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The Senate has begun debate on its $7 billion state spending plan.
Among the first action was to remove a proviso requiring the Judicial Department to pay a portion of a million dollar court settlement. Finance chairman Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, said there was a misunderstanding about how the fees were calculated. The courts, Leatherman said, acted in good faith in setting the fees.
Gov. Mark Sanford withdrew the embattled nomination today of Columbia attorney Samuel F. Painter to serve on the South Carolina Workers' Compensation Commission.
Painter was recommended by the governor to serve a five-year at-large term on the commission, which resolves injury disputes and settlements between injured workers and their employees.
Continue reading "Sanford withdraws workers' comp board nominee" »
Attorney General Henry McMaster encouraged a House panel Wednesday to abolish parole and replace the state's drug courts with a new middle court for those sentenced to 90 days or more for non violent offenses.
"For every person we send to middle court, we'd save over $12,000. And that's just for one year," McMaster said. Offenders would undergo an 18-month program instead of being going to prison.
Several lawmakers said they support the creation of such a court but voted to adjourn debate until next week.
The House has rejected a proposal to withhold money from the Judicial Department until the agency publicly releases a report on how lawyers and judges are disciplined.
Continue reading "House rejects bid to punish courts for bar exam flap" »
The House Judiciary Committee is considering bills this afternoon that would allow lawmakers with concealed weapons permits to carry firearms on State House grounds, lift a prohibition on selling liquor on Election Day and ban smoking in teacher lounges in public schools.
The House Judiciary Committee will meet 1 1/2 hours after the House, which convened at noon, adjourns.
South Carolina needs two new prisons, just to keep up with its existing 24,000-inmate population, according to prisons director Jon Ozmint. Right now, the state has no plans to build new prisons.
"We've got thousands of inmates right now triple-bunked in 8-foot cells," Ozmint said Thursday on Senate President Pro-Tem Glenn McConnell's weekly public television show.
Several factors, including criminal justice reform, alternative sentencing and overcrowding constitute "a gathering discussion" in the General Assembly over the state's prison system, McConnell said.
South Carolina adopted so-called "truth-in-sentencing" in 1996, which all but eliminates parole for most violent offenders, requiring them to serve 85 percent of their prison terms.
State Attorney General Henry McMaster has called for abolishing parole for all inmates, which would increase the number of prisoners.
Ozmint, who noted no new prisons have been built in South Carolina since 1992, also said building prisons should be "a measure of last resort."
New prisons would cost about $100 million each, according to Ozmint, and take up to three years each to build.
South Carolina's inmate population growth rate, at 1 percent annually, is slower than in other states, Ozmint said. Its $14,000 annual housing cost per inmate is the nation's lowest.
Low-cost maintenance comes with a higher cost in other areas, though, Ozmint said. For example, less money devoted to prison guards means prisons are less orderly. That could drive up medical and legal costs.
McConnell said the state will need new prisons before it takes on new truth-in-sentencing legislation.
Attorneys packed a small hearing room Thursday to ask the state for clarity concerning workers’ compensation claims, but they got little, at least for now.
The seven-member S.C. Workers’ Compensation Commission heard arguments blasting a series of executive orders issued by Gov. Mark Sanford which they said interfered with the commissioners’ oath to be impartial and fair in reaching judgments pertaining to worker injury on the job.
“The governor suggested justice is for sale,” charged John P. Freeman, a ethics professor at the USC School of Law, who filed a motion against the governor’s orders.
Sanford has issued three executive orders since September 20, his latest two on Oct. 24, directing the commission to reconsider how it rules in workers’ compensation cases and to be more vigilant in approving attorney’s fees for such cases.
There is conflict over the governor’s intent in issuing the orders, and in their affect on rulings the commission will issue in the future.
“It is our opinion (the governor’s latest executive order regarding use of objective standards to determine life compensation for on-the-job injury) renders all these motions moot,” said Suzanne C. Bouleware, an attorney who defends clients against workers’ compensation claims.
“All this new executive order does is admonish commissioners to follow the law — it does not change law.”
The commission took testimony but rendered no decision Thursday. The commission may render a decision later, or not at all, and allow any changes fomented by Sanford’s orders to be reflected in rulings in individual cases over time.
Gov. Mark Sanford will sign the Criminal Gang Prevention Act, S.141, Tuesday at the Governor’s Office, according to a news release. The law is aimed at giving law enforcement more tools with which to prosecute gang members by better defining criminal gang activity and expanding the gang-related jurisdiction of the state's grand jury.
Lexington Sen. Jake Knotts, a Republican, was a key sponsor of the bill. It gained momentum in the Legislature after several gang-related shootings in the Midlands and a 2006 USC study that said gang activity in S.C. is widening throughout the state.
