SOUTH DAKOTA ATTORNEY GENERAL ANNOUNCES TWO NEW INDICTMENTS AGAINST FORMER STATE EMPLOYEES, SPURS AG TO SEEK NEW LEGISLATION

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (John Hult / South Dakota Searchlight) – Two former state employees have been indicted in a fake vehicle title fraud scheme through the state Department of Revenue.

Attorney General Marty Jackley announced the charges at a Wednesday press briefing in Sioux Falls.

Jackley also announced his intention to push for an anti-corruption law during the upcoming legislative session.

The proposal would include requirements for state employee supervisors to report questionable employee behavior to the Attorney General’s Office, protections for whistleblowers, stronger protections for the state auditor, and transparency requirements for reporting on allegations of state employee misbehavior.

The proposal would also empower the state auditor to investigate misbehavior without interference.

“I think there needs to be more reliance on the state auditor,” Jackley said.

News of the indictments against two more state employees comes on the heels of criminal charges for former Department of Social Services employee Lonna Carroll, who’s accused of embezzling $1.8 million from the state by creating and approving fake child support orders from 2010 through 2023. Carroll’s jury trial is currently set to begin Dec. 4 in Pierre.

Shortly after Carroll’s alleged behavior came to light, news broke that a now-deceased revenue department employee, Sandra O’Day, had falsified vehicle titles to get bank loans. The new indictments are tied to that case.

Lynne Hunsley, 63, and Danielle Degenstein, 51, both of Pierre, were indicted Oct. 1 by a grand jury in Hughes County. The charges are part of the fallout from the investigation into O’Day, whose family reported oddities in her finances they found after her death this year.

Hunsley is accused of falsifying a vehicle title. O’Day was engaged in similar behavior, Jackley’s office said, putting false titles in her mother’s name to secure loans.

Jackley said Hunsley had purchased a new vehicle, and that she’d created a fake title to claim she had a trade-in vehicle, which allowed her to avoid some excise taxes. Hunsley faces felony forgery, grand theft by deception, failure to pay excise tax and false document charges.

Degenstein allegedly notarized some of the titles for O’Day and Hunsley and “took some action to cover up” what had happened when confronted about the situations by the Attorney General’s Office, Jackley said.

Degenstein is charged with one misdemeanor count of misprision of a felony for failure to report the situations and cooperate with law enforcement.

In O’Day’s case, Jackley said, the former state employee spent years creating fake titles for campers to secure bank loans. That was purposeful, Jackley said, because camper titles are only logged on the state level and don’t appear in a federal database.

The banks involved took financial losses as a result of O’Day’s behavior, Jackley said, but taxpayers could also be on the hook if those banks file civil lawsuits against the state. Defending cases like that would fall on the Attorney General’s Office, Jackley said, and the state would be financially liable for damages awarded in such a case.

The legislative proposal on corruption has yet to be written. Jackley said he plans to take his framework for the legislation to Auditor Rich Sattgast, Treasurer Josh Haeder and Auditor General Russ Olson “to make sure we put in the right provisions that will be meaningful and will hopefully catch some of this that is going on.”

Sattgast told South Dakota Public Broadcasting last month that his office’s authority has been limited by various legislative changes over the years. The state is vulnerable to financial malfeasance by employees for that reason, he said, as well as because his office lacks the staff to properly oversee state government operations.

“There’s not just one entity that oversees the expenditures of state government,” Sattgast said. “We have it all divided up for the checks-and-balance purposes of it.”

In addition to auditor authority provisions and mandated reporting by state employee supervisors, Jackley said he’d want to add whistleblower protections for all employees to protect them from retaliation for reporting misdeeds. When asked if the protections would only cover reports of criminal activity, Jackley said, “I would like to see it go beyond that.”

AMENDMENT G IN SOUTH DAKOTA: SUPPORTERS SAY IT SEEKS TO RESTORE ABORTION RIGHTS OPPONENTS CALL IT EXTREME

SOUTH DAKOTA Undated (Makenzie Huber / South Dakota Searchlight) – Opponents of Amendment G say it’s an extreme measure that would allow unrestricted and unregulated access to abortion. Supporters say it would restore broadly supported and safe abortion rights that stood for 49 years prior to 2022.

The state constitutional amendment is one of seven questions on South Dakota’s Nov. 5 general election ballot. Two of the most visible people in the Amendment G campaign are anti-abortion activist Caroline Woods and abortion-rights supporter Nancy Turbak Berry.

When they debated last month in Mitchell, Woods argued the amendment’s wording would allow abortion up to birth. That’s because the amendment would allow the state to enact a third-trimester abortion ban but would require an exception when a physician determines an abortion is necessary to preserve the “life or health of the pregnant woman.”

