SD- A long wait for justice

5-17-2009 South Dakota:

Innocent man's name cleared after more than 20 years

FLANDREAU - Irvin Schoenwetter's big right hand is roughened by hard work.

Dirt from the tires he handles all day darkens his fingernails.

For more than 20 years, few people wanted to shake that hand.

That's because Schoenwetter, 43, served seven years in prison, accused of raping his 8-year-old stepsister. He then lived the cowering life of a registered sex offender after getting out in 1995.


He always said he didn't do it.

The pardon from Gov. Rounds, released publicly last week, made official what Schoenwetter knew since the day he was arrested. Now the people of his hometown know he didn't do it.

And they want to shake his hand.

For Schoenwetter, that simple sign of acceptance is gratifying. But a stranger on a Brookings street and a country lawyer believed him before there was a governor's signature. They believed the basic premise of Schoenwetter's story and formed a lasting bond that conquered the belligerent doubt of the system.

For some reason - demeanor or sincerity or just blind trust - they always knew he didn't do it.

Seeking a home, fighting a claim

Fate picked on Irvin Schoenwetter like a schoolyard bully. He quit school after eighth grade, fulfilling the prediction of a teacher who told him he would not amount to much.

An early marriage was on the rocks when Schoenwetter, in his early 20s, moved in with his father in Huron in 1987. Months later, his father died.

"I had no place to go," Schoenwetter says. He stayed with his stepmother and her daughter for a time. He left when his stepmother found a boyfriend.


"I came back to get the title for a car. That's when he told me he was going to put me up on charges," Schoenwetter says of the boyfriend. "I just walked away. I knew I hadn't done nothing."

About a month later, he was arrested at work.

Schoenwetter says he remembers little of the trial but does recall hearing the verdict. "My heart kind of dropped in disbelief."

'I learned in prison to listen'
The trepidation of going to the penitentiary was compounded for Schoenwetter, since he knew he was wrongly convicted.

"When I took the first few steps in there, somebody yelled at me, 'Welcome to the jungle,' " Schoenwetter says. He had to learn the inmates' hierarchy, "where you can sit, where you can't."

Concerned how others would treat him if they found he was convicted of molesting a child, he told inmates he had been accused of theft.

There is not much to hang on to in prison. But Schoenwetter stubbornly clung to innocence. He refused to take part in sexual offender counseling that would have cut the sentence. "I wasn't guilty in the first place," he says.

The worst time in prison was when he got the chance to enroll in an auto repair course at the medium-security Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield. Inmates there found out he was a convicted child rapist.

"I had to put myself in protective custody," Schoenwetter says. "They sent me back to Sioux Falls."

In the penitentiary, though, he earned a GED, and in seven years spent in close proximity with other inmates he learned something about people.

"I learned in prison to listen," Schoenwetter says. "Out here, that's helped me a lot, to listen, not interrupt, to hear what they say."

Trust of a new employer, friend

With credit for good behavior, Schoenwetter was released after seven years. He went to live with his mother in Flandreau, and slowly his fortune began to change.

He got a job in Brookings and on a day off was sitting on the front porch when Don Ulwelling drove by.

Ulwelling saw a large, apparently unemployed man at the same time he had an immediate need for help at his tire shop. Schoenwetter looked big enough to do the work. Ulwelling offered him a job.

It was in Flandreau, which was good, Schoenwetter says. But working for Ulwelling meant he would have to tell him he was a registered sex offender. Ulwelling had to sign a statement acknowledging he knew.

"It was kind of hard when I first told him," Schoenwetter says.

"He told me right off what his situation was. No problem," Ulwelling says.

A slight tightening in Schoenwetter's voice more than the words themselves convey what Ulwelling's ready acceptance meant to him.

"I've been with Don 12 years," he says.

Ulwelling insists he knew early on Schoenwetter was innocent. "I've seen him with customers, seen him with kids, seen him with my own family. I knew he never done nothing wrong," he says.

People now tell Ulwelling he's a good guy for hiring Schoenwetter. A rumbling laugh like far off thunder is his answer.

"I needed somebody at the time," he says. "I'm not that good a guy."

Stepsister comes forward

The soft-spoken Schoenwetter kept to himself for almost 15 years. In a small town such as Flandreau, everyone knows if you're a sex offender. When he wasn't working at Don's Tire Shop or helping a brother with haying in summer, Schoenwetter spent much of his time in the house he shares with his mother. His portal to a wider world was his computer screen.

The tire shop with its two bays, hissing air compressor, air wrench rattling against lug nuts and worn out tires piled out back might not seem much of a refuge. In there, though, in their working man's uniform of jeans and blue shirts, Ulwelling and Schoenwetter are just two guys.

Schoenwetter is not a social pariah.

"We talk about women, booze, politics, things that happen in Flandreau, things that pass our way," Ulwelling says.

This might have been the best Schoenwetter could look forward to in life. But in 2000, a brother committed suicide.

Schoenwetter's stepsister, grown now and living in Iowa, learned of it from other relatives. "She was afraid I might do it, too," he says.

To try to prevent that, she sought to right an old wrong.

In April and May that year, Schoenwetter received two notarized statements. In the first, his stepsister wrote that Schoenwetter "did not in fact commit any sexual abuse toward me. ... I do not wish him to be held responsible for a crime he did not commit."

In the second, she said her mother's boyfriend "unduly influenced my knowledge of the incident and conditioned my thinking to believe that the incident of sexual misconduct did take place."

