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State Not Requiring Koskan to Register as Sex Offender; Schoenbeck Says Vote for Bordeaux

Last updated on 2022-11-23

South Dakota is soft on crime…at least when crime is committed by Republicans. Former Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg drove distracted, killed a man, and lied about it, and his law school classmate prosecutor let him off with a couple of misdemeanors and no time in jail.

Now Republican social media loudmouth and District 26 candidate for Senate Joel Koskan adopts and Indian child and rapes continually her for years, and his lawyer quickly works out a deal with the state to keep his other kids and not register as a sex offender:

After a discussion with both attorneys, Judge [Margo] Northrup indicated that she would like to consider the potential agreement over the course of the next month. For now, Koskan is required to avoid drugs and alcohol, and not contact anyone under the age of 18, specifically the victim. However, Koskan can maintain contact with the rest of his children, who live with him. The charge would not require him to register as a sex offender.

After deeming that Koskan was not a flight risk, Northrup required a $100,000 bond of Koskan. The judge will decide on whether or not to accept the agreement reached by the defense and prosecution at Koskan’s next court appearance on December 12th [Austin Goss, “SD Senate Candidate Makes First Court Appearance in Child Abuse Case,” KSFY, 2022.11.07].

Good grief: Joel Koskan committed one of the worst sex offenses possible, the rape of his own child. If he’ll do it to his own child, he’ll do it to yours. Joel Koskan is a sex offender and should be publicly listed as such.

As in the Ravnsborg case, we have to turn to Senate boss Lee Schoenbeck for some semblance of political justice. Responding to Democratic candidate for District 15 House Kadyn Wittman’s concern that the SDGOP has not publicly called for Koskan to withdraw his candidacy, Schoenbeck says that District 26 voters should vote for Koskan’s Democratic opponent, Rep. Shawn Bordeaux, and that even if District 26 elects Koskan, Schoenbeck’s caucus will not seat a convicted sex offender in the Senate:

Kadyn Wittman and Lee Schoenbeck, Twitter conversation, 2022.11.06–07.
Kadyn Wittman and Lee Schoenbeck, Twitter conversation, 2022.11.06–07.

Schoenbeck made his comment before Goss reported that the Koskan plea deal may allow him to avoid registering as a sex offender. May we assume, Lee, that your refusal to seat a victorious Koskan will not be defused by a legal/semantic debate about whether Koskan is a “convicted sex offender”?

Schoenbeck also says the Senate Republican Campaign Committee stopped payment on its $10,000 check to Koskan’s campaign the moment they learned of Koskan’s sex crimes. So two cheers for Senator Schoenbeck, who does not share the Republican establishment’s apparent willingness to let Republican criminals off easy.

*     *     *

Likely not presented in yesterday’s hearing were Koskan’s now-deleted but thankfully Wayback-Machined tweets, which as one of Koskan’s District 26 voters notes, have “aged like milk”. While child rapist and incestophile Joel Koskan may not have to register as a sex offender, we should at least do our part to ensure that voters remember the complete hypocrisy of his public posturing during his now-dead political life:

Joel Koskan "won't allow toxic relationships"—tweet, 2019.09.19.
Joel Koskan “won’t allow toxic relationships”—tweet, 2019.09.19.
Joel Koskan: "I love my adopted children the same as my biological"—tweet, 2019.05.22.
Joel Koskan: “I love my adopted children the same as my biological”…which, if true, suggests Judge Northrup might want to reconsider letting Koskan keep custody of his next potential victims—tweet, 2019.05.22.
Joel Koskan says the Indian Child Welfare Act is "one of the most racist decisions and laws on the books" and asserts that his Native adopted daughter "is better off where she is" than she would be in any of her relatives' homes, Twitter conversation, 2019.09.16–2019.09.19.
Joel Koskan says the Indian Child Welfare Act is “one of the most racist decisions and laws on the books” and asserts that his Native adopted daughter “is better off where she is” than she would be in any of her relatives’ homes, Twitter conversation, 2019.09.16–2019.09.19.

