Document Type

Article

Publication Date

January 2023

Keywords

impeachment, state constitutional law, road safety, South Dakota

Disciplines

Constitutional Law | Law | Law and Politics | State and Local Government Law

Abstract

In September 2020, South Dakota’s Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg was driving on a rural highway when he struck and killed a pedestrian. After pleading guilty to two criminal misdemeanors, Ravnsborg was impeached, convicted, removed from state office, and barred from holding it again. This was South Dakota’s first impeachment of a constitutional officer. To chronicle this historic first, the South Dakota Law Review is publishing a special issue containing ten essays authored by those directly involved with the impeachment. This essay introduces the special issue by describing the factual and procedural background for Ravnsborg’s impeachment, providing a brief summary of each author’s contribution, and offering several reflections on the broader importance of South Dakota’s first impeachment. We argue that South Dakota’s first impeachment proceedings were merely the South Dakota Legislature’s initial attempt to liquidate the meaning of the state’s impeachment provision. These efforts nevertheless revealed much about South Dakota’s constitution, its legislature, and what is necessary to protect South Dakotans from harm done by state officials.

Publication Title

68 South Dakota Law Review 159

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