A Death in the Darkness Roils South Dakota Politics

The attorney general of South Dakota killed a man. Around 10:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 12, 2020, Jason Ravnsborg was driving home to the state capital of Pierre when he ran down Joe Boever, 55, who was walking along the shoulder of the road. Boever’s face smashed through the windshield of Mr. Ravnsborg’s red Ford Taurus hard enough to leave his eyeglasses in the car. He then bounced off into the long grass. Mr. Ravnsborg pulled over to call 911—only to identify himself as the attorney general and explain that he had hit something on Highway 14 about a mile outside the small town of Highmore.

From there the story is murky. Why did the Hyde County sheriff, who responded to the 911 call, not see Boever’s body beside the road—and why did he lend Mr. Ravnsborg his personal car, waving off any test for alcohol? Why was Boever walking along the shoulder of a deserted highway at night, and how close was he to the oncoming lane? Without clear answers, an investigating committee of the South Dakota House recommended against impeachment this week. But the politics are as murky as the facts. Why is the state Republican Party protecting Mr. Ravnsborg? And why is Republican Gov. Kristi Noem advocating so strongly for his removal?

At the very least, the attorney general failed to demonstrate model behavior. The morning after the incident, after returning to Pierre, Mr. Ravnsborg told his chief of staff, Tim Bormann, that he thought he had hit a deer. The two of them drove back to Highmore to fetch the damaged car, but they stopped outside town to look over the accident scene. What they found was Boever’s corpse. Boever’s flashlight would soon be found nearby. It was still on.

The sheriff turned the case over to the state Division of Criminal Investigation, which reports to the attorney general, and once the eyeglasses were found in the Taurus, the detectives called in neutral investigators from North Dakota. Mr. Ravnsborg’s interviews with the investigators were posted on an official state website for a few weeks (South Dakota Department of Public Safety Secretary Craig Price is another of Mr. Ravnsborg’s detractors), and the video is painful to watch. “His face was in your windshield, Jason. Think about that,” the North Dakota Bureau of Investigation agents pointed out, refusing to believe that the driver didn’t know what he had hit.

Emily Sovell, deputy state’s attorney for Hyde County, was a classmate of Mr. Ravnsborg at the University of South Dakota law school. On Feb. 18, 2021, she charged him with three class 2 misdemeanors: operating a motor vehicle while operating a mobile device, traveling outside his lane and careless driving. After Mr. Ravnsborg’s lawyer made discovery demands for records of Boever’s pain-relief medication and alcohol use, a plea bargain was reached, with the careless-driving charge dropped. On Aug. 26, almost a year after the incident, Mr. Ravnsborg pleaded no contest to the two remaining charges. The sentence: a $1,000 fine and $3,000 in court costs. Through it all, Mr. Ravnsborg has refused to resign, and in a legislature dominated by Republicans—35 to 3 in the Senate, 62 to 8 in the House—the chances of impeaching him are now essentially zero, despite the governor’s ire, manifested in the public release of evidence (until a judge ordered her to stop), official statements and a storm of anti-Ravnsborg tweets.

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/death-south-dakota-attorney-general-jason-ravnsborg-joe-boever-gov-noem-highway-killed-manslaughter-car-accident-impeachment-11648843336 (subscription)