Prosecutors: Charges difficult

| Monday, August 25, 2003

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PIERRE (AP) — Setting charges in fatal accidents such as the one involving

Rep. Bill Janklow, R-S.D., means trying to determine what a driver was doing or thinking, said a state's attorney who is prosecuting another case in which a car ran a stop sign. The case Codington County State's Attorney Vince Foley is pressing seems similar to the accident involving Janklow, but the prosecutor cautioned that cases often have unique features that make it impossible to apply a cookie-cutter approach to setting appropriate charges or deciding to press charges at all.

"The critical issue is determining what a particular driver was doing or thinking," Foley said. "There has to be some intent."

That is one of the reasons a decision on whether to bring charges takes longer than citizens may expect, he said.

The combination of circumstances — speed and running a stop sign — involved in Janklow's crash, makes it somewhat unusual, a Sioux Falls Argus Leader analysis of fatal accidents in the state shows. Of the 85 fatal-accident reports filed so far this year in South Dakota, only two involve a driver running a stop sign. And neither includes speeds 15 to 20 mph over the limit, as in Janklow's case.

In one, a case in Grant County, a driver was charged with a stop sign violation. The report notes that both vehicles in that accident were estimated to be traveling

below the posted speed limit.

In the other, Foley's Codington County case, charges of careless driving and

failure to stop at a stop sign, both of which are misdemeanors, were filed.

Janklow was driving a car involved in a collision with a motorcycle at a Moody County intersection on the afternoon of Aug. 16. The driver of the motorcycle, Randy E. Scott, 55, of Hardwick, Minn., died in the crash. The official accident report estimated Janklow's speed at 70 to 75 mph on a highway with a 55 mph speed limit. The report said Janklow's car failed to stop at a traffic sign at the intersection.

Moody County States Attorney Bill Ellingson has not said what charges he is considering in the Janklow case. Possibilities range from misdemeanors with relatively small fines and jail time to felonies that could mean years in prison. A careless-driving conviction would mean up to 30 days and $200.