52 Comments

  1. Not holding a predator accountable for crimes against children? Lee Schoenbeck is a hypocrite of biblical proportions. The Roman church is behind the seizures of thousands of American Indian children in violation of the Indian Child Welfare Act where Catholic congregations and state legislatures have engaged in obstruction of justice since the law was enacted.Bernie v. Blue Cloud Abbey was one of several cases that ended up before the South Dakota Supreme Court alleging church officials at the time covered up serial sexual abuse taking place at the compound. After helping to broker the sale of the abbey Watertown member of the criminal cult, Lee Schoenbeck, aided by fellow cultist and lobbyist Jeremiah Murphy, forced the perverted South Dakota Legislature to pass laws covering up countless crimes committed by their sect by enacting statutes of limitations.

  2. Nix

    Unlike Gary Cammack puking on his boots, I just puked reading this.
    No registration as a sex offender?
    And you wonder why people have lost
    respect for “South Dakota Law”
    What a cult.

  3. O

    Why?

  4. CK

    I am absolutely disgusted.

  5. Jake

    ‘Accountability’ and being ‘personally responsible for one’s actions’ left the SD GOP standards ages ago, and Joel Koskan is just a brand-new example of this flawed and in-bred SD political party.

  6. Jake

    O, you don’t call this a sex-offense?

  7. O

    Jake, sorry, my question was directed to the system. What about this case made the disposition go seemingly so favorably toward Koskan? I truly believe in innocent until proven guilty, but the documents provided in the previous post seem to indicate that putting this man’s name on a list would be prudent. I’m also for treatment — even when my less-noble self wants a pound of flesh — but again, how does that justify avoidance of sex offender registration?

    My initial “why” was an honest befuddlement of words’ inability to articulate my incredible shock of this disposition. “Why” was all I could muster. Right now, I might be able to type a bit more, but WHY? is all I can come back to.

  8. ABC

    The Rape-Public-an Party.

    Rape a child, no jail.

    Maybe even a seat in legislature.

    Unbelievable

  9. Arlo Blundt

    O..it is noble that you suggest treatment for Koskan. BUT, he would be much, much more motivated for treatment if his name was on the Sex Offender Registry and he had cooled his his gonads off with a long sit in the crow bar Hotel. This negotiated sentence is an outrage, with no semblance of Justice.

  10. Cory writes:

    Joel Koskan committed one of the worst sex offenses possible, the rape of his own child.

    I’m wondering whether you’re accusing Joel of forcible rape or statutory rape.

  11. All Mammal

    Nothing new. Happens 700x per year in SoDak to Native kids. In a matter of days, SCOTUS will likely rule against ICWA. Thats why all good people should be up in arms. THIS should have been enough in RC:

    https://m.facebook.com/Tmasterguy/videos/10156972543418003/

    A couple days ago, my homegirl’s 13yo daughter was taken from her school in Edgemont, harbored in the home of the church leader, shipped to Sioux Falls for an overnight church retreat, all before attempting to contact the child’s mother/legal guardian. The only time the mother got a call from DSS was to tell her she needed to contact the sheriff’s office because she needed to stop ‘stalking her daughter’! Another example of the kidnapping that goes on daily in SD. THATS why I take up arms. Our state has a sickness. And it has been right in front of our faces for so long.

    The only case out of thousands we have heard of from all the cases of “non exits” from the Children’s Home Society is that of the first white child, Serenity. They claim anywhere from 500 to possibly 2,000 “non-exits” have occurred there. The parents are told their children “ran away”.

    Joel should be tried in the public eye and dealt with as if he raped Kristi’s ‘Ms. Addy’. It is every grown person’s responsibility to protect EVERY child. Every time we allow a child to live in fear of their abuser, that is on ALL our hands.

  12. Arlo Blundt

    My gut feeling is that Koskan may still win. I don’t believe the folks in Mellette County will turn their back on him. Bordeaux has to rely on Rosebud votes, which, if Koskan wins, the Republican Party will challenge for any and all reasons. The folks who are committed to Koskan won’t change their vote based on the advise of a Watertown Attorney.

  13. Arlo Blundt

    Should be “if Koskan is close,”rather than if Koskan wins…sorry

  14. P. Aitch

    Kurt Evans chooses to “wonder” about and attempt to dissect this statement from the blog host. “Joel Koskan committed one of the worst sex offenses possible, the rape of his own child.”
    70% of the respondents to this story on Pat Power’s Republican/Catholic blog are siding with the agreement of no jail time and no registration in the sex offender registry as “settling things with a family agreement” and “obeying the Constitution”.
    What in the world has your little state become.
    When I was blackmailed out of SD by a cop molesting a teenage runaway girl, I thought things couldn’t get more deviant.
    Wrong you were, PH.

