Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

On February 14, 2013, the Attorney General received an ethics complaint, alleging possible violations of the Ethics Act by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Robert W. Harrell, Jr. The complaint was originally submitted by a private citizen to the House Legislative Ethics Committee. That same day, the Attorney General forwarded the complaint to South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), and SLED carried out a 10-month criminal investigation into the matter. At the conclusion of the investigation, the Chief of SLED and the Attorney General petitioned the presiding judge of the state grand jury to impanel the state grand jury on January 13, 2014. Acting presiding judge of the state grand jury, the Honorable L. Casey Manning, subsequently impaneled the state grand jury. On February 24, 2014, the Speaker filed a motion to disqualify the Attorney General from participating in the grand jury investigation. On March 21, 2014, a hearing was held on the motion after which the court sua sponte raised the issue of subject matter jurisdiction. Another hearing was held, and the court found, as presiding judge of the state grand jury, it lacked subject matter jurisdiction to hear any matter arising from the Ethics Act, and refused to reach the issue of disqualification. The court discharged the grand jury and ordered the Attorney General to cease his criminal investigation. The Attorney General appealed that order to the Supreme Court. After its review, the Supreme Court concluded the circuit court erred in concluding that the House Ethics Committee had exclusive jurisdiction over the original complaint. While the crime of public corruption could include violations of the Ethics Act, the state grand jury's jurisdiction is confined to the purposes set forth in the constitution and the state grand jury statute, as circumscribed by the impaneling order. While the Court reversed the circuit court's order, it "in no way suggest[ed] that it was error for the presiding judge to inquire whether the state grand jury was 'conducting investigative activity within its jurisdiction or proper investigative activity.'" The case was remanded for a decision on whether the Attorney General should have been disqualified from participating in the state grand jury proceedings. View "Harrell v. Attorney General of South Carolina" on Justia Law

Appellant Bruce Hill was convicted of two murders and first-degree burglary, arising from a home invasion and double homicide in Horry County in 2005. He received concurrent life sentences for the murders and a concurrent thirty-year sentence for the burglary. Prior to Appellant's trial, another individual, Richard Gagnon, was tried and convicted of these murders. During Gagnon's trial, the State maintained that there were two perpetrators involved, as there was blood at the scene that could not belong to either victim or to Gagnon. From blood droplets found at the crime scene, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) developed a DNA profile. The profile did not match either of the victims or Gagnon's. Approximately four years after the murders, the Horry County Police Department (HCPD) was notified in a letter from SLED of a CODIS match for the unknown individual's blood found at the crime scene: Appellant's, who, at that time, was incarcerated in Tennessee (Appellant's DNA had been placed into the CODIS database by the Tennessee Department of Corrections). HCPD agents travelled to Tennessee for the purpose of obtaining a buccal swab on Appellant for further DNA comparison. However, the investigators who obtained this order subsequently left HCPD, and the evidence of the swab was lost. Arrest warrants were issued charging Appellant with burglary and murder. In 2010, Appellant requested the final deposition of the charges pending against him in South Carolina. The solicitor's office and the clerk of court acknowledged receipt of Appellant's request in September, 2010, which triggered the IAD 180-day clock to bring trial. Appellant arrived in South Carolina on October 21, 2010; On March 1, 2011, the last day of the 180-day Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act (IAD) limit, a hearing on the State's motion for a six-month continuance was held. Appellant opposed the continuance arguing that the State did not meet its burden for obtaining a continuance under the IAD. The circuit court disagreed with Appellant and ruled that there was good cause for granting the State's request. In addition to granting a continuance, the court ordered that a "Schmerber" hearing be conducted the next week. At the final pretrial hearing, the circuit court: (1) ruled that neither the State nor Appellant could make any reference to Gagnon's conviction, as it was irrelevant to the determination of Appellant's guilt; and (2) denied Appellant's motion to suppress any mention of Appellant being in the CODIS database. Appellant was ultimately convicted on all counts, and he appealed. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "South Carolina v. Hill" on Justia Law