Woods pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Doe v. Bolton, which said a physician assessing a pregnant woman’s health may take into account all factors relevant to her wellbeing — “physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age.”

“This means for nearly any reason, an abortion doctor can justify an abortion,” Woods said.

Turbak Berry countered that South Dakotans lived under the Supreme Court’s definition of health for nearly 50 years until the state banned abortion in 2022.

“Abortion up to birth is a slogan, not a reality,” Turbak Berry said. “If a woman is approaching term and for some reason can’t continue pregnancy, the doctor doesn’t abort the fetus — they deliver the baby.”

When most abortions occur

Babies are generally considered viable — able to survive outside the womb — as they near the third trimester (27 weeks of gestation), but other factors can impact survivability, leading to earlier or later viability. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established nationwide abortion rights allowed for bans after viability, unless an abortion is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.

The vast majority of abortions in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center, occur in the first trimester. In 2020, 93% of abortions occurred in the first trimester. About 1% were performed at 21 weeks or more of gestation. Gestation lasts 40 weeks.

On average, 92.3% of abortions in South Dakota between 2014 and 2022 occurred in the first trimester of pregnancy.

The state Department of Health’s annual abortion report did not separate abortions by gestational age in the second and third trimesters. Between 2014 and 2019, an average of 33 women a year terminated a pregnancy after 13 weeks, which is the start of the second trimester.

Former, current and proposed abortion law

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the national right to an abortion in 2022. When that happened, a trigger law adopted by the South Dakota Legislature in 2005 immediately banned abortion in the state, with one exception to “preserve the life of the pregnant female.”

Disputes over the meaning of that exception have caused consternation among some South Dakota physicians who worry they will be charged with a felony if they act too quickly to intervene on behalf of a pregnant patient’s life.

The state Department of Health released an informational video in September explaining when a medical provider could perform an abortion within the state’s exception. Some doctors said that the video did not address their concerns, and that the advice was not legally binding and they still fear repercussions.

A ballot question committee, Dakotans for Health, gathered petition signatures earlier this year to put Amendment G on the ballot. Turbak Berry leads a group affiliated with Dakotans for Health, the Freedom Amendment Coalition.

An opposing ballot question committee, the Life Defense Fund, for which Woods is a spokeswoman, has filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate Amendment G. The suit, which is not scheduled to be resolved until after the election, claims Dakotans for Health violated laws that govern the circulation of petitions.

Amendment G would prohibit first-trimester regulations on “a pregnant woman’s abortion decision and its effectuation.” In the second trimester, it would allow regulations “reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman.” In the third trimester, it would allow an abortion ban with a mandatory exception to “preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman.”

Proponents say the amendment is supported by voters, citing a Chiesman Center for Democracy and South Dakota News Watch poll showing that 53% of respondents support the amendment. They also point to 2006 and 2008, when South Dakota voters defeated abortion bans with about 55% against a ban each time.

South Dakota is one of 10 states with an abortion-rights measure on the ballot this fall. Voters in six other states have already adopted abortion-rights measures since the 2022 Supreme Court decision.

‘Back alley’ claims, safety and parental consent

Amendment G opponents highlight language in the measure that says, for example, “the state may not regulate a pregnant woman’s abortion decision and its effectuation” in the first trimester.

Woods said such language could prohibit the state from enforcing health and safety protections such as licensing requirements for physicians and parental consent for minors seeking abortions.

“This is going to put a lot of women’s health and livelihoods in jeopardy,” Woods said. “That’s not what South Dakotans want.”

That would “take us back to the dark ages,” Woods said during the September debate.

“You don’t have to be a doctor to perform an abortion,” Woods added. “It can be on the black market.”

That would legalize “back alley abortions,” Woods claimed.

Turbak Berry said general public health laws and administrative rules would still apply, including for safety, licensing and informed consent.

Abortion is generally considered a medical procedure. It is recognized as such in South Dakota law under the public health and safety title.

Under Roe v. Wade, which Amendment G backers say their measure emulates, and in the U.S. Supreme Court decision Connecticut v. Menillo (1975), Turbak Berry said, states may require that only a physician licensed by the state can prescribe an abortion. South Dakota law requires physicians to be licensed in the state to practice medicine.

States can require parental consent for a minor’s abortion based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Belotti v. Baird in 1979, Turbak Berry said. South Dakota law requires unemancipated minors to have parental consent before receiving any medical care, except in emergencies and for sexually transmitted diseases.

During the Roe era, South Dakota passed laws restricting abortion in the state, including a mandatory 72-hour waiting period in which a woman seeking an abortion had to receive counseling and material to discourage an abortion before the procedure could be completed. South Dakota law before the abortion ban was triggered in 2022 required a parent of a minor be notified 48 hours before an unemancipated minor or incompetent female received an abortion.

