Oct 2, 2006 1:06 pm US/Central
Janklow, The Lawyer, Back In Courtroom
Sioux Falls, S.D. (AP) ―
Bill Janklow started his career as an attorney working on cases involving American Indian law, which also was the subject of a case that marked his public return to the profession.
A year ago, the former governor and congressman asked justices for the early return of his law license, which he had lost after his 2003 conviction of second-degree manslaughter for causing a fatal traffic crash.
He got his license back last winter and returned to the high court Monday as a practicing lawyer during its October session in Sioux Falls.
Janklow, 67, of Brandon, is one of the attorneys representing Daniel Carlson of Sisseton, a father whose 14-month-old daughter died of overheating after he left her unattended in his parked car with the windows rolled up.
The girl, Tehya Carlson, died Aug. 17, 2005. Carlson had dropped off his then-6-year-old daughter, Jacinda Carlson, at his mother's home in Sisseton but forgot to drop Tehya off at her day care in Browns Valley, Minn., where he works as a vice president of a telemarketing company.
The girl was left in the car from about 9 a.m. until shortly after 5 p.m., when Carlson found her.
Carlson was not charged criminally because he was not intentionally negligent, the local prosecutor concluded.
The girl's mother, Barbara Baldwin, is an American Indian and an enrolled member of the Sisseton Wahpeton tribe, as were the couple's two daughters. She filed an abuse and neglect petition in tribal court in Sisseton, and the court removed Jacinda from Carlson's custody. He now is trying to regain custody.
Baldwin moved to Biloxi, Miss., when the couple divorced in 2005 and now is in the Air Force in Grand Forks, N.D.
Carlson, a non-Indian, had custody of the girls during the school year and Baldwin had them during the summer.
In its ruling, the tribal court concluded that though Jacinda did not live on the reservation, she was a ward of the court.
The tribe then filed a motion to enforce the order in state court and a judge agreed that tribal court had jurisdiction because of the Indian Child Welfare Act.
"That's nonsense," Janklow told the justices, arguing that the federal act does not apply because the father had custody and none of the family members lived on reservation or trust land.
Because of that, the Supreme Court should reverse the lower court judge's order enforcing the tribal court's ruling that removed the father from custody, he said.
"We can't all be part of this fraud that's being perpetrated," Janklow said.
Attorneys for the tribe and Baldwin argued that the ICWA does apply and the state judge was right to agree with the tribal court order.
"The tribe has jurisdiction over its members," said Andrew Small of Minneapolis, who represents the Sisseton Wahpeton tribe.
Dani Daugherty of Aberdeen, the mother's lawyer, agreed.
"This is a tribe. This is a sovereign nation. And the state went into an agreement with it," she said.
Justices will issue their written opinion later.
Janklow, a longtime leader in the state Republican party, was the nation's longest-serving governor when he was elected to the U.S. House in November 2002. In August 2003, the car he was driving went through a stop sign near Trent and was struck by a Minnesota motorcyclist, who was killed.
Janklow's law license was suspended after a jury in December 2003 found him guilty of second-degree manslaughter, for which he served 100 days in jail and resigned from Congress.
In October 2005, Janklow asked the state Supreme Court for the right to practice law again. The court granted that request in January and it took effect Feb. 15, one year before his three-year probation ends.
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