PIERRE, S.D. – The South Dakota Highway Patrol has announced sobriety checkpoints will be conducted in 14 different counties during the month of August. These checkpoints will take place in the counties of Beadle, Brown, Codington, Fall River, Jones, Kingsbury, Lake, Lyman, Minnehaha, Moody, Pennington, Roberts, Sanborn, and Yankton.

The monthly checkpoints are designed to discourage people from driving impaired. The checkpoints are funded by the South Dakota Office of Highway Safety and conducted by the South Dakota Highway Patrol with the help of local law enforcement.

Officials remind drivers impaired driving is never a good idea regardless of whether there is a checkpoint planned in their county. People who have been drinking are urged to designate a sober driver or take an alternate form of commercial or public transportation.

Both the Office of Highway Safety and the Highway Patrol are agencies of the South Dakota Department of Public Safety.

 

PIERRE, S.D. (John Hult / South Dakota Searchlight) – The leader of the South Dakota Department of Corrections told lawmakers she doesn’t want to answer to the state’s Corrections Commission, a body that exists to provide oversight and guidance to prison officials.

Some commission members told South Dakota Searchlight in recent weeks that they’ve felt uninformed and uninvolved lately, noting that they’ve heard no details about two bouts of violence in the space of four months in two of the state’s prisons. Some even questioned the value of the commission and suggested it serves no purpose.

According to the DOC’s own website, “state law requires the Corrections Commission to undertake a continuing study of criminal justice issues in South Dakota, which may include a review of current felonies, felony sentences, sentencing options, practices, programs, trends and initiatives.”

The DOC has taken the position, however, that the commission’s only role is to sign off on funding requests from the prison industries where inmates work. That role is also listed in state law.

The shift in focus came recently, according to two of the commission’s longest-serving members.

DOC Secretary Kellie Wasko told the Legislature’s Government Operations and Audit Committee on Wednesday in Pierre that she also questions the commission’s purpose, and suggested that lawmakers ought to take “another look” at what the commission does.

Rep. Ernie Otten, R-Tea, chairs the audit committee and is a member of the Corrections Commission.

For weeks, Otten did not return calls from South Dakota Searchlight seeking comment on the commission. During Wednesday’s meeting, he offered a sentiment similar to the corrections commissioners who did respond.

“I’ve been thinking about how to phrase this, but me being me, I’ll just do it my way,” Otten said. “It’s the biggest waste of time I’ve ever had to endure. And so to have it rethought, we need to do that.”

Wasko told lawmakers she believes she ought to answer to lawmakers, not a commission that includes community members.

Wasko was on hand at the audit committee meeting to present the agency’s annual “performance metrics,” something state agencies are required to do.

After her presentation, Sen. Tim Reed, R-Brookings, wanted to know if the Corrections Commission might be able to offer more oversight and information on security issues than audit committee members can in their once-a-year meetups with prison officials.

Reed’s taken plenty of questions lately about the prisons, he said.

The South Dakota State Penitentiary saw two nights of violence, sparked in part by the shutdown of tablet-based text messaging, in March. That incident included injuries to staff and inmates, and led to 11 inmate indictments.

Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield saw two skirmishes between inmates July 9-10.

Before Wednesday’s meeting, the DOC had released only two pieces of information about the Springfield incidents: that six inmates were injured, and that order was restored.

Reed told Wasko it’s difficult to talk with constituents about prison issues without information, noting that the committee only sees her once a year. Members of the Legislature’s budget committee see Wasko more often to talk about funding, most recently on Tuesday, but those meetings are also infrequent and lack representatives from the general public.

At some point, Reed said, “the incidents probably need to be reviewed by a broader group of people.”

Wasko disagreed.

She didn’t know anything about the commission or its role before her arrival from Colorado in the spring of 2022. The commission’s role as an overseer of prison industries “made sense to me,” she said, because Colorado had a similar commission made up of similar people.

The commission in South Dakota has four legislators, as well as judges and representatives from the labor, manufacturing and retail sectors.

Wasko described the non-lawmakers on the committee as “people from industries in the community.”

“I don’t feel like some of my high-security, high-risk incidents, I’m not accountable to share that with somebody from the community,” Wasko said. “And those are public meetings.”

