Fatal Accident Could Be Undoing of Lawmaker

A former state attorney general and four-term governor, Republican Rep. William J. Janklow is known among South Dakotans for his dictatorial but effective political style -- a manner that has earned him vocal supporters and lifelong opponents. He is also known for driving fast and getting into car accidents.

After allegedly running a stop sign at 70 miles an hour on a rural road last weekend, striking and killing a 55-year-old motorcyclist, the rural state’s only congressman may be facing the end of his political career, and more.

The state, meanwhile, could face the loss of one of its most influential politicians of the last 30 years -- one who counts President Bush among his friends.

The Moody County state’s attorney is deciding whether to file charges against 63-year-old Janklow in the accident, which occurred Saturday afternoon just north of his home in this small town outside Sioux Falls, not far from the border with Minnesota. Janklow’s son Russ Janklow has said his father expects charges to be forthcoming.

Alcohol or drugs do not appear to have been a factor in the crash, according to state police, meaning Janklow cannot be charged with vehicular homicide -- which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison -- in the death of farmer and volunteer firefighter Randolph Scott of Hardwick, Minn. Janklow could, however, face as much as 10 years behind bars if convicted of manslaughter.

“This is a tragedy in every possible way, for the motorcyclist’s family and for the state,” said longtime Janklow critic Steve Emery, a former tribal attorney for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and now a vice president at Sinte Gleska University on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. “It’s tragic for South Dakota because, interestingly, when he went to Washington, Janklow was really interested in his constituents and was trying to put some issues in the past, letting bygones be bygones, with Indians and others.”

Janklow, who began his first term in Congress in January, could continue to serve while the matter is pending -- even if he is charged. If he steps down, or if he is convicted, a special election will likely be held.

During 16 years as governor, Janklow became such a powerful figure that, come election time, he hardly needed his own party apparatus, preferring to campaign through friends, allies and a cult of curt personality. President Bush campaigned on his behalf last year as Janklow sought to make the move from the governor’s office to member of Congress.

In January 2001, just-elected Bush visited the state. Said then-Gov. Janklow: “While the last president took seven years to come to South Dakota, this one took seven weeks to come to South Dakota.”

Nearly everyone in the state seems not only to know his name but to have an opinion on Janklow -- and seldom is that opinion mottled with gray areas.

“There is not much ‘in between’ when it comes to Rep. Janklow,” said Bob Burns, head of the political science department at South Dakota State University in Brookings and a longtime friend of Janklow. “You either love him or you don’t like him at all. He actually doesn’t like people to dislike him, but he knows they do and he’s not willing to change his style to keep everybody happy.”

He has also been unwilling to drive cautiously -- he has been involved in several accidents and racked up well over a dozen speeding tickets since 1990.

In 1993 alone, he was involved in three accidents, and each time told police he had been distracted by or swerved to avoid another car, according to reports.

Following Saturday’s fatal crash, he told police he had swerved to avoid another car, although no other car is listed on police reports.

Janklow’s story is a winding one, that of a youngster who nearly became a societal outcast but instead grew into a man with exceptional influence who never let go of the head-butting style of his youth -- indeed, who seemed to hold onto that part of his personality.

Born in Chicago in 1939, following World War II he moved with his family to Germany, where his father was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trials. When his father died in 1950, his mother moved Janklow and his five siblings to the small town of Flandreau, S.D., about an hour northeast of Sioux Falls.

As a teenager, he had a knack for finding trouble, and at 16 was charged with assault and given a choice: face juvenile detention or join the military. He dropped out of high school and joined the Marines.

“I entered the Marines as a smart-aleck boy and was honorably discharged as a man,” he told author Jim Soyer in a book called “Over a Century of Leadership.”

In 1960, he enrolled at the University of South Dakota, and six years later the high school dropout departed with a law degree. His first job was with the South Dakota Legal Services System, representing Native Americans on the Rosebud Indian Reservation.

In a twist that is one of the great mysteries of Janklow’s life, he went from aiding destitute Indians to prosecuting them with a fervor that has made him a pariah on many South Dakota reservations to this day.

Janklow’s successful prosecutions of members of the American Indian Movement in the early 1970s helped him win election as state attorney general in 1974.

Members of the AIM made headlines in 1973 by taking over a courthouse in the Black Hills and for occupying Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

In 1978, Janklow was elected to the first of four four-year terms as governor -- two eight-year stints separated by eight years. In the interim, from 1986 to 1994, he went into private legal practice. Term limits forced him out of the Statehouse in 2002, at which point he ran for Congress.

Throughout his governorships, Janklow focused on bringing modern technology into the classroom, bringing businesses to the state and reforming the prison system. He seldom lost a battle.

Janklow instituted a sweeping prison work program that resulted in prisoners building 1,000 low-cost homes, fighting forest fires and providing other help in return for reduced sentences. He promoted boot camps for juvenile offenders.

He helped get every public school wired for high-speed communications, lured numerous large corporations, including Citibank, to the state and, when he came to believe the Springfield campus of the University of South Dakota was failing, shut it down and turned the site into a prison.

“He was a governor who liked to dictate terms to people,” Emery said. “He was domineering and very much liked being in charge.”

Despite his reputation as being tough to the point of meanness, uncompromising and an Indian antagonist, he has a different side, those who know him say. He has for years donated to and worked to raise funds for the Make-a-Wish Foundation, which serves terminally ill children. He has also helped a number of students without financial means pay college tuition, friends say.

“He is responsible for many random acts of kindness that aren’t well-known,” Burns said.

As for his reputation as a political bully, “He is a student of the adversarial process,” Burns said. “He doesn’t intend it as a personal attack. I think it comes from his training as an attorney.”

Janklow managed to alter his reputation with some Native American critics when it became public this year that he had secretly pardoned AIM activist Russell Means, who was convicted for his role in the courthouse occupation.

Many say Janklow has mellowed a bit in very recent years -- some chalking it up to age, or to having his spleen and part of his pancreas removed in 1999, or to developing diabetes, or to having several close friends die.

Others say that as an astute politician, he realized he could not be successful in Congress by employing the same authoritarian style he used to govern the state.

His habit of driving fast is not something he moderated, according to state police.

Janklow is recovering at home from the injuries to his head and hand suffered in last weekend’s crash, according to his son. And he is awaiting the decision on whether charges will be filed in the death of Randolph Scott.