Ultimately, if Amendment G passes and there is a disagreement about what state regulations can be implemented, that would be settled in court. The attorney general wrote in his official ballot explanation that “judicial clarification of the amendment may be necessary.”

 

RECORDS SET AT SOUTH DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY, ENROLLMENTS HIGHER THAN EVER

BROOKINGS, S.D. – A record first-year class and record retention moved enrollment at South Dakota State University to 12,065 students for the fall 2024 semester, the highest enrollment at SDSU since 2018. Enrollment figures were released earlier today by the South Dakota Board of Regents.

The incoming first-year student class of 2,449 is the largest in the history of SDSU, breaking the previous mark of 2,306 set in 2013 and surpassing last year’s class by 7.6%. Additionally, retention of students from their first year to their second year stood at 83.8%, breaking last year’s record by almost one percentage point and marking the fourth time in five years retention at SDSU has been at 80% or higher.

Overall enrollment at SDSU is up 4.9%, with 560 more students than last year.

“We are very pleased with this year’s enrollment numbers and the fact that SDSU is a university of choice for so many students,” SDSU President Barry Dunn said. “We continue to strategically expand and grow our university in ways that support the workforce of our state while continuing to serve our land-grant mission of providing the benefits of higher education to the people and communities of South Dakota.”

First-year students from South Dakota grew 7.4% from last year to 1,237. Students from the Sioux Falls metro area also increased 10%, drawing nearly 400 students from the area. According to the BOR Fact Book, more than 42% of first-year students who enrolled in Board of Regents institutions the past two years came to SDSU, a percentage likely to maintain or potentially grow with this year’s class.

“South Dakota students continue to recognize the great value SDSU provides them and the opportunities available as they explore and find the majors and educational pathways they are most passionate about,” Dunn said. “The growth from the Sioux Falls metro area is certainly important and validates the efforts we have made to connect with education, industry and civic leaders over the past few years to strengthen the relationship between the state’s largest, most comprehensive university and South Dakota’s largest community.”

SDSU’s efforts to elevate the institution to achieve designation as an R1 Research University by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education is already producing positive results as doctoral research Ph.D. candidates increased 13.1% to 268 students.

“The work being done on ‘R1 Our Way’ is not only providing us a roadmap for elevating SDSU to be an R1 institution, but it is also attracting some of the best and brightest from around the world who want to bring their grants and research projects to SDSU,” Dunn said. “We are excited about the future of our research and can only anticipate positive growth in this area as the university continues to advance its research portfolio.”

International student enrollment also increased by 17.7% to 826 students, with undergraduate international students seeing a significant increase of 30.3% and graduate international students still growing by 7.8%.

Students came to SDSU this year from 77 different countries and 47 states. Overall credit hours increased by 5,978, moving total credit hours to 142,812.

“The students attending SDSU today will be the leaders and innovators of tomorrow and accomplish amazing things throughout their professional and personal lives,” Dunn said. “We are excited to have welcomed them from around the state, the region and the world as they learn and grow during such an important time in their lives. It is a privilege to help and guide them along this journey.”

Learn more at SDState.edu.

 

EMINENT DOMAIN QUESTION IN THE NADS OF IOWA SUPREME COURT JUSTICES

DES MOINES, IA – Seven justices on the Iowa Supreme Court will now decide whether a Hardin County farmer has the right to refuse to let Summit Carbon Solutions onto the property to survey for its carbon sequestration pipeline project. The case could impact the future of land owners’ rights in the state, as well as Summit’s five-state project.

The case involves Kent Kasischke, a Hardin County farmer who refused to allow Summit to enter his land to conduct a survey for its $8 billion carbon capture pipeline that would transport emissions through Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and the Dakotas before storing the liquified, pressurized gas deep underground.

Kasischke maintains that Summit doesn’t have the legal right to access his land for the survey before it gets eminent domain authority from the state. Doing so, he argues, violates his constitutional rights by allowing the company to take private property without compensation.

The Iowa Utility Commission conditionally granted the Ames-based company eminent domain authority as long as it meets certain conditions.

In September, a group of 37 Iowa Republican legislators announced a lawsuit that aimed to stop Summit’s ability to use eminent domain for its project.

The Iowa District Court for Hardin County previously ruled against Kasischke. The summary of the case stated:

“The Iowa District Court for Hardin County ordered that Kent Kasischke could not interfere with Summit Carbon Solutions’ entry upon his land for the purposes of surveying and examining the land to determine the direction or depth of its proposed carbon dioxide pipeline.”

Summit argued in its case before the supreme court that the company has followed Iowa law and gave the necessary notice to the land owner that it wanted to survey the farm property for the pipeline project.

Approximately 1,000 miles of the pipeline for the 2,500-mile project would travel through Iowa.

Summit has also argued that previous court rulings have upheld the right for a private company to survey land before using eminent domain privileges.