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Sep 29, 2006 3:43 pm US/Central
Janklow Returns To Courtroom, This Time To Argue
Sioux Falls, S.D. (AP) ―
The last time Bill Janklow appeared before the South Dakota Supreme Court, he asked the justices for the early return of his law license -- which he had lost after his conviction of second-degree manslaughter for causing a fatal traffic crash.
He got his license back last winter, and on Monday, the former congressman and four-term governor returns to the high court -- this time as a practicing lawyer.
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.
Janklow declined Friday to discuss the case he's handling.
He is one of the attorneys representing Daniel John 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 Joan Carlson, died Aug. 17, 2005. Carlson had dropped off his then-6-year-old daughter, Jacinda, 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's aunt, Mary Aldrich, said Carlson was devastated by the girl's death.
"He is one of the most caring, loving parents that you can imagine," she said at the time. "It has just wrecked him."
Carlson was not charged criminally because he was not intentionally negligent, the local prosecutor concluded.
He is trying to get back custody of Jacinda because the girl's mother filed an abuse and neglect petition in tribal court in Sisseton and the court removed Jacinda from Carlson's custody.
The mother, Barbara, had moved to Biloxi, Miss., when the couple divorced in 2005. She's now in the Air Force in Grand Forks, N.D.
She is an American Indian and an enrolled member of the Sisseton Wahpeton tribe. Carlson is non-Indian.
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.
Carlson is appealing on grounds the state judge erred by enforcing the tribal court jurisdiction.
(© 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