  15. 96Tears

    The judge was appointed by Noem.

  16. Just chemically castrate the boy. He can then spend all his time in the legislature making South Dakota a better place for magas to live.

  17. Jake

    “Justice, oh Justice. Where art thou”?!!!

  18. bearcreekbat

    The concept of “statutory rape”is a specific legal term. There is no common law criminal rape, forcible or otherwise, anymore. Instead, all rapes are crimes by “statute,” thus “statutory rapes.”

    “Statutory” rape not only includes violent rapes, it can also include where the victim is deemed incapable of legal consent and covers, for example, rapes of unconscious victims, mentally incompetent victims, severely intoxicated victims, and in particular children below the statutory age of consent. Grooming of a child in order to convince that child to supposedly “consent” participate in, or submit to, sexual activity does not, in my view, mitigate the crime of “statutory rape,” any more than using force on a victim because the vicitim by the way the vicitm dressed or acted.

    That said, it is difficult to understand the factors that lead the prosecutor to agree to a plea bargain which keeps Koskan off the sex offender register and out of prison. As for the Judge, Cory’s linked report indicates she will consider the deal, not that she has accepted it. Judges will often reject proposed plea bargains they deem inappropriate or unjust. Whatever Judge Northrup’s decision, it seems quite dubious to speculate, without a single iota of credible evidence, that her decision will be affected by the fact Noem appointed her to the bench.

  19. No distinction here, Kurt. Raping a child is raping a child. Raping one’s own child is a gross violation/abnegation of parental duty.

  20. DaveFN

    larry kurtz

    It is well-appreciated that the South Dakota statute (HB1104) of 2010 limited suits by anyone over 40, as you indicate.

    You write, however: “The Roman church is behind the seizures of thousands of American Indian children in violation of the Indian Child Welfare Act.”

    The Indian Child Welfare Act was enacted in 1978.

    Bernie v Blue Cloud Abbey of 2012 was brought by plaintiffs alleging sexual abuse greater than 35 years ago at the time, ie., prior to 1977.

    Are you saying that the Roman Catholic Church has seized thousands of American Indian children since 1978? Or are you speaking retroactively that prior to 1978 the Roman Catholic Church is in violation? Please clarify.

    Also, for the record, Indian and Eskimo residential schools in Canada were operated by many denominations, including Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, and United Church of Canada denominations. Schools in the United States were operated by some 14 denominations, including Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Quaker, Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist, Jesuit, Dutch Reformed, Evangelical, Mennonite, Anglican, 7th Day Adventist, and Unitarian.

  21. Koskan and his lawyer were working on this plea deal back in September, if not earlier. SFAL’s Alfonzo Galvan looked at the proposed plea deal in the court documents and found signatures from Koskan, his lawyer Sargent, and the deputy attorney general dated September 8–12.

    Koskan knew this affair was going to hit the fan while he was campaigning. He still took that check from the Senate Republican Campaign Committee. He kept campaigning.

    DCI started investigating Koskan back in May, before the primary, and well before the candidate withdrawal deadline in early August. DCI was run by David Natvig in May and June. Natvig is a pal of Koskan and campaigned for him against Heinert in at least one past election. People outside DCI also knew about Koskan’s crime—Spink County Sheriff’s Dept, former DCI director Zeeb.

    Did DCI and both the Ravnsborg and Vargo offices really keep this affair totally secret from the Republican Party? Did the SDGOP get no heads up from anyone that their District 26 Senate candidate was about to turn toxic?

  22. grudznick

    The Episcopal Devils were deep on the rez in South Dakota, back in the day. My good friend Lar just likes to poke the Pope in an attempt to get a goat.

  23. P. Aitch

    DaveFN and grudz – You guys seem to be in the mindset of exonerating the RCC (Roman Catholic Church) of its guilt. You both cite vague examples. So, what percentage of the abuse of USA Native children was committed by groups, church or otherwise, other than the RCC? Or do one or two instances by non-Roman Catholic Church groups equal the same culpability? Do you have numbers or are you just protecting the RCC, like Schoenbeck and Murphy protect the RCC? I assert that the vast majority of these thousands of transgressions came from Priests removed from Eastern American dioceses. I’ll cite the Boston Globe investigations.

