Ethics Newsline®

SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota
A frequent speeder on his home state’s roadways, former U.S. Rep. Bill Janklow, who was convicted earlier this year of killing a motorcyclist while speeding, was given a pass for years by the state’s troopers, according to a local paper that received a copy of an official inquiry.

Janklow, who served as South Dakota’s governor from 1979 to 1987, was given 11 speeding tickets as a private citizen from 1990 to 1994, reported the local Argus Leader.

But after winning a second term in November 1994, state troopers backed off, issuing no speeding tickets despite stopping him 16 times, according to Leader.

Last year, Janklow ran a stop sign while speeding on a rural road, killing a motorcyclist.

In a report from the South Dakota Highway Department, the troopers who declined to ticket Janklow said they did so for a variety of reasons, including respect and fear of retaliation.

Four of the troopers said they let Janklow go because they “felt they were instructed not to arrest the governor or feared repercussions by doing so,” patrol superintendent Col. Dan Mosteller wrote in the official report.

Mosteller and his predecessors all insist they never pressured troopers to give Janklow preferential treatment.

Janklow claimed that he had justification to speed, according to the Associated Press. “Almost every incident where I was driving as governor I was going to important things for South Dakota,” Janklow said. “I lived in Pierre. Pierre is 100 to 150 miles from anyplace where there’s concentrations of people.”

Current South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds said the report’s findings “confirmed that we had to step back and as management go back and confirm with the Highway Patrol officers that they should treat everybody the same, regardless of whether they were a judge or a legislator or a constitutional officer or the governor.”

Janklow was released from prison in mid-May after serving 100 days for reckless driving and the second-degree manslaughter of motorcyclist Randy Scott, according to the AP.