Gov. Dennis Daugaard said Thursday that he will not step in to spare the lives of Eric Robert and Donald Moeller, an announcement clearing the way for their upcoming executions.
"The death penalty is the law in South Dakota, and I support it," Daugaard said. "The state has a solemn responsibility to carry out this penalty in the rare cases where it is applied."
The governor would have authority to intervene as the final step in a unique sequence of safeguards that apply to capital punishment in South Dakota. Each case requires a judgment of guilt in court, a separate court proceeding to impose the death sentence, an automatic review by the state Supreme Court and the governor having the option to lessen the sentence.
Daugaard said he had no reason to alter the decision of the courts. He commented by email from his office in Pierre.
"The decision to impose the death penalty is made through the criminal justice system, and in the pending cases I have no reason to substitute a different judgment," he said. "State law allows me to conduct my own investigation, and I have done that with cooperation from the attorney general. Barring an unforeseen circumstance, I will not intervene to prevent or delay the death penalty sentence from being carried out."
Robert, 50, is scheduled to die next week for his role in murdering corrections officer Ronald "R.J." Johnson, 63, in April 2011 at the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls.
Moeller, 60, is scheduled to die the week of Oct. 28 for the kidnapping, rape and murder of Rebecca O'Connell, a 9-year-old Sioux Falls girl, in 1990.
Daugaard declined through an aide to answer additional questions.
His announcement came the same day the state's 2 Roman Catholic bishops, the Rev. Paul Swain in Sioux Falls and the Rev. Robert Gruss in Rapid City, urged that the sentences be changed to life imprisonment and that the state repeal its death penalty law.
Source: The Argus Leader, October 12, 2012
