Category: Law and Order

Democrat Clayton Walker, whose 2014 petition for US Senate was ‘signed’ by such luminaries as “Jeff Bridges,” “Ryan Reynolds,” and “Bambi Lake,”  is still awaiting trial as the prosecution of his case proceeds forward.  If you recall, Clayton was arrested for allegedly falsifying signatures on his petitions. And was arrested again for calling several state offices threatening and harassing employees.

The Attorney General’s office is reporting to SDWC that a motions hearing is in the process of being scheduled in the case, and will likely be held on April 29th.

While the events in this case took place early last year, Walker himself has likely been the cause of many of the delays in the matter. As his third attorney was attempting to jettison the case, a February Capitol Journal Article noted that Walker was ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation and a competency hearing was possibly going to be scheduled:

“I think rather than spelling everything out … I’ll just say I can’t work with him,” Rensch said. “I can tell you based upon what happened that we have become adversarial.”

In a written response to Rensch’s motion, Walker said the attorney/client relationship couldn’t have been broken because they had only met once. Walker also accused Rensch’s staff of lying to the lawyer and accused Rensch of wanting to withdraw from the case because it had become “politicized.”

I’m on Facebook recently, and I had the following sponsored ad pop up, promoting yet another ridiculous article by former sado/masochism pornography photographer Lee Stranahan, as he continues promoting a campaign against South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley.

This of course came on the heels of a press conference Stranahan held in Washington accusing Jackley of “criminal wrongdoing,” which was ignored with the exact same level of blasé by the Washington DC Area press that South Dakota Reporters previously have had for Stranahan’s silliness.

As you’ll notice in the ad on the left, it talks about how “Marty Jackley’s prosecutors” did this or that. But, that’s not exactly truthful.

In this case, they weren’t “Marty Jackley’s” prosecutors. In any way, shape, or form. They were State Attorneys, elected by the people of their county, and completely independent of the Attorney General.

But that’s pretty typical, and stands as one of the biggest problems with the “news stories” that Lee Stranahan has produced as he throws out stories accusing Jackley. They ignore glaring errors, and play up speculation of things that aren’t known at all.

It’s unclear why exactly Stranahan continues his pursuit, making outlandish accusations against South Dakota state & county prosecutors, and the Judiciary in what he characterizes as a scandal. After serving as a paid Annette Bosworth campaign consultant, and contributing to what most would consider a glorious mucking up of her criminal case, his antics caused at least one of her several attorneys to demand he cease association with Bosworth.

Yet, the silliness continued. And still does.

Stranahan’s storied past, including allegations of scams, cons, and other undesirable acts, don’t exactly paint him as a reliable source of news. Not only that, but as we saw with Bosworth, he has a tendency to harm those he claims to champion.  In fact, given that there have been a series of sponsored facebook ads, it leaves one with a sense of wondering who exactly is paying money to promote the messages?    And why?

Unfortunately, a lot of Stranahan’s antics do a grave disservice to a lot of things, including the truth.

First and foremost, many of these stories (and I use that term in a couple of definitions) are expressly and specifically directed at the Attorney General Marty Jackley. Despite the fact that Marty is peripheral, at best, to the matter that Stranahan goes on about, and didn’t prosecute the case.

What we do know conclusively is that Marty was one of the people stuck dealing with the aftermath.

As Attorney General, Marty Jackley is in charge of DCI, or the Division of Criminal Investigation. The Division of Criminal Investigation in South Dakota is often called in to provide specific expertise that many local law enforcement agencies aren’t able to supply themselves, and Special Agents conduct investigations on major felony cases, as they did in the case of the matter of the Mette investigation.

The investigation in the matter of the Mette family and the abuse of foster children at some point seems to have taken a sour turn, and while never indicated publicly, it seems that several things happened in the conduct of the investigation. Things that we can guess prosecutors thought could cost them the ability to pursue it.

The investigation involved issues of horrific child abuse, a type of case that is well noted among experts in law enforcement to be among the most difficult kinds of cases to work with.  As the FBI notes:

“Traditional law enforcement interviewing methods used in typical adult cases are counterproductive when it comes to child victims or witnesses to crimes,” said Stephanie Knapp, one of the Bureau’s four child forensic interviewers. “Sometimes you see unsuccessful outcomes in cases because of poor interview techniques. In many cases of child abuse, for example, where the victim is the only witness, the interview may be a critical element of the investigation.”

And..

Although they follow time-tested protocols, interviewers acknowledge that working with children is an art as well as a science, requiring experience and intuition. “You have to understand and follow the protocols,” Blackwell said, “but it’s also essential that you connect with the kids so that they trust you.”

Read that here.

Investigators and child advocates came into the case, and after a short time were accused of possibly coaching the children on what to say. Into this scenario came DCI investigator Mark Black, who claimed to both interview the children involved, as well as to investigate accusations of witness tampering. And the ambiguity coming out of what happened here seems to be the focus of much of the rhetoric that Stranahan is trying to twist and gin up in his mindless pursuit of Jackley, because much of “what happened” is not public.

Why? Because it involves underage crime victims. It involves personnel matters. And in either case, there’s not much that’s ever going to come to light.

But once in a while you get a hint dropped along the way like a breadcrumb. As noted by the Argus Leader in 2014 with regards to the 2012 case:

Jackley said he had asked North Dakota investigators to look into Black’s behavior in late February, but that the agent’s questionable behavior extended beyond the high-profile case of former advocate Shirley Schwab and former prosecutor Brandon Taliaferro.