The Senate passed a resolution Tuesday honoring retiring S.C. Supreme Court Justice E.C. Burnett.
The resolution celebrates Burnett's "30 years of service to the people of South Carolina." Burnett, 65, of Spartanburg, who retires Sept. 1, was hailed for his "vision, integity" and "great analytical skills."
House Democrats are mixed on whether to support a comprehensive gang bill expected to come up today. The bill places gang activity under the state grand jury system.
Democrats say they have several concerns about the legislation, which was crafted after a full-scale study last summer.
"It opens up a lot of potential for abuse," said Rep. Joe Neal, D-Richland, who opposes the bill, S.141, because it establishes gang lists he said could be misused by law enforcement.
Democrats plan several amendments today, but even those may not satisfy all their concerns, Neal said.
Gov. Mark Sanford will be in Spartanburg Friday to join 7th Circuit Solicitor Trey Gowdy and other law enforcement personnel in calling for the passage of tougher drunk driving laws.
South Carolina's current DUI law is considered by many in law enforcement to be weak and unenforceable, a contributing factor in South Carolina's high DUI death rate, said a media advisory released by Sanford's office.
A tougher DUI bill has recently passed the House, and is awaiting action in the Senate.
Appeals Court Judge Donald Beatty of Spartanburg was elected to the state's Supreme Court, becoming the second African American elected to the South Carolina's highest court.
Lawmakers, in a joint session of the House and Senate, voted three times before Beatty picked up the 82 votes he needed to capture a majority and win election.
In the third round of voting Beatty picked up 84 votes, as a handful of lawmakers switched their support from Conway Appeals Court ChiefJudge Kaye Hearn to Beatty.
Finishing second in the voting was Columbia Appeals Court Judge Bruce Williams, who picked up 54 votes. Hearn finished with 25 votes.
Beatty, 54, is a former lawmaker who has spent the past dozen years on bench. He has spent the past four years on the state's Appeals Court, the second-highest S.C. court.
He will take the seat being vacated by Justice E.C. Burnett, who is retiring.
Lawmakers this afternoon also are filling a Court of Appeals seat and several other lower court seats.
Appeals Court Judge Donald Beatty picked up two more votes in a second round of voting to elect a state Supreme Court Justice. His 80 votes are still two votes shy of the majority he needs to win election.
Beatty, of Spartanburg, got 78 votes in the first round of voting. Columbia Appeals Court Judge Bruce Williams got 50 votes and Conway Appeals Court Chief Judge Kaye Hearn got 35 votes.
The winner will need 82 votes to take the seat being vacated by the retiring E.C. Burnett.
Appeals Court judge Donald Beatty of Spartanburg outdistanced two other judges vying for a seat on the state Supreme Court, but he failed to get a majority of lawmaker's votes needed to earn a seat on the high court.
Beatty, in the next round of voting, will need four more votes to win the seat.
In the voting, Beatty got 78 votes, Columbia Appeals Court Judge Bruce Williams got 50 votes and Conway Appeals Court Chief Judge Kaye Han got 35 votes.
The winner will need 82 votes to take the seat being vacated by the retiring E.C. Burnett.
Campaigning for open judge seats officially begins today, as lawmakers can begin publicly committing to candidates at noon.
The highest profile election will be the one to replace a retiring Supreme Court Justice E.C. Burnett of Spartanburg. The 10-member S.C. Judicial Merit Selection Commission nominated Don Beatty , 54, of Spartanburg; Kaye Hearn, 57, of Conway; and Bruce Williams, 51, of Columbia as candidates to replace Burnett.
The are several lower court judgeships which will also be contested. A legislative panel has narrowed the candidates for each seat down to three.
Senators plan to hold public hearings around the state this year to help them determine whether Supreme Court justices and Family Court judges should be popularly elected or continue to be appointed by the Legislature.
They also will be asking whether to increase the size of the Supreme Court bench from four justices to six justices, plus a chief justice.
"These are revolutionary changes," said Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, a sponsor of two resolutions taken up today by a Senate Judiciary subcommittee.
Sen. Tommy Moore, D-Aiken, agreed the changes were "revolutionary" and said consultations with Judiciary Committee chairman Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, supported hearing from the public on the issues.
Dates, times and locations of the proposed public hearings have not been decided, Moore said, indicating the Senate likely would be unable to meet a May 1 deadline to get the bills passed and sent to the House.
In other business, the subcommittee approved a bill preventing members of the General Assembly from campaigning for judicial candidates until 48 hours after candidates' qualifications are published.
The bill (S.545) also prohibits judicial candidates from orchestrating "quiet, coordinated campaigns" targeted toward legislators to gain support for their candidacies.
