John Hult, South Dakota Searchlight – In 1984, an intruder broke through the back door of a Winner home and fatally shot Karol Kniffen’s brother in his bed.
Kniffen’s Korean War-veteran father disarmed the intruder. She began to hit the man with a wooden block at her father’s direction.
In the heat of the moment, Kniffen said, after seeing that her 20-year-old brother Bobby Soukup had been murdered, her father looked at the captured intruder and said “don’t kill him.”
“And I said, ‘But Bobby’s dead,’” Kniffen recalled.
When a prosecutor asked the family if they wanted the perpetrator, Joseph Fields, to get the death penalty or life without parole, Kniffen’s father held firm to mercy.
“It was my dad who said, ‘I just lost a son. I couldn’t live with myself if I took another life,’” Kniffen said.
Fields took a plea deal to get a sentence of life without parole. But decades later, Fields began to ask for clemency, hoping to see the “without parole” portion of his sentence removed to give him a shot at freedom.
Fields has been denied clemency three times. But under South Dakota law, inmates can reapply for clemency again each year after such a denial.
On Tuesday, Kniffen appeared in Pierre before members of the state Senate Judiciary Committee and helped convince them to support Senate Bill 9. As endorsed by the committee, the bill from Winner Republican Sen. Erin Tobin would require inmates serving life without parole for violent crimes to wait up to four years before requesting clemency again.
Supporters: Each hearing brings new trauma
Rebecca Brindle also testified in favor. Her sister, Mary K. Ross, was stabbed to death in Sioux Falls in a contract killing for which four of the five co-conspirators were given sentences of life without parole.
“This idea that life means life was a small comfort after all the trauma we had suffered to that point,” Brindle said. “Little did we know that there was a caveat called clemency.”
One of the men behind her sister’s murder, Eric Coon, has asked for clemency. He was denied a hearing by the state Board of Pardons and Paroles in 2019, but was granted a clemency hearing in 2022.
The Ross family was there.
“To say I was retraumatized would be a gross understatement,” Brindle said.
Kristian Ross was 14 months old when her mother was killed. She’ll show up for clemency hearings for all four of the lifers involved in the killing if she has to, four times a year if necessary.
But “people shouldn’t have to go through that,” Ross said. “Life means life.”
The South Dakota Board of Pardons and Paroles has the authority to review clemency applications, but only the governor can grant clemency. Fields and Coon did not earn clemency recommendations from the board.
Gov. Kristi Noem has twice granted clemency to inmates serving life without parole. The first commutation went to Jamee Lynn Corean, whose 2008 life term for kidnapping was commuted to a 20-year sentence in September of 2021. Corean has since been granted parole and completed her parole term. The second went to Mark Milk, who’d been serving life without parole for a 1993 murder. His sentence was commuted from life to 240 years with a February 2023 commutation. He is eligible for parole this spring.
Noem commuted the sentences of three people serving non-life sentences for manslaughter in late 2022, and did so without recommendations from the board. She issued 12 more commutations in December, none of which were considered by the board, all for people convicted of ingestion of a controlled substance.
There are currently seven commutation recommendations awaiting Noem’s review, according to Stacy Cole, a corrections specialist who manages clemency requests for the board.
Opposition: Bill kills hope for inmates
In Pierre, the extended waiting period for clemency for those sentenced to life without parole drew support from victims’ families, but also from the South Dakota State’s Attorneys Association and the state’s top prosecutor.
“Victims need closure, and the system needs to be fixed,” said Attorney General Marty Jackley.
Opponents, however, argued that the bill’s initial language places too many restrictions on the parole board and takes away the incentive of hope for inmates who might otherwise waste away behind bars without working to improve themselves.
Denny Davis works with inmates through a program called Alternatives to Violence. It’s among the programs inmates will talk about having completed when they ask for clemency.
Pushing back the waiting period destroys hope, Davis said.
“Very often, these individuals are listed as their crimes,” Davis said. “These are human beings who have done horrible, horrible things. No one can deny that. But can they grow? Can they mature? I see it every day.”
Davis also suggested that victims won’t find closure until they find a way to forgive.
“If you would put the waiting period out to 10 or 20 years, you still would not have closure if you don’t deal with what’s going on inside of you,” he said.
Parole Board Chair Myron Rau testified that the board is not opposed to the concept of longer waiting periods for clemency requests. Even so, he said, each case and each person asking for mercy ought to be considered individually.
“They shouldn’t be in one basket,” Rau said. “They’re lifers, but their cases are diverse.”
He asked that the committee consider an amendment to allow the board to push back the next clemency request “up to” four years, which would preserve the board’s discretion by allowing it to set the next clemency application out anywhere from one to four years.
The cases mentioned by the victims’ families are ones where the board would likely extend the waiting period, he said.
Committee amends bill
Sen. Helene Duhamel, R-Rapid City, sponsored an amendment that matched Rau’s request. She called the victims’ testimony moving, but said the board has the expertise to make the call on how long inmates ought to wait to ask for mercy.
“We’re giving them the discretion,” Duhamel said.
Sen David Wheeler, R-Huron, moved to pass Duhamel’s amendment, echoing Duhamel’s words about the board members’ judgment.
“They have a better understanding of where that person’s at in their history, how long they’ve been there, how much rehabilitation there’s been, if any,” Wheeler said.
Sen. Tobin called the amendment “unfriendly” and said it would weaken victim protections. The board already has the discretion to turn down a full hearing through a two-person panel, which avoids a full public hearing with testimony from victims’ family members.
That doesn’t happen often enough, Tobin said.
“There is that discretion currently, and there is still a problem,” Tobin said.
The amendment passed over the opposition from two committee members, Sen. Brent Hoffman, R-Hartford, and Sen. Joshua Klumb, R-Mitchell.
Both senators ultimately voted to pass the bill on to the Senate floor – the amended bill passed unanimously – but Hoffman said he was disappointed that the committee ignored Tobin’s request to leave the waiting period at four years.
“This bill really doesn’t do anything now,” Hoffman said.
Sen. Jim Mehlhaff, R-Pierre, disagreed. The extended time period will be helpful for the board in disputed cases, he said, and offering the possibility of a four-year wait will make a difference.
“I think this bill does move the ball forward, but it gives discretion to the body that is best prepared to make those decisions,” Mehlhaff said.