Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg of South Dakota was convicted by the state’s Senate on June 21 of two impeachment charges in connection with a car crash in 2020 that claimed the life of a pedestrian.
The vote to impeach the Republican came after hours of questioning from lawmakers, who didn’t appear to believe Ravnsborg’s account of the crash, and also triggered his automatic removal from office.
The state lawmakers voted 24–9 on the first article of impeachment of crimes causing death, meeting the two-thirds majority needed to convict him and have him removed from office.
The Senate voted 31–2 on the second article, malfeasance in office, which alleged he misled investigators. Two 33–0 votes barred him from ever holding office in South Dakota again.
The impeachment articles were passed in April by the South Dakota House of Representatives, marking the first impeachment of a state official in the state’s history. Following that vote, Ravnsborg was suspended from his duties.
His seat is up for election in November 2022.
At the center of the impeachment is a car crash that took place on Sept. 12, 2020, while Ravnsborg was driving home from a dinner in Redfield to Pierre, the state capital. Ravnsborg initially called 911 on the night of the incident and said he believed he had struck a deer. He told House lawmakers the same thing.
Attorney General Claimed Ignorance
Ravnsborg, a first-term Republican who only recently announced he wouldn’t seek reelection, insisted that he was unaware that he had hit someone with his vehicle until he returned to the scene the following morning.
Criminal investigators said they didn’t believe some of Ravnsborg’s statements, while lawmakers had pressed him on how he didn’t see the victim’s face in his windshield, given that the victim’s glasses were found inside Ravnsborg’s car following the impact.
“There’s no question that was a lie,” said state Sen. Lee Schoenbeck, the chamber’s top-ranking Republican, on June 21. “This person ran down an innocent South Dakotan.”
An investigation into the incident found that Ravnsborg had been using his phone during his drive that evening, and the attorney general later admitted to using the phone minutes before the crash, after previously denying he had done so.
He also failed to operate his vehicle in its proper lane at the time of the impact, despite having previously told law enforcement officials that he was in the middle of the road at the time of impact.
Ravnsborg Questioned Staff About Forensics
Ravnsborg pleaded no contest in 2021 to two misdemeanor charges related to the crash, including making an illegal lane change and using a phone while driving. He was fined but avoided jail time.His attorney, Mike Butler, had asked senators to consider the implications of impeachment on the function of state government.
Butler also contended that his client had done nothing nefarious and instead had cooperated fully with the investigation into the crash. Prosecutors showed an exchange Ravnsborg had with one of his staff members three days after the crash, despite having handed his phones over to crash investigators.
Ravnsborg also questioned an agent in the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation about what might be found during forensic examinations of his cell phones, potentially pointing to a conflict of interest issue.
Butler pinned any discrepancies in Ravnsborg’s memory of that night on “human error.”
“I am sorry the family has had to endure this tragedy in so many ways and has been put in the middle of this highly political situation,” he wrote, adding that impeachment could “set forth a dangerous precedent for all South Dakota elected officials.”
In September 2021, Ravnsborg agreed to an undisclosed settlement with Boever’s widow.
The latest decision by Senate lawmakers means Ravnsborg is the first official to be impeached and convicted in South Dakota history.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem was among those who had called for her fellow Republican to resign from office following the fatal incident, while urging lawmakers to pursue impeachment.
The governor, who will appoint a replacement to finish out Ravnsborg’s term, took to Twitter following the June 21 vote on the crash, which she called a “dark cloud” that has been hanging over the attorney general’s office for nearly two years.
Ravnsborg has claimed that Noem, who has positioned herself for a possible 2024 presidential bid, had pushed for him to be ousted from office in part because he had investigated ethics complaints against her.