  24. grudznick

    No sir, Mr. Ph. All of the organized religious abused children of all races and ilk and sex. They all should be banished, every one of them, and the overgodders at the top should be tarred and tacked to a post downtown.

  25. DaveFN

    P. Aitch

    Were is not for your qualifier “seem” it would “seem” that you are doing nothing but projecting vis a vis some “mindset of exonerating the RCC.” And no, I am not Catholic.

    I am asking larry kurtz a direct question and would appreciate a direct reply.

    As far as the “thousands of transgressions” you specify, arguably, anyone removed forcibly from their own culture has been transgressed by today’s standards, although history at the time did not view it that way.

  26. I’d written to Cory:

    I’m wondering whether you’re accusing Joel of forcible rape or statutory rape.

    Cory writes:

    No distinction here, Kurt.

    There’s a huge legal distinction. Did the rape you’re alleging occur when the victim was above or below the statutory age of consent?

  27. grudznick

    Mr. Evans, this is, as your good friend Mr. Napoli would say if he were to weigh in on this issue:

    as bad as you can make it.

    Mr. Koskan, the younger, should be imprisoned in the general population and forced to wear a nametag.

  28. grudznick

    It looks like Mr. Novstrup, the elder, is going to win tonight in Mr. H’s home town.

  29. P. Aitch

    DaveFN’s weak refusal to provide evidence of his assertions to Larry and the Native population is an embarrassment to an Ivy League University. I expectorate on your defense of the Church of Guilt. I fight bullying and defending bullying is just as despicable.

  30. P. Aitch

    Kurt Evans has reached a new low. As I’ve extrapolated, he has an inner need , maybe subconscious maybe overt, to be despised.

  31. O

    Kurt, those two are not mutually exclusive if I understand correctly. Are you making the assertion she consented?

  32. P. Aitch

    Answer the lady, Kurt!

  33. “O” asks me:

    Are you making the assertion she consented?

    No, I’m not. Is Cory making the assertion she was forcibly raped?

  34. P. Aitch

    Wrong, Kurt Evans. Shut your “big brain” off for once and learn from your intellectual superiors. – The concept of “statutory rape”is a specific legal term. There is no common law criminal rape, forcible or otherwise, anymore. Instead, all rapes are crimes by “statute,” thus “statutory rapes.”

    “Statutory” rape not only includes violent rapes, it can also include where the victim is deemed incapable of legal consent and covers, for example, rapes of unconscious victims, mentally incompetent victims, severely intoxicated victims, and in particular children below the statutory age of consent. Grooming of a child in order to convince that child to supposedly “consent” participate in, or submit to, sexual activity does not, in my view, mitigate the crime of “statutory rape,” any more than using force on a victim because the vicitim by the way the vicitm dressed or acted. – BCB

  35. All Mammal

    DaveFN- Yes, there have been MORE THAN TWO THOUSAND kidnapped Native children taken from their home by “authorities” acting for the church or state since 1978. I believe it is free to look up.

    Stephen Pevar, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU
    Share This Page
    July 23, 2014
    Imagine entering family court and knowing that what’s at stake is the person you hold most dear – your child. Now imagine having a judge tell you that he’s removing your child from your custody, from your home. When you ask him why, the judge’s replies, “I honestly can’t tell you.” The judge then signs an order giving custody of your son to Social Services.
    You might think that such a court proceeding could never happen in the United States – but you’d be wrong.
    It happened not long ago to the father of an American Indian child in South Dakota. What’s more, many similar hearings in which Indian children are removed from their homes for no reasons given to the parents occur at least 100 times a year in Rapid City, South Dakota, alone.
    Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) in 1978 in an effort to stop American Indian families from having their children removed by state and local officials for invalid and sometimes even racist reasons. Yet 36 years later, Indian children in South Dakota are 11 times more likely to be removed from their families and placed in foster care than non-Indian children.
    The ACLU filed a lawsuit in March 2013 in federal court on behalf of the Oglala Sioux and the Rosebud Sioux tribes in South Dakota and on behalf of a class of all Indian families living in Rapid City, South Dakota, the state’s second largest city. We sued state and local officials who, we contend, repeatedly violate ICWA.
    We recently examined 120 transcripts of initial custody hearings – known as “48-hour” hearings – held during the past four years involving Indian children. Nearly 100 percent of the time, Indian children were removed from their homes in those hearings. The average length of time those hearings took was less than 4 minutes. Within that time, of the six different judges that oversaw the hearings, not one judge ever told one Indian parent that they have a right to contest the state’s petition for temporary custody of their children in the hearing on the petition.
    During those hearings, the parents were not told the reasons for the removal, not provided with an attorney, not allowed to submit any evidence, and not allowed to cross-examine the Social Services worker who had submitted an affidavit against them. In most cases, the parents were not even allowed to see the affidavit.

