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Ignorance or compulsion?

South Dakota J.A.I.L.er-in-Chief Bill Stegmeier says he wrote the Attorney General and asked for changes in the ballot explanation the AG’s office wrote. Of course, all the article establishes is that BS either is wholly ignorant of the amendment he supposedly authored or just has a compulsion to keep telling the same lies about it because the truth hurts so much.

According to the news article:

Stegmeier insisted that Amendment E only mentions judges in its language. In his letter to Long, Stegmeier said that he asked for an explanation of how accountability would fall on a school board member or another member of a governmental board.”(The board members) don’t make individual decisions, they vote as a group,” Stegmeier said. “They’re stretching it quite a ways to say that any board member would fall under the authority of the amendment.”

Maybe the supposed author of J.A.I.L. should read it, although some of his prior statements show that he has but has decided to forget what he said the measure meant then. While the proposal does speak in terms of judges, it defines a judge to include “all other persons claiming to be shielded by judicial immunity.” That includes the government officials mentioned in the ballot explanation.

Don’t believe me? Well how about the fact Stegmeier told residents of Madison that “with the passage of SD J.A.I.L., any governmental employee (of any stripe, shape, or flavor) previously accustomed to violating the rights of South Dakota citizens while hiding behind the bogus doctrine of ‘judicial immunity’, will now have to shape up or ship out.” (Emphasis added.)

Or how about Ron Branson, the Californian who is, in fact, the author of J.A.I.L. He said last year after J.A.I.L. was on the South Dakota ballot:

The criterion under J.A.I.L. is not what a person’s title is –it can be a janitor, a clown in a circus, –anything. The criterion under J.A.I.L. is if a person, regardless of title or position, who allegedly violates the law as specified in the Initiative, has been deemed by the judiciary to be shielded by judicial immunity. . . . .

* * *

Liability has to extend from the beginning participants, including administrative officials in an administrative case, through the final participants[.]

(Emphasis as in original.) In other words, the ballot explanation is right and Stegmeier is trying to hide the truth.

Stegmeier also told the newspaper he

objected to the assertion that jurors would fall under the amendment’s jurisdiction, since they only determine verdicts of guilty or not guilty or become deadlocked with a hung jury.”I don’t even see how a juror could come close to violating an individual’s rights, since a member of a jury doesn’t make that kind of a decision,” Stegmeier said.

Guess this is yet another case of the “author” not understanding what he wrote. Since the proposal defines judges as those entitled to judicial immunity and jurors are entitled to judicial immunity, they fall within J.A.I.L. That means, for example, that jurors could be brought before the special grand jury for rejecting a rapist’s alibi defense as that would be “deliberate disregard of material facts.”

But Stegmeier doesn’t limits his misrepresentations to the amendment itself. He told the reporter that “only South Dakota residents are working on its passage this fall.” Guess he forgot the recent fund raising letter listing Gary Zerman as in charge of “media relations” for the ballot measure. Guess he also forgot that the brochure sent with that letter said anyone with “questions or comments concerning” the measure should contact Zerman. Zerman, if you don’t already know, is a California lawyer who is legal counsel to Jail4Judges and its second in command.

While the South Dakota J.A.I.L.ers keep telling the same lies over and over, the ballot explanation tells the truth about J.A.I.L. No wonder Stegmeier and crew are so scared of it.


[H]e who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do so a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual[.]

Thomas Jefferson, Letter, August 19, 1785

2 comments to Ignorance or compulsion?

  • Wild Bill

    I’m beginning to think that Stegmeier isn’t so much diabolical as just plain stupid. All of these E clowns are severely rational thought challenged.

  • Anonymous

    I can see why you’re vastly out numbered…Why not tell the truth yourself TG? South Dakota is only leading the way, look at what Nevada, Idaho, Montana, and Florida are doing…ALL these states are involved in efforts to hold judges accountable, and people like yourself ARE becoming VASTLY out numbered. Instead you should be proud that YOUR state is leading the way!! You are a shame to your profession and mostly to your state…not to say anything about what your mother must think of you!