Thursday's heavy rain kept us from posting until very late last night. This morning, we woke to a flurry of stories about South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg, who killed Joseph Boever last September in a fit of distracted driving.
In the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, the Associated Press's Stephen Groves reports in South Dakota House's call on Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg's impeachment may take months:
The South Dakota House speaker has received a hard drive containing all of the findings of the investigation into the state attorney general's car crash that killed a pedestrian last year, but it could take months before the chamber decides whether to try to impeach the state's top law enforcement official.
Prosecutors spent months weighing what charges to bring against Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg after it received the findings from investigators, and House Speaker Spencer Gosch, a fellow Republican, has thus far shown no sign that he's in any hurry to review them.
More:Watch body cam footage of South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg’s latest traffic stop
Gosch said Thursday that his staff in Pierre received the hard drive late Wednesday and that he hadn't had a chance to see what it contains. He'll have to sort through files that contain nearly 1,300 photos, cellphone data extraction reports, roughly 10 hours of video and audio of interviews, more than 1,500 pages of investigative reports and a crime scene map that requires special software to view.
“We're still evaluating what the process is going to look like,” he said, adding that lawmakers would “allow an ample amount of time and an ample amount of due process.”
Republican Gov. Kristi Noem has called for Ravnsborg to resign, including before he pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor traffic offenses in the crash that killed pedestrian Joseph Boever. And it was Noem who had the investigation findings sent to Gosch along with a letter from Secretary of Public Safety Craig Price in which he said Ravnsborg should have been charged with manslaughter. . .
Here's that story from yesterday. At the Mitchell Republic, Christopher Vondracek reports in South Dakota Public Safety secretary: AG Ravnsborg should've been charged with felony manslaughter:
In a stunning rebuke, the chief public safety officer in Gov. Kristi Noem’s cabinet called on Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg to resign, saying he’d believed prosecutors could’ve brought manslaughter charges for his role in the death of pedestrian Joe Boever nearly a year ago.
Craig Price, cabinet secretary for the Department of Public Safety, also said he virulently disagreed with the AG’s description of the events that took place on Sept. 12, 2020 west of Highmore, when Ravnsborg said he was unaware that he’d struck a human being along the shoulder.
“On behalf of all the law enforcement personnel involved in this investigation, I categorically reject Mr. Ravnsborg’s characterizations,” wrote Price, in a letter to Speaker of the South Dakota House Spencer Gosch.
Price went on to say that the Republican attorney general “should have been charged” with a second-degree, felony manslaughter charge rather than the three traffic citations an assistant state’s attorney brought against him last February.
The letter came in a Wednesday, Sept. 1 press release from Noem’s office that called upon Gosch to restart impeachment proceedings against Ravnsborg. Noem’s team also said the governor had “provided the full investigation file” to Gosch.
“The remarkable detail in this investigation will assist the House in its important work of considering whether to proceed with impeachment articles for the attorney general,” said Noem. . . .
Via the Republic, here's the PDF of that file:
At the Argus Leader, Joe Sneve reported on Friday in What we know about the year-long saga surrounding AG Jason Ravnsborg's role in fatal crash:
South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg struck and killed Joe Boever while he was driving from a political event the night of Sept. 12, 2020.
He called 911 and said he canvassed the area, but he didn't see Boever's body.
Nearly a year passed before he faced charges stemming from the crash, and ultimately he accepted a plea deal and was convicted of a pair of minor driving infractions that did not amount to criminal culpability for the death of the 55-year-old Hyde County man.
Still, Ravnsborg continues to serve as South Dakota's top law enforcement officer, even as Gov. Kristi Noem and other lawmakers have called for his removal from office through impeachment in lieu of a voluntary resignation.
Read the detailed chronology of what we know and how we know it.
What we want to know is when there will be justice for Joseph Boever.
Related posts:
- Top South Dakota lawman: Joe Boever's killer Ravnsborg gets 7th speeding ticket since 2014
- Is anyone pleased with SD AG Jason Ravnsborg plea deal other than Team Ravnsborg?
- Remember Joe Boever: AP reports South Dakota AG Ravnsborg objects to cameras at his trial
- Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Army Reserve blocks Ravnsborg promotion due to Boever death
- Boever death: Ravnsborg didn't see face coming through glass, flashlight like beacon in grass
- Ravnsborg's lawyer enters not guilty plea; South Dakota Attorney General not present in court
- Joe Boever was killed, but Ravnsborg's attorney claims client suffering is the worst thing ever
- Justice for Joe Boever: Governor Noem calls for AG Ravnsborg's resignation; articles of impeachment filed in South Dakota House
- Attorney General Ravnsborg charged with 3 misdemeanors in crash that killed Joe Boever
- Twitter memorials: 5 months ago, South Dakota Attorney General Ravnsborg killed Joe Boever
- Daily Beast: Ravnsborg killed a man. Family members fear Joe Boever has been forgotten
- Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Noem supports using grand jury to speed up Ravnsborg killing probe
- States attorneys looking into killing of Joseph Boever by AG Ravnsborg not talking to Noem
- Rapid City Journal: After 4 months, still no decision on whether AG Ravnsborg will be charged for killing Joseph Boever
- AP: Prosecutors waiting on debris testing in SD Attorney General killing of Joseph Boever
- Governor Kristi Noem takes off her positive pants, given pace of Ravnsborg investigation
- Well, that's illuminating: South Dakota Highway Patrol’s accident report on Boever killing
- South Dakota News Watch: Crash experts question Ravnsborg’s car-deer explanation
- SD News Watch: State's criminal & civil traffic laws favor drivers over pedestrians in collisions
- UPDATED: Joe Boever's tragic death on Hwy 14: news digest about Ravnsborg's fatal accident
Photo: Ravnsborg's Taurus, via Rapid City Journal. From the New York Times' transcription:"“We know that his face came through your windshield,” one investigator said. The vehicle also had an imprint from at least part of the man’s body on the hood, an investigator said, adding that “at some point he rolls off and slides into the ditch.”
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