John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight – Gov. Kristi Noem used the Friday before Christmas to reduce the sentences of nine women and three men convicted of felonies for using drugs in 2023.
Each of the 12 commutations signed on Dec. 22 orders that the person receiving it be placed on community supervision for their unauthorized possession of a controlled substance convictions.
That felony charge is unique in the nation in its scope and application. The only evidence needed to obtain a conviction for ingestion, which can carry a prison sentence of up to two years, is a positive drug test showing the presence of a controlled substance in a person’s system.
The charge has been controversial for years. Critics say it criminalizes the disease of addiction, expands the state’s prison population and does little to address public safety. Lawmakers as a whole have disagreed, and have rejected multiple attempts to wipe the charge from the state’s codified laws, most recently in February.
In 2022, just under 19% of the state’s non-violent female inmates were imprisoned on ingestion charges alone. Ingestion accounted for a little over 12% of non-violent male inmates.
Each of Noem’s December 2023 commutations involved ingestion charges collected this year. Two of the convictions came in November; another two came in October.
The 12 new commutations double the total number issued by Noem since she first took office in 2019, from 12 to 24. Last year on Christmas Eve, Noem announced the issuance of seven commutations, some for people convicted of violent crimes, and some of which went against the wishes of victims’ family members and the state Board of Pardons and Paroles. One of the beneficiaries of Noem’s Christmas mercy in 2022 pleaded guilty to another crime 11 days after her commutation-enabled release.
None of the latest commutations were reviewed by the Board of Pardons and Paroles during its public hearings, the agendas and minutes for which are posted online each month. The board can make recommendations to the governor, but governors don’t have to utilize the board or heed its advice. Nor did Noem publicly announce the new commutations in a news release, as she did last year.
A commutation can lead to the release of current inmates earlier than they’d be released otherwise. Noem has been far more generous with pardons, another form of executive clemency that scrubs an old charge completely from a person’s record years after they complete their sentence. In South Dakota, the parole board reviews pardon and commutation requests and makes recommendations to the governor, but the governor alone can sign the documents.