    Big, strong white men with big, smart brains are supposed to prevent this, hey. Where ya at? Not up to standing up for the puny? What a waste of a white male articulate voice. Coulda been used for good. Instead, little, weak, nobodies have to risk getting ground into dust to speak up and do what is right. Unsika. Don’t ever say you didn’t know when the kids ask why you looked on.

  36. All Mammal

    Kurt Evans- a sick, twisted pup. Please cease and desist all thought on the young lady. The knowledge of your thoughts going anywhere near her is too sinister and enraging. Best you not seek answers on here for your perverse, instigative prompts. Go to church to converse with like-minded dudes to get your rocks off.

  37. P. Aitch

    👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

  38. leslie

    dfn:

    “transgressed by today’s standards, although history at the time did not view it that way.”

    Incorrect. History is rife w/evidence huge swathes of American citizens of the past recognized systematic transgression against the Indians as we took all of their land by force. Perhaps the majority of citizens recognized the theft as wrong. TV is not history.

    1855. Gen’l Harney torpedoed the Lakota Little Thunder Blue Water village above the North Platte River. Murder ensued. War trophies were collected. Captives were taken and marched off to imprisonment. Leaders were executed. The OMAHA WORLD HERALD immediately castigated Harney’s folly. It is said babies were used afterward as target practice. Virtually every time an incident occurred people spoke up to the Manifest Destiny transgression. The Catholic Jesuits I sweat with today on the largest reservations are why the “Pope gets poked.”

    This is why the holy Black Elk Peak was named.

  39. Nick Nemec

    I’m aghast with the slap on the wrist sentence Joel Koskan is apparently going to get for the rape, actually repeated rapes, of his daughter. I certainly hope the judge rejects this proposed sentence and issues a sentence more in line with the crime. How have other crimes of this nature been handled? Is this sentence inline with sentences in those cases? How have other facilitators of rape (looking at you Mrs. Joel Koskan) been treated? Are the crimes of the facilitator typically ignored?

  40. Bob Newland

    Schoenbeck is just posturing, pretending that there is water too polluted for him to drink.

  41. 96Tears

    The lying weasel Ravnsborg got off lightly, even with impeachment and conviction which would otherwise humiliate any normal person. He should be in an orange jumpsuit with no hope for parole.

    This extreme atrocity seems heading in the same direction if that judge goes “rapists’ rights” in this case and proves again there is one set of principles and consequences for the political elites plus another set of principles and consequences for us non-elites. And you’re screwed blue and tatooed if you’re Native, a woman and living in hardcore cowboy country.

    Quite the opposite is what needs to happen. People who commit this level of atrocities and who are in elected office or act as though they are entitled because they are wealthy and powerful deserve to be made the example with maximum sentencing with no parole. More importantly, the public deserves to have them receive the worst penalties for their crimes. It’s a matter of fairness and trust. More than the rest of society, they really ought to know better.

    The investigation report by the DCI, in the now-sealed document, is very convincing. Koskan’s peers in the SDGOP deem him “a scion” among Republican elites. If this judge lets him off with a generous plea agreement, it sends the worst message to all South Dakotans and it also shows the worst scumbags out there they really can get away with it as long as they’re among the privileged elite.

    Cory’s timeline earlier in this thread is very important.

