicans, there must have been a pledge to support Ravnsborg on the first article with the understanding that if they could hold the line on Schoenbeck getting the required 24, they would hang in there for article #2. That, of course, would have given Ravnsborg an unfettered shot at the delegates in Watertown, many of whom probably share the view espoused by professional Republican election engineer, Ravnsborg trusted confidante and alleged kiddy diddler Matt Samp that “Well, at least the guy was a Democrat.”
Are there lessons learned here? For the public, it should have been this is what happens when one-party rule is allowed to continue unchallenged. They should have learned that governance is the property of the people, not the SDGOP State Central Committee. As much as it is frustrating, a two-party system is what American governance is built upon. For Republicans, it should be that failure to hold their own people accountable ultimately makes things worse for themselves.
For Democrats, the lesson will be learned on Election Day when all those Republicans win uncontested seats to again control a bulletproof majority in each chamber. Democrats could now be taking advantage of the worst internal feud of the SDGOP since William J. Bulow captured a majority vote in 1926 and became the first Democratic Governor in South Dakota history. Governor Kristi Noem and Senator Schoenbeck needed to purge the malcontents from their ranks because they stunk up the place so badly. The purge was a partial success because the worst malcontents are still there and will be returned to Pierre.
For Nick Nemec and members of Joe Boever’s family, this was a welcome step forward, but it was nowhere close to justice, even with the lawsuit settlement and even if the loathsome swine Ravnsborg called them each and apologized contritely. Their justice was circumvented by the state’s attorneys of Hyde and Beadle counties who badly failed their duty.
Former South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg, the man who said he would be vindicated. Well, hoped he would be vindicated. Okay, is convicted instead.
DR, yes, Novstrup was one of only two Senators, along with Tim Johns, who was willing to let this lawbreaker and liar and killer remain in office. Johns is not running for reëlection and will not return to the Senate. Aberdeen Republicans, alas, missed their opportunity to retire the out-of-touch Novstrup.
96, yes, this historic trial was worth watching from start to finish. Schoenbeck’s speech (captured at the beginning of this KELO-TV video of the Senate debate) was a hard emotional appeal, asking his fellow jurors to envision the fatal accident happening to “a family or friend or neighbor you know”. “This person ran down an innocent South Dakota—ran them down!”
But Schoenbeck didn’t just play to emotion. After conjuring the image of that horrific accident and calling Ravnsborg a “liar”, he tackled legalistic arguments. He rejected the idea that the Senate was bound by the charging decisions of the Deputy State’s Attorney for Hyde County. He dismantled the notion that the prosecution had to reach some criminal-trial level burden of proof. “This is neither a criminal or a civil proceeding,” said Schoenbeck. He said this vote was exactly like the thousands of other votes Senators cast on bills and resolutions, using their best judgment to make the best decision to uphold their oaths and the public good. Referring to the “clear and convincing” standard of which the defense made great hay, Schoenbeck said, twice, “That’s all made up.”
How did killer Ravnsborg’s crack attorneys fail to interogate crack accident sleuth Kurt Evans? I’d like to feel all warm and fuzzy inside knowing magats anywhere finally did the needful, but, this is more an aberation than any true epiphany magats may have had over this deal. Live it, Lads and Lasses. You may never see its like again.
The randomness of the incident itself, the role of the County Sheriff, the inept prosecution by the County State’s Attorneys and the Hyde County Judge, the injection by Governor Noem of a public campaign to dispute the verdict, Schoenbeck’s strident prosecution from the floor of the Senate, Ravensborg’s passive defense, all seem straight out of a David Lynch movie, Blue Velvet or Twin Peaks.
Arlo, I’m with you on the David Lynch angle for most of the script here, but I didn’t sense any ironic depravity in Schoenbeck’s floor speech in favor of sustaining Impeachment Article 1. If there was any irony, it was that for once, we were hearing a South Dakota Republican tell us exactly the way things are. Then, in the more surprising and arguably less-Lynchian act (and invite Arlo and other more learned Lynch scholars to weigh in on what characterizes Lynch’s overall approach to film), the Senate actually did the right thing, four times, ultimately unanimously delivering the strongest punishment available, a lifelong banishment from Lincoln Day dinners.
