{"id":279,"date":"2003-12-09T05:03:39","date_gmt":"2003-12-09T05:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:08:26","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:08:26","slug":"janklow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=279","title":{"rendered":"Janklow"},"content":{"rendered":"

My motorcycling community has been following the trial of Rep. Bill Janklow<\/a> (R-S.D.) with obvious interest.<\/p>\n

For those who haven’t been following it, Janklow is the sole Congressmember from South Dakota, as well as a two-time Governor and former state Attorney-General. Quite the big fish in that pond.<\/p>\n

He was quite the leadfooted big fish, it appears, and unsurprisingly, his power shielded him from the consequences of the minor accidents, speeding stops, and other infractions he committed while doing the people’s business.<\/p>\n

Until this year. On August 16, he sped past a startled Monica Collins, ran a stop sign, and was struck by motorcyclist Randy Scott who died at the scene.<\/p>\n

He was tried for second-degree manslaughter, and today he was convicted.<\/p>\n

His conviction won’t bring Scott back, and his resignation from Congress was just announced, meaning that whatever follows, Janklow’s life has also been derailed.<\/p>\n

And I’m elated.<\/p>\n

Because in this tragedy, a basic truth shows up; in this nation the law applies to us all. I have a hard time imagining that Janklow would have been convicted in most nations; the levers of power would have ensured that Scott’s family was compensated, but Janklow would have walked away. The U.S., the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, the Scandinavian countries would have convicted him. France, nope. Germany, maybe. Italy, maybe. Industrialized Asia or the Third World? Nope. <\/p>\n

Those countries – the ones that would have convicted him – are the ones we need to seek out as out allies in the years ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rep. Bill Janklow was tried for second-degree manslaughter as a result of a driving accident, and today he was convicted. And I’m elated. In this tragedy, a basic truth shows up; in this nation, the law applies to us all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}