Schoenwetter says: "I was happy she did that. She could have gone the rest of her life without doing anything."

'My greatest legislative' act

When Schoenwetter told him about the affidavits, Ulwelling directed him to John Schaeffer, a Flandreau lawyer.

"I told him 'Yes, you've got some information that's beneficial. But the battle has just begun,' " Schaeffer says.

Schoenwetter's connection to his stepsister was a phone number. He talked to her after she sent the affidavits. But when her phone was disconnected he lost track of her until 2004, when she contacted another brother. He passed on to Schoenwetter the information where she was living in Iowa.

Schaeffer went to Iowa then and taped an interview with the woman in which she reiterated that Schoenwetter had never harmed her. "Within a week, we had a letter to Rounds requesting a pardon," Schaeffer says.

In June of that year, the State Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously voted to pardon Schoenwetter. Members of the governor's staff and the Division of Criminal Investigation subsequently looked into the case.

It took five more years to get the governor's signature.

Schaeffer surmises that because former Gov. Bill Janklow was criticized for secret pardons he handed out, including one to his son-in-law, Rounds might act especially cautiously when considering requests.

In any event, despite his efforts over several years to prod the governor, Schaeffer says he made no headway until state Sen. Russell Olson, R-Madison, learned of the case last year.

Olson says his uncle was making a sales call at Don's Tire Shop that summer when Ulwelling told him the story.

Olson was serving in the House at the time, preparing to run for the Senate.

"You've got to go over there and visit with this guy," he says his uncle told him.

So before the election, in October, Olson went to Flandreau and talked with Ulwelling, then Schaeffer and Schoenwetter. He read the lengthy file on the case.

"I would be the first person to throw away the key for someone who was guilty of a crime like that," Olson says he told Schoenwetter.

But he also became convinced Schoenwetter deserved to be pardoned.

He wrote to Rounds' chief of staff, Neil Fulton. "It was every week bugging him about it," he says.

Olson suspects the request "fell between the cracks" and dragged on for years. "It got left on somebody's desk, and it took prodding to get it reviewed."

Near the end of the legislative session this year, Olson says, Rounds met with him at length and told him he was going to grant Schoenwetter a pardon.

"I stepped out of the governor's office, and I got a lump in my throat. It is my greatest legislative accomplishment to date," Olson says.

Has never heard from governor

Schaeffer received a phone call March 11 from Rounds telling him the pardon had been granted.

"He said to me, 'You must really have believed in this case to have pursued it so long,' " Schaeffer says. "I didn't bark at him, but I would have liked to have heard him say, 'Sorry for the delay.' "

The pardon itself is framed and hanging on Schoenwetter's bedroom wall. But he's never heard directly from the governor. "It would have been nice," he says. "Hearing it from my lawyer was good enough."

Rounds addressed Schoenwetter's case only in a statement issued by his spokesman Joe Kafka: "The governor has thoroughly reviewed the history of the case. Based upon that history, the recommendation of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, and Mr. Schoenwetter's history since the occurrence, the governor believes the pardon was appropriate."

James Sheridan of Huron was a member of the parole board that voted to recommend pardoning Schoenwetter. He subsequently resigned from the board out of frustration Rounds was dragging out decisions on clemency requests.

Schoenwetter's case wasn't a tipping point in his decision to leave the board. But Sheridan remembers Schoenwetter's request. "I'm glad for him," he says. "He deserves it. It was too long in coming."

Judge remembers testimony

Schoenwetter is not big on seeking retribution - not from his stepsister, nor the governor, nor 3rd Circuit Judge Jon Erickson who sentenced him to 10 years and told him he was going to make an example of him.

"Actually, I don't know what I'd say to him," Schoenwetter says, "probably, 'See, you shouldn't have made an example of me.' "

The trial took place within Erickson's first six months as a judge. He did not immediately recall the case but after reviewing the file remembered "the young lady, who was 8 at the time, testified quite eloquently."

Schoenwetter "did take the stand for a very short time and did deny the allegations," the judge says. "The jury was out about 45 minutes and came back with a guilty verdict."

Schaeffer says "she was a little girl. He was a big brute of a guy charged with molesting her. People's minds were made up."

Greeted differently now

When Schoenwetter learned his pardon had been granted, he and Schaeffer contacted the Moody County Enterprise for a story and word spread from there.

And Schoenwetter's life changed. People who had nothing to do with his misfortune have been making an effort to set it right. "All our customers come in and shake hands with him," Ulwelling says.

Schoenwetter says he's received letters and phone calls of support from strangers as far away as Estelline.

"I can walk around now with relief," he says. "People say 'hi' now and actually mean it."

Ulwelling can see the difference at work in the tire shop. "He doesn't shy away like he did," Ulwelling says. "He's coming out of his shell."

With his citizenship rights restored, Schoenwetter lights up when he reports "I never had a gun permit in my life. I have one now."

Ulwelling plans to ease into semi-retirement this fall. He figures Schoenwetter can take on more responsibility at the shop.

Schoenwetter is looking forward to it.

His life never offered much to begin with, then took away what little he had. Now Schoenwetter is coming to see things from the perspective of the general run of people, anticipating more good will happen than bad.

A good name - and a firm handshake - helps in that regard.

"He's very proud," Ulwelling says, grinning. "And he should be." ..News Source.. by Argus Leader.com