South Dakota House lawmakers voted on Monday to halt the impeachment proceedings against state Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg, whose criminal trial over his fatal car collision is set to begin this week.
Er ⌠Iâd say Ravnsborg is a âdead man walkingâ but that wouldnât be funny.
Statements made by the defendant are not hearsay.
It so happens that I have an example of how a normal human behaves in this circumstance:
The nephew of a friend was driving on a dark rainy night when he hit something he thought might be a dog. He stopped, and searched the area, finding nothing. He went to a nearby house (this was years before cell phones), and the people there brought flashlights and helped him search.
They eventually found a man, drunk and wearing a dark clothing, some distance off the road. He did not survive.
That is what decent people do when they hit something. No damn excuses.
Canât they just schedule a no-witnesses impeachment for the half hour before lunch, with a guaranteed party-line vote of acquittal locked in ahead of time?
The decision came in response to state Judge John Brownâs order that South Dakota authorities remove the damning videos of Ravnsborgâs interviews with investigators that had been uploaded online by the stateâs Department of Safety (DPS) two weeks ago.
Ravnsborg: âI would like to commend Judge Brown for his order. In return, I promise to do my best to avoid running him over should I ever find him walking on either shoulder of some road which I might be driving along.â
âŚconfronting the attorney general with their discovery of Boeverâs glasses in his carâŚ
Here in toney CT, we equip all our near-sighted deer with glasses.
Itâs no joke. They have 20/100 vision, quite poor, and definitely need them.
I hope he doesnât mean statements about the glasses and the flashlight.
To be fair, they should have shotguns. Though this fella was able to do without.
Ravnsborg: âI think that Judge Brown meant âheresy.ââ
And in Greenwich the deer wear prescription contacts.
Good luck trying to find those in anyoneâs car.
In Ravnsborgâs defense, he wasnât himself that night. You see, he had had a lot to drink shortly before he struck and killed the man.
On top of that, they have no lane discipline.
It certainly could refer to the copsâ statements about what they found at the scene, but it wonât be hearsay when the cops testify to what they saw. I could understand if the judge thought the videos might taint the jury pool, but Iâve never, ever heard of a judge enjoining the government on the basis that thereâs hearsay involved. Thereâs always hearsay involved!
The next story about how it happened.
But this is more sinister than that. AG Ravnsborg called the sheriff, they said that they both searched. The sheriff then drove the AG to his house to pick up the sheriffâs personal vehicle so the AG could get home. It was when the AG drove the sheriffâs vehicle back to the sheriffâs house to drop off the car, then back to the scene of the accident that he âfoundâ the victim.
You canât tell me that the sheriff in his sheriffâs car didnât have a more powerful flashlight than the AGâs cell phone. It will interesting to see how the law deals with one of their own.
Most of the statements in the videos were made by the investigators. Ravnsborg didnât have much to say once the phone log and glasses came out. But I think the judge is concerned about having a jury pool untainted by hearing other peopleâs impressions of the videos. Bit late for that, but he has to pretend.
And, apparently, the request to remove/stop further releases came from the AGâs lawyers:
South Dakota Judge John Brown, of the stateâs Sixth Judicial Circuit, agreed with a motion filed by Ravnsborgâs attorneys to, as the Judge explained, âpreclude the release of criminal investigation informationâ in the future. But the order also forced the state to backpedal on the release of the widely viewed interrogation video.
I would have more confidence that this would be a fair trial if the prosecutors and/or courts didnât keep bending over backward to accommodate Ravnsborgâs requests.
Shades of Graham Chapman as the council rat catcher going into the wainscotting in pursuit of a sheep, emerging from the hole, clutching his wounded arm, and exclaiming, â'eâs got a gun!!â