Justice for All

Frustrated by the Janklow sentence? So are we

American Motorcyclist, April 2004, Page 14

By Greg Harrison

By the time you receive this issue, Bill Janklow, the former South Dakota congressman, will be nearly one-third of the way through his punishment for killing motorcyclist Randolph Scott with a car.

That means after serving 30 solid days of hard time in county jail, he’ll be ready to be released for 10 hours each day, although he’ll have to come back to jail to sleep every night right through the end of his 100-day sentence.

For killing another human being.

A hundred days.

In many ways, the whole Janklow fiasco (see "Janklow Gets 100 Days," page 24) reminds me of another tragic incident seven years ago, when a van driven by state Sen. Carl Koella of Tennessee turned left into the path of AMA member Terry Barnard, who was killed instantly.

Koella copped a plea, was fined $2,500 and "sentenced" to 30 days of community service.

For killing another human being.

Worse, after Koella died a year later, the Tennessee Legislature passed a resolution naming a highway after him. That’s like naming a bank after John Dillinger.

We organized a campaign against that designation, raising money to pay for billboards naming the highway where this crash occurred after Terry Barnard, Koella’s victim, instead. And I, along with many of you, made a personal pledge not to visit the two counties the proposed Carl Koella Memorial Highway traversed if the signs were ever posted (to this day, they haven’t been).

As you’ll see in our Post Entry letters column this month (see page 8), there are some motorcyclists suggesting that we take the same action on a massive scale when it comes to South Dakota.

I share their frustration. But I think we may have another approach that could be more effective.

As I see it, there are two key differences here. In Tennessee, we were hoping to apply pressure to the elected Legislature to rescind its resolution. Here, we’re dealing with an appointed judge’s sentence that can’t be rescinded. Not by us, and not by the Legislature.

Second, while a single judge was of the opinion that Janklow should get nothing more than a slap on the wrist for manslaughter, that wasn’t a view shared by the people of South Dakota. They were the ones who served on a jury that took only a few hours to convict Janklow of manslaughter—the toughest charge available to them—even knowing that it could mean their congressman would spend the next decade in prison.

I think we can use that feeling. Not to fix what went wrong there, because it’s too late for that. But to prevent it from happening again.

Here’s what we’ve got in mind: The AMA is working right now with South Dakota rider groups to get legislation introduced that would set a minimum penalty for manslaughter with a motor vehicle. The idea would be to prevent another judge from issuing a get-out-of-jail-quick card to a congressman, or anybody else.

This legislation would be an extension of the ongoing AMA Motorcyclists Matter campaign, which has been directed at setting minimum license suspensions and fines for much less severe traffic-related charges.

We hope to get our bill introduced this spring, which means that by summer, we’ll be looking to build support for it among South Dakota lawmakers and voters. And it strikes me that just about then, when we need help the most, motorcyclists will be converging on South Dakota from across the country for the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.

Those riders will be stopping at gas stations, restaurants and hotels, talking to people who aren’t just attendants, waitresses and desk clerks—they’re also voters.

What we want to do is turn those riders into an army delivering the message that we’d really like the support of ordinary South Dakotans—the same people who served on the Janklow jury—in our campaign to change the state’s sentencing laws. And that request will be accompanied, time after time, by a not-so-subtle reminder of the economic impact hundreds of thousands of motorcyclists have on this state.

We’re calling this campaign "Justice for All," and we’re working on the details now. We’re preparing materials. We’re lining up activities. We’re working to get a rallying point in Sturgis.

Next month, we’ll have specifics on how you can get involved. But I can tell you now that this won’t stop in South Dakota.

Although the Janklow case is a high-profile example of a car driver killing a motorcyclist with little in the way of penalties, this same outrage has been played out in every state in the country—perhaps even in every major city.

So while we’ll gather our forces in Sturgis, we’ll send them back home to recruit more riders for a campaign we plan to spread from coast to coast.

"Justice for All." It starts in South Dakota this summer, and rolls on from there.