South Dakota’s Republican attorney general Jason Ravnsborg was charged Thursday with three misdemeanors for hitting and killing a man with his car during last summer and thus avoiding more serious felony charges in a case that raised questions about how the state’s top law enforcement official first reported the incident.
Ravnsborg could face up to 30 days in jail and up to a $500 fine on each charge: careless driving, driving out of his lane, and driving a motor vehicle while he was using his phone.
Ravensborg said he was happy that the legal system assumes his innocence — for now — while relatives of the man killed in the collision, 55-year-old Joseph Boever, said they were disappointed but not surprised that the attorney general was just facing misdemeanor charges.
Hyde County Deputy State’s Attorney Emily Sovell said the proofs simply didn’t support felony charges of vehicular homicide or manslaughter, which could have meant years of time in prison. She noted Ravnsborg wasn’t intoxicated, and that a manslaughter charge would have required the state to indicate he “consciously and unjustifiably” disregarded enough risk.
“At best, his conduct was negligent, which is insufficient to bring criminal charges in South Dakota,” said Beadle County State’s Attorney Michael Moore, who assisted with handling the case.
Ravnsborg, who was elected to his first term in 2018, initially told officials he thought he had struck a deer or another large animal as he drove home to Pierre from a Republican fundraiser late on September 12. He said he had searched the unlit area with a cellphone flashlight and didn’t realize he had killed a man until the next day when he returned to the place of the accident on U.S. 14 near Highmore.
Crash investigators said in November that Ravnsborg was distracted when he veered onto the shoulder of the highway where Boever was walking. But it took months for prosecutors to make a charging decision in the crash, starting an investigation that considered cellphone GPS data, video footage from along Ravnsborg’s route, and DNA evidence.
Ravnsborg said he had not been drinking prior to the crash, and he handed over his electronic devices to investigators. A toxicology report from a blood sample taken about 15 hours after the crash showed no alcohol in Ravnsborg’s system. Investigators said Thursday that they discovered no evidence he was drinking alcohol in the hours prior to the crash.
Boever’s family had questioned Ravnsborg’s account and expressed frustration as five months passed while they had to wait for a charging decision.
Regardless of the charge accusing Ravnsborg of being on his cellphone, he was not actually on his device at the time of the crash, officials said. They said phone records showed he had been using his phone about one minute before.
Prosecutors figured out from cellphone records that Ravnsborg walked by Boever’s body while he walked the crash scene with his cellphone flashlight. But Sovell noted that it was a “very dark night” with no lighting on the road and that there was no proof that either Ravnsborg or the sheriff who responded to the crash observed Boever’s body.
A crash reconstruction expert from Wyoming and the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation helped the South Dakota Highway Patrol in the investigation. Such accidents would generally be investigated by the South Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation, which answers to the attorney general’s office. The other agencies carried out the investigation in order to avoid a conflict of interest.