Violators of the proposal, if passed, would be subject to disciplinary action by the State Ethics Commission.
The Senate has approved to a bill that would make murder during the commission of first-degree arson a crime eligible for the death penalty.
Under state law, first-degree arson is defined as the burning of a building that results in death or serious injury to a person.
Currently, a defendant can face the death penalty for committing murder during the commission of one of nine other crimes, such as robbery or kidnapping, as well as for certain other types of homicides, such as the killing of a child 11 or younger.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Greg Gregory, R-Lancaster, now goes to the House.
Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, says he's close to supporting public election of judges.
McConnell has long supported the Legislature choosing judges based on recommendations from a screening panel. But he said today that judicial candidates and legislators have compromised the process by making promises before the all lawmakers can review candidate qualifications.
The Senate has offered two bills amending the process:
The House has resurrected a bill to allow any out-of-state resident with a concealed weapons permit to carry a firearm in South Carolina.
Yesterday, the House voted to send the bill back to committee over safety concerns.
The State Law Enforcement Division has objected to allowing reciprocity to any state whose laws, including background checks and training requirements, were less restrictive than South Carolina's.
The bill is a priority for the National Rifle Association, which encouraged visitors to its Web site to contact their state representative before today's action.
Currently, South Carolina allows residents of just 11 other states to carry concealed handguns here.
The House is sending the Senate a bill that would add three Family Court and three Circuit Court judges statewide.
But no new positions will be filled until lawmakers approved funding for them, which hasn’t been done.
Rep. Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, the bill’s sponsor, said after today’s final House vote he was "under the impression that it would be funded."
He noted that S.C. Chief Justice Jean Toal has made the additional judges one of her top funding priorities.
The House this morning overwhelmingly gave key approval to a bill that would increase the number of Circuit and Family Court judges by three each.
Under the bill, sponsored by Rep. Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, the six additional judges would be elected at-large, meaning a candidate could live anywhere in the state to run for those seats.
Currently, all of the state’s 52 Family Court judgeships and 33 of the 46 Circuit judgeships are resident seats.
S.C. Chief Justice Jean Toal has called for additional judges to help deal with backlogs statewide.
S.C. Chief Justice Jean Toal today reiterated her warning that South Carolina’s trial courts remain the most overburdened in the country.
In her annual speech before the General Assembly, Toal asked lawmakers to approve her request for three more Circuit Court and three more Family Court judges. The state already has 46 Circuit Court and 52 Family Court judges in full-time positions.
She also said she plans to meet with solicitors next week to develop a plan for them to better manage their criminal dockets.
In a speech last month at the annual S.C. Bar convention in Charleston, Toal said the Palmetto State has the lowest number of judges per capita and the highest number of filings per trial judge of any state.
Gov. Mark Sanford is throwing his support behind a House bill that would toughen penalties for drunken driving, and he's taking aim at some lawyer-senators in the process.
"There are certain folks in some key spots that make a lot of money based on the existing laws that don’t want to change," Sanford said today.
Sanford suggested that Sen. Brad Hutto, an attorney, was among that group. Sanford declined afterward, though, to name others whom he thought might oppose the House bill.
"Historically, the graveyard, if you will, of these kinds of bills have been on the Senate side, and with all due respect to Senator Hutto or others, I think it’s incredibly important, given the fact that lives are truly on the line, that this bill goes through," he said.
Of the state’s 46 senators, 10, or about 22 percent, are attorneys.
Hutto, D-Orangeburg, said he didn’t understand Sanford’s point.
"We have passed revisions to DUI laws - probably a half dozen over the last 10 years," he said. "We have done more to ensure quality convictions in the past few years than in the 20 or 30 years that I wasn’t here."
The House bill was introduced last week by Rep. Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, who is also an attorney. The measure would replace existing DUI laws with a tiered system of punishments that would increase penalties at higher blood-alcohol levels.
The Senate has passed a bill to require any person arrested for a felony or a crime that carries a prison sentence of at least five years to provide a DNA sample.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Gerald Malloy, D-Darlington, initially would have required persons arrested for any crime - whether a misdemeanor or felony - to submit a sample. If passed in its original form, it would have been the most stringent law in the nation.
The bill was amended last month in the Senate Judiciary Committee to limit the expansion of the state’s DNA database after concerns were raised that it was too broad. Currently, all convicted felons must submit a DNA sample.
Malloy’s bill in its present form would cost about $4.3 million to implement in its first year and $3 million per year after that, according to a fiscal impact statement.
The State Law Enforcement Division, which maintains the DNA database, has requested additional funds in its budget if the bill passes, though it hasn’t specified the source of the funding.
