The South Dakota Senate on Tuesday convicted Attorney General Jason Ravensborg of two impeachment charges stemming from a 2020 car crash that killed a pedestrian, prompting his automatic removal.
A vote is pending on whether Ravnsborg should be banned from holding a future post.
Jason Ravnsborg, Attorney General of South Dakota, spoke during a press conference before the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on Monday, September 9, 2019. Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg via Getty Images
Ravnsborg told a 911 dispatcher on the night of the crash that he may have hit a deer or other large animal, and said he did not know he had hit a man – 55-year-old Joseph Bower – until he returned to the scene. . the next morning. Detectives said they did not believe some of Ravnsborg’s statements.
The Republican-controlled Senate voted to convict Ravensborg, a Republican, of both impeachment charges against him: committing crimes that caused someone’s death, and abuse of law enforcement and abuse of power.
Ravensborg’s face showed little emotion as the vote of the first member of the impeachment was reduced to the senator’s final vote and passed the minimum required for conviction. He kept his hand over his mouth, as he did for most of the process, then wrote a note in a notebook on his lap.
The sentences required a two-thirds majority. Ravensborg, who was in his first term, is the first employee to be impeachment and convicted in South Dakota history. Governor Christy Noem, who has been pushing for Ravnsborg’s impeachment, will appoint a deputy.
Impeachment votes shut down a chapter that shook public policy, pitting Noah against Ravensborg and some of her party, who objected to her aggressive pursuit of his removal.
When the impeachment trial began on Tuesday, prosecutors addressed a question that hung over developments after the September 2020 disaster: Did Ravensborg know he killed a man on the night of the crash?
“He absolutely saw the man he hit in the moments after,” said Alexis Tracy, Clay County District Attorney, who is leading the prosecution.
Prosecutors also told senators that Ravnsborg used his title “to set the tone and gain influence” after the crash, even when he allegedly made “wrong allegations and outright lies” to the crash investigators. The prosecutor’s office released an editing of audio clips of Ravnsborg, who calls himself chief prosecutor.
As they questioned the crash investigators, prosecutors investigated Ravensborg’s alleged false allegations during the aftermath of the crash, including that he never drove excessively over the speed limit, turned to the Beaver family to express his condolences, and did not look at his phone while driving home.
The prosecution released a series of videos during its closing remarks, which showed Ravnsborg’s volatile account of his phone use during interviews with criminal investigators. The chief prosecutor initially denied that he used his phone while driving, but later admitted that he looked at his phone minutes before the crash.
Ravensborg said he had done nothing wrong and dismissed the impeachment process as a chance to clear up. He resolved the criminal case last year, not disputing a couple of road violations, including illegally changing lanes and using a telephone while driving, and was fined by a judge.
He appeared in the Senate on Tuesday, but did not testify. His lawyer answered the senators’ questions.
The defense attorney general’s focus focused on the implications of impeachment during introductory statements Tuesday, urging lawmakers to consider the implications of their decision on the function of the state government. Ravensborg eavesdrops on Ross Garber, a legal analyst and law professor at Tulane University who specializes in impeachment proceedings.
“This overrides the will of the electorate,” Garber told the Senate. – Make no mistake, you are considering doing this.
Ravnsborg was returning from a political fundraising campaign after dark on September 12, 2020, on a state highway in central South Dakota, when his car crashed into “something,” according to a transcript of his 911 call. He later said it could be a deer or another animal.
Investigators identified what they considered to be omissions in Ravnsborg’s statements, such as when he said he turned to the scene and “saw” him before he quickly corrected himself and said, “I didn’t see him.” And they claim that Boever’s face came out through the windshield of Ravnsborg because his glasses were found in the car.
“We’ve heard better lies than five-year-olds,” Pennington County Attorney Mark Vargo, who acted as impeachment prosecutor, told Ravnsborg in a statement.
Investigators found that the Attorney General passed right over Bower’s body and the flashlight Bower was carrying – still lit the next morning – as he inspected the scene the night of the crash.
Ravensborg said neither he nor the county sheriff who came to the scene knew that Bower’s body lay just steps from the sidewalk on the edge of the highway.
“There’s no way you can go without seeing this,” Arnie Rummel, an agent with the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation who led the criminal investigation, said in testimony Tuesday.
Rumel added that Ravnsborg had hardly behaved like someone who had hit a deer, a common occurrence on South Dakota highways.
Prosecutors also picked up an exchange Ravensborg had with an employee three days after the crash after handing over his phones to the crash investigators. Ravnsborg questioned an agent from the South Dakota Criminal Investigation Department about what would happen during the forensic examinations of his cell phones, although the agency was not supposed to participate in the investigation to avoid a conflict of interest.
“We shouldn’t have participated,” said retired agent Brent Gromer, describing why the exchange made him uncomfortable.
Defender of Ravnsborg claims that the Attorney General did nothing wrong and instead fully cooperated in the investigation of the crash. His lawyer, Mike Butler, described all the discrepancies in Ravensborg’s memory of that night as human error.
Butler ignored the testimony of Rummel, who was investigating the crash, as an “opinion” he would not stand up to in court.
Ravensborg was ready to take a polygraph test, although criminal investigators found it would not be effective to verify the authenticity of the attorney general.
In closing remarks, Butler said the prosecution had not established “criminal guilt” for Bower’s death and called on senators to refrain from reviewing the case.
“Neither the amount of fire and brimstone change that fact,” he said.
Noem called on Ravnsborg to resign soon after the crash and later pressured lawmakers to continue impeachment. Noem also publicly backed Ravnsborg’s predecessor, Republican Marty Jackley, for his replacement.
Ravnsborg claims that the governor, who has positioned herself for a possible candidacy for the White House in 2024, is pushing for his removal in part because he is investigating ethical complaints against Noah.
Ravensborg agreed in September to an undisclosed agreement with Bower’s widow.
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