Wasko told the committee members she’s comfortable “being accountable to you” because she’s legally required to be.

The problem, she said, is that “people want information within 24 hours of what happened.”

“In those first 24 hours, we’re still trying to figure out what happened,” she said.

At one point, she’d heard that 40 “shanks” – a slang term for items fashioned by prisoners into knife-like weapons – were found after the Springfield violence.

There were actually only four, she said. With regard to the number of inmates involved in the fighting, she said, “I got four numbers in four weeks.”

Wasko did not specify where those numbers – on shanks or inmates involved – may have come from.

The public wants answers before they’re ready, she said.

“That’s the problem. They’re firing at us when we’re in the midst of this: I wanna know this, I wanna know this.”

She’s willing to “close the doors and get into the nitty-gritty” with lawmakers once the DOC completes an after-incident report, she said. She also trumpeted the DOC’s annual statistical report, which she said is more detailed than recent annual reports to the Corrections Commission.

The DOC secretary is obligated by law to call at least two Corrections Commission meetings a year. Based on her experience in Colorado and her review of the group’s annual reports, she said, she’s conducted the group’s meetings “the way I understood it to work and that made sense to me.”

Reed told Wasko he understands the difficulty of responding with public information when information is in flux. But he also said he wasn’t asking about reviews in the immediate aftermath of a problem.

Once there is an after-incident report, he said, there ought to be a way for lawmakers and the public to learn what happened and how the situations were addressed.

He said the commission’s makeup could be changed, but that the information ought to be available.

“There’s probably actions that have been taken since things happened, and those should be reported out and talked about to a group,” Reed said.

Otten offered his take on the commission being a waste of time, then closed the discussion by asking for a motion to accept the DOC’s performance measures report.

Dave McGirr is a representative for retailers on the Corrections Commission, as well as the former mayor of Huron and the former liaison to the police department for the Huron City Commission. McGirr now lives in the Sioux Falls area.

He said Wednesday he’s been pushing the commission to take up more serious matters for several years, and that he intends to bring up the issue again at the commission’s September meeting.

Outside perspectives can be helpful for any agency, he said, and he argued that the role of the commission is meant to reflect that.

There are labor and business representatives on the commission to address prison industries, but he said the presence of judges and lawmakers suggests it’s meant to address broader issues than metal shop operations.

“The staff would prefer, and apparently Secretary Wasko would also prefer, that they not communicate any of that to us,” McGirr said. “And yet state law would seem to indicate that they need to.”

McGirr pointed to the issues surrounding the proposed new men’s prison in Lincoln County as an example of why outside voices and transparency matter. Neighbors to the project – some of whom have sued the state over its site selection process – have repeatedly complained about a lack of information and consultation on the project.

One neighbor a half-mile from the site told South Dakota Searchlight she first learned of the DOC’s site plans less than 24 hours before the agency announced them to the public.

Had the public been consulted and informed up front, McGirr said, the current controversies might have been avoided. Wasko may be experienced in corrections, but he said she clearly doesn’t have much experience dealing with the public as he does.

“I’ve served in elected positions for over 20 years, been on many, many boards, and gone through many, many trials and tribulations,” McGirr said. “And the worst thing you can do is not tell them as much as you’re legally allowed to.”

 

PIERRE, S.D. (John Hult / South Dakota Searchlight) – Two former Department of Corrections employees, three inmates and another person were indicted Tuesday for a series of incidents at the South Dakota State Penitentiary.

DOC Secretary Kellie Wasko told lawmakers during a committee meeting Wednesday that some “bad apples” had been indicted, during a discussion on staffing.

Attorney General Marty Jackley, whose office prosecutes criminal cases that take place behind the prison walls, sent a news release hours later listing six defendants indicted in five separate cases for crimes including arson, drug distribution and possession of “synthetic cannabinoids.”

The indictments on file at the Minnehaha County Clerk of Courts office do not include detailed narratives on how the alleged crimes took place.

DOC spokesman Michael Winder did not reply to a message seeking more details about the allegations. Gov. Kristi Noem’s spokesman, Ian Fury, also did not reply.