    It shows an entitled perp and his enabler wife working with their pals in the political and justice systems to pull Koskan off the hook for what he did repeatedly to his daughter. His text to his victim looks like witness tampering. Yet, the judge’s decisions this week to keep Koskan off the sex offender registry, to keep his three other adopted children in his house and to entertain what can only be a slap on the hands shows that Koskan’s efforts are paying off. If this chronic perp was of a lesser stature in West River cowboy culture, what do you think Noem’s appointee judge would be doing?

    As with Ravnsborg, if any of the most of us were in the same situation, we’d be in prison marking time. I am deeply concerned about the victim in this case. She’s 20, female and Native and has no home or basis of support. I imagine that her life has been a journey through pain and hopelessness. Her abuser seems to be getting all the help he needs.

  42. bearcreekbat

    Again, the report linked by Cory states that Judge has not decided whether to accept the proposed plea bargain. Likewise the Judge did not make any decision to keep Koskan off the sex offender registry. The linked article states that the proposed charges in the plea agreement the Judge is considering are not the type of charges requiring sex offender registration, but so far the Judge reportedly is only considering that agreement, she hasn’t accepted it. Thus, if the agreement is rejected and the State ends up trying and convicting Koskan on a sex offense charge he will have to register as a sex offender. I could be mistaken but I do not think SD statutes give any judge the authority to relieve someone convicted of a covered sex offense from sex offender registration requirements.

    The fact that the Judge took this proposal under consideration, rather than summarily rejecting it deserves further exploration before reaching any conclusions about the appropriateness of the proposed plea bargain. First, and for some Judges an important consideration was described in the linked article:

    Kempema indicated on numerous occasions that (the victim) would prefer to avoid testifying in the case at all costs, on account of her “mental well-being.”

    “She would like to come to a resolution on this matter that would address her primary concern, that the defendant receives help for any issues he may have,” Kempema explained.

    Kempema is Koskan’s lawyer, yet it seems unlikely that he would lie about the victim’s desire not to be put on the witness stand. If the proposed plea bargain is rejected by the Judge that means the State typically will have only three choices: (1)to drop the charges and either let Koskan walk; (2) dismiss the charges and refile alleging only the offense proposed in the plea bargain; or (3) or take the case to trial.

    If the case goes the trial obtaining a conviction would normally require the victim to testify regardless of the potential harm to her mental and emotional health. If she refused or was unable to testify the Judge would typically be forced to grant a directed judgment of acquittal unless there is sufficient other admissible direct or circumstantial evidence of the rape or sexual abuse. The victim’s prior statements describing what happened to her, however, would normally be inadmissible hearsay evidence, thus the officer’s affidavit of probable cause would be inadmissible and he would be prohibited from repeating anything she had told law enforcement.

    These types of cases look easy to lay people, but the reality is that they are very complicated. A good prosecutor wants to hold perpetrators accountable while protecting vulnerable victims, like Koskan’s daughter, from unnecessary harm. If Kempema’s statement about the potential harm to victim from testifying, her desire not to go through the further trauma of a public trial involving her adoptive family, and her desire that Koskan get help rather than go to prison, is all true, then the prosecutor’s decision to offer a plea bargain, and the Judge’s willingness to consider it rather than summarily reject it make much more sense.

  43. DaveFN

    P. Aitch

    “I fight bullying and defending bullying is just as despicable.”

    Good for you, or might I better say bully for you?

    One’s ego by definition has a mighty fine opinion of itself and is the sum total of one’s identifications. Using the other to shore up one’s identity and give oneself purpose can in many cases therefore be nothing but to use the other as a means to one’s own ends. The conscious ego will never be able to admit it to itself, however.

    As far as “an embarrassment to an Ivy League University” I wouldn’t know, having not attended an Ivy League University. If you know what university I attended you clearly are ignorant if you claim I attended such. Another unfounded projection on your part?

    Your statements could be chalked-up to cannabis-induced delusions and paranoia, however mild. Get high and when you come down, pretend how enlightened you are.

  44. DaveFN

    All Mammal

    Thank you for your stab at a reasonable response to my question posed to larry kurtz which he fails to answer.