Well, maybe that’s the surrealist Lynchian twist right there, denying Jason the rubber chicken that nourished his rubber spine. Or maybe the surrealist twist is that justice was actually done in South Dakota, by South Dakota Republicans, against a South Dakota Republican. Or maybe the surrealism lies in the possibility (screenwriters, fictionalizers, have it it!) that not one Senator, except maybe the tiny Greek choir of moral Democrats in the back (Heinert and Nesiba, denied their third, absent Foster, by some weird twist of fate, like another distracted Republican driver), voted with pure moral intent, that every Republican Senator’s vote was a product of political calculation for personal gain or some personal pique at one of the attorneys or the Governor or the press or God-knows-what other petty distraction as they found themselves overwhelmed by the seriousness and detail of the case, yet all of those petty interests converged, to everyone’s surprise, in doing the obviously right thing, the simple moral thing lawyer Garber—after Ravnsborg, perhaps the most Lynchian character on the stage—ridiculously described as “very hard to explain.”
I’m not saying this was a Lynch movie. I’m not positing the prevalence of any such selfish motivations. I’ll settle for the simple explanations from start to finish: Jason Ravnsborg killed a man. His stunted moral development and desperate political aspirations prevented from admitting his crime and resigning and instead led him to lie and cling to power. Finally roused to action by Jason’s inability to come to his senses and think of anyone but himself, the Senate did the right thing
I am still amazed that South Dakota’s voters chose this person of obviously bad character and legal incompetence over Randy Seiler by a significant margin. Even after living here for almost 30 years, I honestly can’t wait to leave this state.
A Lynchian postscript, or perhaps the Chuck Lorre sitcom sequel if the pilot focus-groups well: Robbinsdale moves out of state and finds himself living next door to Jason, who is always walking around with a selfie stick, struggling to meet girls and become an influencer on alt-right social media.
Seriously, Ravnsborg should serve as an object lesson to voters in general and Republican convention delegates in particular of what happens when you don’t take your job as a citizen seriously and instead ignore facts and qualifications and vote for any old butt-kissing idiot to do serious government work.
Tim John’s, whom I once considered a friend, presented an appalling speech in support of non-conviction. I was aghast.
“mike from iowa” writes:
That’s a good question, Mike. I reached out to them twice to offer my help and got a single emailed “Thank you” in response.
In my amateur opinion, they should have explained why Jason didn’t realize he’d crossed the rumble strip. That is, because Joe had hit the extreme right side of the car and angled it suddenly onto the shoulder, and Jason had reflexively swerved back to the left before he could even process what was happening.
Mr. Evans, had Ravnsborg’s attorneys explained why their client was unaware he had crossed the rumble strips twice they would have had to admit their client had his head up his butt.
Joe didn’t hit Ravnsborg’s car. Ravnsborg hit Joe with his car. That bit of phrasing is critical. Trees don’t hit cars, drivers hit trees when they run into them.
There is no evidence Jason swerved back to the left after he hit Joe. He claimed he drove straight forwardand pulled off the road. The evidence shows he slowed to approximately 10 mph and then rolled forward many hundred feet before stopping half on the shoulder rather than pulling fully on the shoulder. He was trying to staage the crime scene. The first of many lies he told to explain his actions.
I’d written:
Nick Nemec replies:
If Joe was walking east on the shoulder, he and the car hit each other, and if he entered the driving lane to commit suicide, he and the car hit each other.
Sometimes they do.
A relatively slow-moving body hitting the extreme right side of the car would have angled it to the right, so the evidence that the car didn’t go into the ditch is evidence that Jason was far enough from the edge of the pavement to swerve back to the left.
The evidence for that claim isn’t nearly as conclusive as the evidence that Joe entered the driving lane to commit suicide.
May they plant a tree along the north side of the highway just west and outside of Highmore for every comment, insaner than the next, which Mr. Evans blogs, and may these trees be rooted in the ground and not jumping out at cars, oh Gaia, mother of the dirt, mother of Uranus, from which Mr. Evans’ ideas spring.