Democrat's effort fails, and the death penalty lives on in ‘pro-life' South Dakota
State Sen. Jamie Smith, D-Sioux Falls, participates in a South Dakota Senate Health and Human Services Committee meeting on Jan. 22, 2025. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)
Admittedly, the death penalty isn't used often here, but thanks to the actions of the Senate Judiciary Committee, South Dakota will continue to have the right to kill its citizens. The committee ensured that death is still an option when it defeated Senate Bill 119, a measure to repeal capital punishment.
The main sponsor of SB 119 was Sen. Jamie Smith, a Sioux Falls Democrat. While his testimony was short because he had to be in another committee hearing, Smith raised some points not usually heard when the subject is repealing the death penalty.
He covered the common themes like the cost of death penalty appeals versus the cost of lifetime incarceration and the irony of such a pro-life state having capital punishment as the law of the land. It was more interesting when he noted that an inmate who gives up his death penalty appeals may be causing the state to take part in assisted suicide. A former candidate for governor, Smith said he didn't know if he could make the call to the penitentiary to order the warden to take a life.
Smith's hesitance to make the call points to the fact that the death penalty has many victims. Everyone who touches a death penalty case has a chance to be changed by it, and not necessarily for the better. Former state Sen. Arthur Rusch, who testified in favor of SB 119, served as judge for the trial of Donald Moeller and sentenced him to death. One of his rulings was that the jurors in the case would have access to free counseling. The defense and prosecution lawyers can also suffer effects from a death penalty case, not to mention the poor person who has to pull the switch at the prison.
Bizarre legal debate shows it's time to talk about the death penalty
Senators heard from SueZann Bosler of Journey of Hope, an organization that lobbies against death penalty laws. Bosler and her father, a minister, were attacked during a home invasion. Bosler was stabbed multiple times; her father was killed by the intruder. An opponent of the death penalty, Bosler's father had told her that if he was ever the victim of a homicide, that the killer should not face the death penalty. Bosler testified in her attacker's multiple trials, seeking to get his death penalty overturned. Eventually, she was successful.
Bosler told the senators her father was known to ask, 'Why do we kill people who kill people to show Americans that killing is wrong?'
Also testifying in favor of the bill was Denny Davis of South Dakotans Opposed to the Death Penalty. He said that in the United States since 1976, there have been 200 exonerations of prisoners on death row, an average of four per year. This raises the specter of wrongly executing an innocent person.
Testimony opposing SB 119 led off with Attorney General Marty Jackley who said it was his job to speak for crime victims. He said South Dakota's capital punishment law was 'responsible, humane and limited.' The death penalty, according to Jackley, prevents some murders and saves the lives of law enforcement officers.
Repealing the death penalty doesn't come up every year in the Legislature, but when it does, it comes up against Lynette Johnson. She always makes a compelling case for keeping capital punishment on the books. Her husband, prison guard Ronald Johnson, was murdered by prisoners serving life sentences. It must be tough for her reliving her husband's murder each time legislation repealing the death penalty is offered. In that way, she has much in common with the family members of murder victims who must relive their ordeal every time the murderer's death row case comes up for appeal.
This year, it sounded as if Johnson's presentation was particularly graphic. Those of us monitoring the committee hearing online couldn't see the photos of Ronald she shared with lawmakers, taken after the inmates had beaten her husband with a lead pipe. Her lesson was clear: This is what sentencing someone to life in prison will get you.
Jackley urged senators to keep the death penalty because it serves as a deterrent. It certainly didn't deter the lifers who bludgeoned Ronald Johnson.
On a 4-3 vote, the committee deferred SB 119 to the 41st day of the 38-day legislative session, in their own way, giving the legislation a death sentence. That vote doesn't change the fact that our death penalty is rarely used and of dubious repute when it comes to keeping the peace. Maybe someday South Dakotans will repeal the death penalty and truly live up to their pro-life values.
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