    There is no question children were removed from parent’s custody in violation of the ICWA as determined in 2015 Oglala Sioux Tribe v Van Hunnik filed by the ACLU, namely,

    “The court finds that Judge Davis, States Attorney Vargo, Secretary Valenti and Ms. Van Hunnick developed and implemented policies and procedures for the removal of Indian children from their parents’ custody in violation of the mandates of the Indian Child Welfare Act and in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

    which was followed in 2016 by Judge Viken’s ruling rejecting defendants’ motions to reconsider.

    https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/oglala-sioux-tribe-v-van-hunnik-order-denying-motions-reconsideration

    Neither is there any question that there is over-representation, ie., racial disproportionality, in the placement of non-white children, ie.,

    https://www.ncsl.org/research/human-services/disproportionality-and-race-equity-in-child-welfare.aspx#:~:text=The%20Indian%20Child%20Welfare%20Act%20of%201978%20governs,at%20a%20much%20higher%20rate%20than%20non-Native%20children.

    None of this is under contention.

    What is now in question is your statement that “more than 2000 children” have been “kidnapped” by the authorities after implementation of the ICWA of 1978, which latter was my original question. What is your source citation for this claim?

    [It’s a timely topic as the Supreme Court is now considering arguments that pose a broad challenge to the ICWA on what is a very complicated matter, one which merely “championing the underdog” fails to begin to address]

    https://alaskapublic.org/2022/11/09/justices-hearing-challenge-seem-to-favor-most-of-indian-child-welfare-act/

  45. DaveFN

    leslie

    “Incorrect.”

    Really? If history indeed viewed it differently at the time atrocities were committed, the atrocities you cite as well as all the others that litter world history would never have occurred.

    Your citation of atrocities substantiates my statement that at the time, things weren’t viewed as we might view them now.

  46. DaveFN

    bearcreekbat

    “These types of cases look easy to lay people, but the reality is that they are very complicated.”

    Cogent statement of fact, and one which has bearing on the removal of children from homes vis a vis the ICWA, or the matter wouldn’t currently be before the Supreme Court.

    “In the 1950s, thousands of Native American children were placed in Mormon homes for ‘racial assimilation.’ Now, experts fear an upcoming Supreme Court ruling could allow that to happen again.” —24 Oct 2022

    https://www.insider.com/latter-day-saints-church-mormon-native-indian-placement-program-icwa-2022-10#:~:text=The%20case%20has%20wound%20its%20way%20up%20to,from%20being%20removed%20from%20their%20families%20and%20tribes.

  47. P. Aitch

    DaveFN’s on the meth, again. Can’t STFU or make a coherent argument. Try again, ‘l’il fella. What percentage of religious groups that enslaved Native kids into forced labor and servitude at Indian Schools wasn’t the Roman Catholic Church? You made a list now qualify your assertion with facts. Or grind your teeth and shut the f**k up!

  48. All Mammal

    Hey, DaveFN- I threw 2,000 out there based partially on the information I copied and pasted from the ACLU article: “ …Indian children are removed from their homes for no reasons given to the parents occur at least 100* times a year in Rapid City, South Dakota, alone.”
    The article was dated in 2014, so I figured 7 years, with at least 100 juveniles taken (with an average of less than 4 minutes of consideration by a judge to make each ruling to remove the Lakota child), is 700. 700 Native kids callously procured from little old Rapid City in the last 7 years alone led me to assume just that 700, plus what I had posted in Mr. H’s Koskan Raped Daughter for Years blog,
    All Mammal
    2022-11-05 19:26,
    led me to confidently state there were easily 2,000 Native children removed from their family. This was enabled by the state in collaboration with several private entities, including the church, since ICWA. I doubt ICWA will really have had much positive consequence in SD before SCOTUS lops it’s head off in the near future.

    Here is the article I linked in two previous rants:

    https://sites.evergreen.edu/ccc/carebodies/profiting-on-indigenous-children-in-south-dakota/

    In addition, my personal experience can add several instances of the Catholic church having an abundance of Lakota children due to the fact my grandma was a very devoted Catholic and adopted several Lakota children, while possibly fostering dozens while my dad was growing up.

    Lastly, I mentioned an article previously that reported 500 to possibly 2,000 “non-exits” from the Children’s Home Society. If I had more time I would copy and paste it again for you. I hope I was able to turn the brights on this sad situation and redeem my abrupt insertion into your question to another commenter, or rather made my butting in a little less obtuse. Have a good night my party people:D

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