South Dakota Attorney General Gets No Jail Time, $1000 in Fines for Fatal Crash

South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg (pronounced “Roundsberg”) was sentenced on Thursday to pay a fine of $500 each on two misdemeanor counts in connection with a fatal crash that killed a pedestrian in September. He received no jail time.

The judge who sentenced Ravnsborg was signing off on a plea deal the defendant had made with prosecutors, who did not discuss details of the investigation because a judge’s order prevents them from doing so, they said.

On September 12, Ravnsborg was driving home from a fundraiser when he hit Joseph Boever, 55, as he walked along the side of the highway. He called 9-1-1 and reported that he “hit something” and had “no idea” what. Law enforcement arrived at the scene but could not find what Ravnsborg had hit.

Ravnsborg returned to the scene the next day to find Boever dead.

Notably, the victim’s reading glasses were found inside Ravnsborg’s car. During a police interrogation on September 30, one detective told Ravnsborg, “His face was in your windshield, Jason. Think about that.”

The attorney general took a toxicology test a full 15 hours after the crash. It showed no alcohol in his system. Witnesses police spoke to at the fundraiser said they did not see Ravnsborg drinking.

He admitted to investigators that he had been browsing the internet on his phone minutes before the fatal crash, but said he put his phone down at least a minute before it happened.

Ravnsborg has resisted calls to resign his position. Fellow Republican Gov. Kristi Noem has been among his harshest critics and has repeatedly called for him to step down. Noem expressed “disappointment” at the outcome and issued a statement saying that Ravnsborg has “not accepted responsibility for the death of Joseph Boever and did not even appear in court today to face the charges or the Boever family.”

The attorney general was not required to appear in court on Thursday.

Noem urged the legislature to take up articles of impeachment against the attorney general. The legislature had previously done so, but paused the effort in March to “allow the legal system to proceed without further interference and with due process.”

On Thursday, Boever’s sister Jane expressed disgust at the outcome and Ravnsborg’s absence. “Why, after having to wait nearly a year, do we not have the chance to face him?” she asked the court.

“We do not feel a couple of fines is adequate punishment for killing a man,” she said. “This is inexcusable.”