On April 12, 2022, the House of Representatives voted by one vote to impeach South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg for his actions regarding a 2020 car crash that resulted in the death of Joe Boever on the night of September 12, 2020. (1) The South Dakota Senate on Tuesday, June 22, 2022, convicted Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg of two impeachment charges stemming from a 2020 fatal accident, removing and barring him from future office. (2) Attorney General Ravnsborg is the first constitutional officer to have ever been impeached and convicted in South Dakota. (3)
I was appointed by Speaker Spencer Gosch to serve as the Vice Chairman of the House Select Committee on Investigation ("Select Committee") to investigate whether articles of impeachment against Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg should be presented to the South Dakota House of Representatives. (4) The following only represents my opinions, observations, and legal thought process concerning this historic task. The Select Committee had a voluminous number of documents, photographs, videos, reports, and narratives and was able to personally examine witnesses at three different open meetings. (5) The committee also received lots of input from the administration, as well as the public.
I. THE BEGINNING
The South Dakota Constitution does not set forth a procedure to follow to impeach a constitutional official. Since no constitutional officer in the state of South Dakota had ever been impeached before, there was no procedural precedent to follow either. So, where does one begin with this monumental and important task? The language in South Dakota Constitution, Article XVI, Section 3 was not much help. (6) This one section of the constitution was all that was available for the Select Committee to use as it considered the possible impeachment of the South Dakota Attorney General.
The foremost thought of those serving on the Select Committee was that everyone in this tragic event was entitled to due process. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Section 1 guarantees everyone "due process." (7) It provides:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. (8) The right of due process is also guaranteed in Article VI, Section 2 of the Bill of Rights of South Dakota's Constitution. (9) It provides:
[section] 2. Due process--Right to work. No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. The right of persons to work shall not be denied or abridged on account of membership or non-membership in any labor union, or labor organization. (10)
From the first day of law school, we were taught that due process is a requirement that legal matters should be resolved according to established rules and principles, so that all individuals are treated equally and fairly, regardless of who they are. Due process guarantees that before one can have their constitutionally protected individual rights or property taken from them, each person is entitled to a fair application of the law. Due process guarantees a fair trial before an impartial jury or judge. In a word, due process means "fairness." Due process applies to both civil and criminal matters. Consequently, this same concept of "fairness" was applied by the Select Committee to these impeachment proceedings as well.
The Select Committee was determined to be guided by trying to be fair to all involved. In our civil and criminal practices, there are statutory procedural rules which are enforced by the judiciary to make sure that an individual is being provided due process. In an impeachment investigation, however, such safeguards are virtually nonexistent. In either a civil or criminal trial, the judiciary can protect the jury pool from improper and irrelevant information being presented, which can spoil the jury pool. That safeguard does not exist in an impeachment proceeding. In this matter, there was premature release of information and calls for the Attorney General's resignation prior to the criminal investigation being completed or formal charges filed. (11) Furthermore, with an impeachment proceeding, the entire state of South Dakota became the jury pool so that misinformation and rumors from many sources, each with their own motivation, unfortunately were disseminated to the public prematurely without a full disclosure.
II. IMPEACHMENT: AN EXTREME REMEDY
Impeachment has been referred to as the "political equivalent of capital punishment." (12) Impeachment, both nationally and throughout the states, has seldom been used or been successful. For example, only President Andrew Johnson, President Bill Clinton, and President Donald Trump (twice) have ever been impeached, and none have been removed. (13) In South Dakota's entire history, no constitutional officer had ever been impeached. (14)
The purpose of impeachment is to protect the public from further wrongs and not to punish. It is an extreme remedy since it reverses a popular election of the citizens. The "Rodino Report," a congressional report which considered the possible...