State lawmakers today elected a woman to the S.C. Court of Appeals and two other women to open Family Court seats.
Paula Thomas of Pawleys Island was elected to fill the Court of Appeals seat held by Bert Goolsby of Columbia, who is retiring this year.
Deborah Neese was elected to fill a Family Court seat in the 11th Circuit, which covers Lexington, Saluda, Edgefield and McCormick counties. She will replace David Sawyer, who is retiring.
Jan Holmes was elected to a Family Court seat in the 15th Circuit, which covers Horry and Georgetown counties. She’s the only black candidate elected to an open seat.
The General Assembly today filled a total of 32 judicial seats. All of them were uncontested.
Senators are confident a new comprehensive reform package of the state's criminal justice system will get the financial backing needed to become an effective tool for law enforcement.
The package, which outlines stiffer penalties for gang activity, also allows for DNA collection and gives the state grand jury the authority to investigate gangs.
Lawmakers this week revamped the DNA portion of the legislation to make collection of samples applicable only to those arrests that carry at least a five-year sentence upon conviction, such as felonies. The change mollifies civil liberty concerns.
Sen. Gerald Malloy, D-Horry, who headed a task force to draft the anti-crime measures, says House members have assured him there is support for the package.
State fire and law enforcement officials are asking for more than $900,000 to maintain urban search and rescue teams.
The statewide and local teams were created using $6.5 million in federal and local anti-terrorism money, but State Law Enforcement Division Chief Robert Stewart said today the state cannot maintain the teams and equipment without additional money.
The request, being pitched to a House budget subcommittee this morning, is one of hundreds that lawmakers will consider for next year's spending plan, which takes effect July 1.
Lawmakers will have more than $1 billion available in one-time and recurring money.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday approved a bill aimed at cracking down on gangs but rejected a controversial bill that would have required DNA samples from anyone arrested for a crime.
Under the gang bill sponsored by Sen. Jake Knotts, R-Lexington, gang members would face maximum penalties ranging from two years to 15 years in prison for trying to coerce someone to join a gang, or prevent a gang member from leaving. Gang members who intimidate witnesses or victims would face up to 10 years in prison.
The bill also would give the state grand jury the authority to investigate gangs, and allow lawsuits and property forfeiture proceedings against gang members.
The DNA bill, sponsored by Sen. Gerald Malloy, D-Darlington, was amended to require DNA samples from anyone arrested for a crime that carries a prison sentence of at least five years.
Under Malloy’s original bill, South Carolina would have become the first state to require DNA samples from anyone who was arrested and taken to jail — no matter how minor the alleged crime.
Sens. Jim Ritchie, R-Spartanburg, and Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, both of whom are lawyers, expressed concerns that the bill in its original form was too broad.
-Rick Brundrett
The Senate Judiciary Committee this afternoon will consider a bill aimed at cracking down on gang activity in South Carolina.
Under the bill, sponsored by state Sen. Jake Knotts, R-Lexington, gang members would face charges for threatening violence to coerce people to join or remain in a gang.
The measure also would punish people who seek to intimidate witnesses at trials against gang members. In addition, the state grand jury would have the authority to investigate gang activity.
The bill, which was formulated after hearings last year, is not expected to go through a subcommittee and could move to the full Senate this week.
Rep. Garry Smith, R-Greenville, has introduced a bill to require "ignition interlock" devices to be installed on the vehicles of people repeatedly convicted of driving under the influence. The device prevents them from driving drunk.
Current state law allows judges to order the devices for first-time or repeat offenders, but does not require the judge to do so.
A State newspaper investigation last year found that the current law hasn't been implemented even though it passed in 2000.
More than two dozen supporters of the South Carolina Equality Coalition gathered at the capitol on the first day of the 2007 legislative session to oppose the recently approved constitutional ban on gay marriage.
Executive director Michael Drennan says his group wants to remind lawmakers to represent all state residents.
"We want to make sure gay and lesbian families are afforded the same protections" as other families, he said.
The coalition hopes lawmakers will consider legislation guaranteeing adoption rights and addressing hate crimes and anti-discrimination employment laws.
Comprehensive legislation to fight gang activity in South Carolina will be introduced in the state Senate when the General Assembly convenes next month. The bill expands the jurisdiction of the state Grand Jury to include gangs and patterns of gang activity in the state and vests the body with subpoena power against gang members. The proposed bill makes it an offense for a gang member to use or threaten physical violence against others in order to recruit them into gangs or to prevent them from leaving a gang and stipulates penalties for violators. The legislation is the result of a four-month study by a Senate task force designed to overhaul parts of the state law dealing violent crime and repeat offenders. More bills are being prefiled in the House and Senate this week as legislators prepare for the 2007-08 session.
