Brendan Johnson

Johnson increased his office's focus on Native American issues. He worked the night shift with tribal police officers, conducted leadership training for Native American youth, and implemented a new statewide community based prosecution strategy.[6] His focus resulted in an increase in prosecutions. Some of his office's high-profile prosecutions include a 17-person drug conspiracy in Pine Ridge[7] known as Operation Prairie Thunder.

Johnson and his counterpart in North Dakota, former U.S. Attorney Tim Purdon, were known as the “Dakota Boys” within the Justice Department and together they focused on improving public safety in tribal communities across the country.[8] Richard Hartunian, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York, said "the efforts of the Dakota Boys were a turning point in U.S.-Tribal relations ... Brendan and Tim were the right leaders at the right time to carry out the vision of President Obama and Attorney General Holder to improve public safety in Indian Country". Purdon and Johnson joined the law firm of Robins Kaplan LLP together and now work together on behalf of tribes in private practice.[9]

As United States Attorney, Johnson oversaw the prosecution of more than 25 human trafficking cases in five years, including three life-sentences and the federal prosecution of numerous men who attempted to purchase sex from trafficking victims. He pursued the case of United States v. Jungers through the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, securing the critical decision that buyers of sex acts with minors are committing crimes of sex trafficking under the federal law, upping the risk of such activity by those who drive the sex trafficking markets.

In 2014, Johnson received Shared Hope International's Pathbreaker Award for determined leadership in combatting child sex trafficking: “Brendan Johnson is a force of determination, initiative and skill that should leave buyers terrified to purchase sex with a minor in South Dakota,” Shared Hope International President and Founder Linda Smith said. “By creating a threshold for buyer accountability, he sets a national precedent that, if applied, will make significant strides in reducing tolerance for purchasing sex with a minor.”[10]

In March, 2019, Johnson sued South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem; South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg and Pennington County Sheriff Kevin Thom in Dakota Rural Action, Dallas Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network, NDN Collective, Sierra Club and Nicholas Tilsen, in Federal District Court, Case # 5:19-cv-5046 regarding SB 189 "the Riot Boosting Act" and criminal statutes SDCL 22-10-6 & 22-10-6.1.[11]

In June, 2019, Johnson submitted an initiated constitutional amendment which he entitled "An initiated amendment to the South Dakota Constitution legalizing, taxing and regulating marijuana". The proposed constitutional amendment seeks to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana, require the legislature to legalize hemp by 2022 and require the legislature to legalize medical marijuana by 2022.[12] On September 11, 2019, the South Dakota Secretary of State approved Johnson's proposed Constitutional Amendment for circulation.[13] On November 4, 2019, Johnson turned in over 50,000 signatures for review by the South Dakota Secretary of State with the desire to qualify for the 2020 ballot. "We are proud to have submitted petitions on behalf of over 80,000 South Dakotans who believe that voters should decide out state's marijuana and hemp laws," said Brendan Johnson, a former federal prosecutor and Democrat who is sponsor of the legalization ballot initiative.[14] On January 6, 2019, Johnson's proposed amendment qualified for the November 2020 ballot.[15] In the November 2020 election, Amendment A was approved with 225,260 (54.18%) voting to approve it and 190,477 (45.82%) voting against it.[16]

On November 20, 2020, Pennington County Sheriff Kevin Thom and Colonel Rick Miller, Superintendent of the Highway Patrol sued to block Amendment A from being implemented.[17] On February 8, 2021, Circuit Court Judge Christina Klinger ruled Amendment A unconstitutional as a violation of the single subject rule and found it to be a revision, not an amendment to the state constitution.[18] Johnson appealed the decision to the South Dakota Supreme Court which heard oral arguments in the matter on April 28, 2021.[19]

On November 24, 2021, the South Dakota Supreme Court struck down Amendment A by a vote of 4-1, ruling the amendment violated the single subject rule.[20]