In one of the cases, former DOC medication aide Madyson Alexis Bixby was charged with conspiracy to commit second-degree arson and possession of an unauthorized article (a cell phone). Also charged in that case are 28-year-old inmate Tyler Dane Larvie and 30-year-old Merced Patlan, who’s listed as a Sioux Falls resident in the news release but as an Iowa resident in the indictment, and is not an inmate or an ex-DOC employee. Patlan is charged with criminal solicitation and arson-related charges.

The indictment in that case says Larvie and Bixby conspired to direct Patlan “and/or any other known or unknown co-conspirators,” to start a vehicle fire.

On Jan. 4, the indictment said, Larvie asked Bixby about the location of a person identified as “A” in the court documents. Bixby allegedly told Larvie, who in turn communicated with Patlan and directed Patlan to set the vehicle ablaze.

Jackley’s news release says the trio conspired to “destroy another person’s vehicle” between Dec. 1, 2023, and Jan. 4, the day the arson occurred in Sioux Falls.

In another case, a former DOC nurse named Alexis Rose Hiller, 27, of Sioux Falls, was charged with possession of a controlled substance, possession with intent to distribute and possession of contraband with intent to deliver to an inmate. All three alleged crimes took place around Jan. 31 and involve the synthetic opioid buprenorphine.

There were three other indictments filed Wednesday involving the penitentiary.

Inmate Seth Thomas Peplinski, 24, was charged with aggravated assault and simple assault for an alleged attack on “another person in the prison” on May 6.

Inmate Kelly Michael Irby, 64, was charged with possession of a weapon by an inmate for allegedly having a blade on May 8.

Larvie, charged for the reported arson, faces nine counts of synthetic cannabinoid possession in a separate indictment.

None of the accused have made their initial court appearances, which had yet to be scheduled as of Wednesday.

The indictments add to the recent drama swirling around the state’s prisons.

The DOC shut down inmates’ electronic tablets on March 10 and issued a memo saying it had done so as the result of an “ongoing investigation.”

In the hours following two days of violent unrest at the penitentiary later in March, Gov. Kristi Noem said the tablet shutdown served to spark the incidents. In the weeks following the shutdown, inmates and their family members complained about being cut off from each other by the change.

Noem said prior to the shutdown that inmates had been using tablets – which had delivered $1.25 million in commissions revenue to the state since 2021 – for “nefarious” purposes.

Earlier this month, Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield experienced two skirmishes between inmates, resulting in injuries to six of them.

 

SOUTH DAKOTA Undated (Makenzie Huber /  South Dakota Searchlight) – More than 360 South Dakota agricultural producers are receiving a total of $53.4 million through the Discrimination Financial Assistance Program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday.

Eligible applicants allege they experienced discrimination in USDA farm lending programs before 2021, including on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, age and disability. An earlier USDA notice about the program also identified membership in a Native American tribe as a potential basis for a discrimination claim.

More than 43,000 producers nationwide will receive financial assistance through the $2.2 billion program, funded through the Inflation Reduction Act. More than 58,000 people applied.

President Joe Biden vowed to support agricultural producers who experienced discrimination before he took office. The program was created after the Biden administration tried to provide $4 billion of debt relief for Black farmers, which was shut down amid lawsuits.

“While this financial assistance is not compensation for anyone’s losses or pain endured, it is an acknowledgement,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a news release. “My hope is that this will ensure that many farmers can stay on their farms, contribute to our nation’s food supply, and continue doing what they love.”

About half of the nationwide recipients are farmers or ranchers who are receiving $10,000 to $500,000, or an average of about $82,000. South Dakota had 333 such awards. About 20,000 individuals who said they were unable to get a USDA loan are receiving an average of $5,000 to start a farming or ranching operation. South Dakota had 29 such awards.

Payments were awarded to people in every state and three territories, but residents of Alabama and Mississippi alone received almost half of the money. Vilsack said the discrimination resulted in loan denials, loan delays, higher interest rates and an overall lack of assistance.

According to The New York Times, the USDA said it was still analyzing the applications and payouts to determine demographic information about payment recipients. John Boyd, the president of the National Black Farmers Association, told the news outlet that Black farmers received about $1.5 billion of the available funds.

Applications were vetted by independent consulting firms that the Agriculture Department hired.

The USDA did not immediately respond to questions from South Dakota Searchlight.