South Dakota legislator pushes for limitations on death penalty

Arthur Rusch, a South Dakota state senator, introduced a new bill in the state legislature to limit the death penalty in South Dakota only to those convicted of killing a law enforcement officer, corrections officer or firefighter.

The death penalty was banned in South Dakota in 1915, but reinstated in 1939. A total of 20 people have been executed in South Dakota since 1877.

Rusch, a former South Dakota judge who sentenced Donald Moeller to death in 2012, said that his experience with Moeller’s case specifically is what motivated him to push for this new bill.

“I spent basically a year preparing for that trial, researching all the legal issues that could come up on that to make sure that I wouldn’t make mistakes,” Rusch said.

After a 6 week trial the jury determined that Donald Moeller was guilty, and Rusch sentenced Moeller to death.

“That whole process is a difficult process, and you know anybody who’s been involved in the death penalty trial will tell you death is different,” Rusch said.

Rusch said that being the only legislator in the history of South Dakota who has personally sentenced a man to death gives him a deeper understanding of the consequences of those actions. After failing to completely abolish the death penalty, Rusch worked with multiple legislators to create a more limited bill where only those convicted of killing an enforcement officer or firefighter are allowed the death penalty.

“Our thought was, we’ve failed on the other ways, so we would try a new one,” Rusch said.

Rusch said that the main challenge with this proposed bill is that there are many different views on the death penalty.

“There are legislators who said we’re not killing nearly enough people,” Rusch said. “That just goes against my religious and moral principles to be looking at it that way.”

His other motive for revoking the death penalty was the cost.

“Every county is in crying to the legislature every year about how they’re short of money, that they don’t have money for their roads and their bridges and things like that,” Rusch said. “But yet, you know, a death penalty case will cost them 1-2 million dollars.”

Rusch said that the death penalty has such great cost not only financially, but also mentally.

“I had a jury who had a nervous breakdown during the trial because of hearing the gruesome testimony,” Rusch said. “After the trial was over, I had to hire a psychologist to let the jurors come and get counseling after that to help them through it.”

Rusch said determining whether someone is innocent or guilty has immense pressure especially when the decision will determine whether someone lives or dies. One example is the case of Thomas Egan, who was hanged in Sioux Falls for killing his wife. Egan was revealed innocent 40 years later when his stepdaughter admitted to the crime.

Rusch said that there have been many cases across the country in the last few years where murder convictions have been reversed based on new newly discovered DNA evidence.

“If there’s any possibility at all of killing innocent people, then we really ought to be thinking about that,” Rusch said.