By February, Black was accused of domestic abuse by his ex-wife, who took out a temporary protection order against him early this year. The order was not made permanent, but a hearing outlining accusations from Black’s ex-wife was held March 13. The temporary order was extended for 10 days and dismissed March 24.

By then, Black had been terminated.

“I think it’s fair to say that (the witness tampering investigation) was a factor,” Jackley said Friday. “If you were to ask about the protection order issues, I would say that was a factor, too. It was the totality of the circumstances.”

Read it all here.

In addition to what happened with Mark Black, Michael Moore the Beadle County state’s attorney prosecuting the matter had brought witness tampering charges against others involved in the case, which were later dismissed for lack of evidence.

We have an investigator accused of questionable behavior, partially in connection with the case. We have others whose conduct in the matter which had been brought into question. And on top of it all, the crime involves children who may or may not have been willing to take the stand, as well as possibly being the only witnesses in the case.

That seems to leave prosecutors in the unenviable position of trying to figure out what’s left to build a criminal case from to accomplish the ultimate goal – to put a bad, bad person in jail for as long as they could.

Richard Mette, the perpetrator in the sexual abuse case ended up getting a plea agreement of 15 years in prison, which might seem light to some. But in an investigation that apparently was experiencing evidentiary problems as this one did, sometimes a prosecutor – in this case, Michael Moore – is forced to move forward and procure the best deal they could. And we ended up with the 15-year plea agreement.

What really happened to cause problems with the case is arguably something we’ll never know. But as noted, what we do know is that – far from the wild accusations that Lee Stranahan makes of ridiculous grand conspiracies of abuse of power and corruption – the State’s attorney put the bad guy in jail, as best he could with what he had to work with. And, as the person responsible for DCI, Jackley was left to clean up an ugly mess contributed to by one if it’s agents, which was cited by the AG as part of the reason for the agents termination.

Lacking conclusive proof as to exactly what happened, anything else is just what those with overly fertile imaginations want to plant as their narrative, with sponsored facebook links and all.

It’s especially telling that in all of the weaving of this fairy tale by Lee Stranahan, all along the path, Stranahan’s smearing and false narrative of Marty Jackley doing bad things is constantly tied back to his prosecution of Annette Bosworth for fraudulently attesting to witnessing petition signatures.

It was in the beginning. And it continues to be to this day.

We can only hope that when the Bosworth trial happens in May that the silliness, and the sponsored facebook ads, finally go away.

As Lee Stranahan should.

According to the Argus Leader this morning, pot advocates are planning 2 measures for the 2016 ballot. One, for ‘medical marijuana.’  The other? To reduce the penalty for when they’re caught with ‘medical marijuana,’ a.k.a., decriminalization. 

 Organizations have submitted two proposals to the Legislative Research Council that could potentially wind up on the 2016 presidential election ballot. 
One would establish protections for medical marijuana. The other would ease some of the punishments for recreational users. 
 “Decriminalization would ease that burden for the legal system to prosecute real problems, like methamphetamine and rape,” said Ryan Gaddy, administrator for South Dakotans Against Prohibition. “Non-violent offenders aren’t hurting anybody.”

Read it all here.

So, “Decriminalization would ease that burden for the legal system to prosecute real problems, like methamphetamine and rape?”

But as a gateway drug, isn’t pot use the constant when they arrest users/dealers of meth? 

And it seems that there are plenty of real problems just with pot itself. Just ask the uptstanding Sioux Falls citizen-pot users involved in this case going to jail for a couple of years.

I suspect South Dakotans will once again reject these measures, despite it being trendy among liberals.

United States Supreme Court Denies Rodney Berget’s Petition for Relief

PIERRE, S.D. – Attorney General Marty Jackley announces that the United States Supreme Court has denied Defendant Rodney Berget’s petition Writ of Certiorari.

“The United States Supreme Court has denied Rodney Berget’s request to overturn his conviction and capital sentence for the murder of Correctional Officer Ronald ‘RJ’ Johnson. I believe due process has been satisfied and that the interest of justice has been served,” said Jackley.

On February 6, 2012, Berget was sentenced to death for the 2011 killing of Senior Corrections Officer Ronald ‘RJ’ Johnson during a failed attempt to escape from the Sioux Falls Penitentiary. Berget was serving a life sentence for attempted murder and an additional life sentence for raping a convenience store clerk.

In January of 2013, The South Dakota Supreme Court affirmed 11 issues, including the appropriateness of the death sentence for Berget’s crime. However, the Court reversed the original sentence because the admission of statements Berget made to a psychiatrist violated Berget’s right against self-incrimination and remanded the case to the trial court for a limited re-sentencing and the opportunity for Berget to call the psychiatrist as a witness. At the re-sentencing, Berget did not call the psychiatrist as a witness but sought to introduce alleged new evidence regarding his family as mitigation against a new death sentence. The trial court again sentenced Berget to death by lethal injection.

Berget appealed from the trial court’s re-imposition of a death sentence claiming that the Court should have opened up the record to take his additional family evidence. The South Dakota Supreme Court rejected Berget’s appeal, citing the fact that Berget had a full opportunity to present all his desired mitigating evidence at his original sentencing. Berget petitioned the South Dakota Supreme Court to rehear his appeal, which the court denied in an order issued October 17, 2014.

Berget is scheduled to be executed between the hours of 12:01 a.m. and 11:59 p.m., during the week of Sunday, May 3, 2015, through Saturday, May 9, 2015, inclusive, at a specific time and date to be selected by the Warden of the State Penitentiary. Berget may seek the right to file additional habeas proceedings in order to stay the sentencing date.