S. Dakota executes prison guard killer

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — A South Dakota inmate was executed Monday for killing a prison guard in a failed escape seven years ago in the state’s first execution since 2012.

Rodney Berget, 56, was put to death for the 2011 slaying of Ronald “R.J.” Johnson, who was beaten with a pipe and had his head covered in plastic wrap at the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls. It was the state’s fourth execution since it reinstituted the death penalty in 1979, and the first since 2012.

The execution, originally scheduled to be carried out at 1:30 p.m. CDT, was delayed for hours while the U.S. Supreme Court weighed a lastminute legal bid to block it. State Department of Corrections spokesman Michael Winder said Berget was pronounced dead at 7:37 p.m. CDT.

The Department of Corrections planned to use a single drug. Policy calls for either sodium thiopental or pentobarbital. Pentobarbital was used in the state’s last two executions.

South Dakota has not had issues with obtaining the drugs it needs, as some other states have, perhaps because the state shrouds some details in secrecy. Lawmakers in 2013 approved hiding the identities of its suppliers.

Berget was the second member of his family to be executed. His older brother, Roger, was executed in Oklahoma in 2000 for killing a man to steal his car.

Opponents of the death penalty gathered for a vigil Monday outside the South Dakota prison, some joining in a circle and singing. Sioux Falls resident Elaine Engelgau, 62, who sat behind a sign attached to a cross reading: “JESUS: HE WITHOUT SIN, CAST THE FIRST STONE,” told The Associated Press that she prayed the execution would be halted and for Berget’s soul.

“I don’t think it’s right to kill a person, and I think the citizens of the state of South Dakota are wrong to kill someone,” said Engelgau, a retired court reporter.

Scott Johnson told the Argus Leader that he didn’t know R.J. Johnson, but stood across the street in support of the death penalty. Scott Johnson said a prisoner in the penitentiary killed his sister and was sentenced to life without parole.

“I know there’s two sides to everything, but I don’t understand their side at all,” he said.