Appellant pled guilty to two counts of indecent exposure and was sentenced to two consecutive three-year terms, with credit for 253 days already served. Appellant contended the trial court erred in denying his request for a full evidentiary hearing before the circuit court determined whether appellant's indecent exposure pleas should have been classified as sexually violent offenses for purposes of the Sexually Violent Predator Act (the SVP Act). Under the facts of this case, the Supreme Court found no reversible error, and therefore affirmed the trial court. View "South Carolina v. Wessinger" on Justia Law

Appellant Donta Reid challenged the trial court's failure to suppress his confession, arguing it was obtained in violation of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The Supreme Court disagreed, finding the facts of this case fell within the purview of "Montejo v. Louisiana," (556 U.S. 778 (2009)). Furthermore contended the trial court erred in failing to grant a directed verdict of acquittal on the charges for possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime because the State failed to prove he actually or constructively possessed a firearm. The Supreme Court found those charges were properly submitted to the jury and therefore affirmed his convictions. View "South Carolina v. Reid" on Justia Law

Appellant Anthony Nation appealed a circuit court's decision to statutorily impose lifetime global positioning satellite (GPS) monitoring on him due to his prior guilty plea for a sex offense with a minor and subsequent probation violations. On appeal, Appellant brought various constitutional challenges to section 23-3-540 and contests the validity of five of our previous decisions involving the South Carolina Sex Offender Registry and statutory authorization of GPS monitoring of sex offenders. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "South Carolina v. Nation" on Justia Law

Lawrence Burgess was convicted of possession of crack cocaine with intent to distribute and sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay a $25,000 fine. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Following the denial of his petition for rehearing, Burgess petitioned for a writ of certiorari to review the decision. The South Carolina Supreme Court granted the petition to review whether: (1) the multi-jurisdictional drug-enforcement agreement (which formed the purported basis of the arresting officer's authority to arrest Burgess outside of the officer's territorial jurisdiction) satisfied the statutory prerequisites to constitute a valid agreement; and (2) whether Burgess should have been permitted to cross-examine the arresting officer with his personnel records pursuant to Rule 608(c) of the South Carolina Rules of Evidence. Although the Supreme Court found the Court of Appeals correctly affirmed Burgess's conviction, it disagreed with the court's conclusion regarding the multijurisdictional drug-enforcement agreement. Accordingly, the Court affirmed as modified. View "South Carolina v. Burgess" on Justia Law

The South Carolina Supreme Court answered certified two questions from the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina. The case concerned supplemental health insurance policies, which differ from ordinary health insurance policies in both purpose and operation. The questions were: (1) whether the definition of "actual charges" contained within S.C. Code Ann. 38-71-242 be applied to insurance contracts executed prior to the statute's effective date; and (2) whether the South Carolina Department of Insurance could mandate the application of "actual charges" to policies already inexistence on the statute's effective dates by prohibiting an insurance company from paying claims absent the application of that definition. The South Carolina Supreme Court answered both questions "no." View "Kirven v. Central States" on Justia Law

Appellant Damien Inman was convicted and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for the robbery, kidnapping, and murder of Mary Stutts. Appellant was seventeen years old at the time of the crimes. On appeal, Appellant challenged his convictions on several grounds, including that the circuit court improperly granted the State's motion pursuant to "Batson v. Kentucky" after Appellant offered a race-neutral explanation for striking a particular juror. The Supreme Court agreed after review and reversed and remanded the case for a new trial. View "South Carolina v. Inman" on Justia Law

In 2008, at a regularly scheduled meeting of the Saluda County Council, a motion was made and seconded to amend the posted agenda to take up a resolution. Both the motion and the resolution were voted upon and passed unanimously during the meeting, which was open to the public. The nonbinding resolution pertained to water and sewer services, although that subject was not originally listed on County Council's agenda. Dennis Lambries filed this action in the circuit court against the Saluda County Council and its members alleging County Council's amendment of the agenda without notice and in the absence of exigent circumstances and its passage of a resolution that was not on the posted agenda violated FOIA's notice provision in section 30-4-80. Lambries brought the action as a citizen of Saluda County and noted he was also the Chairman of the Saluda County Water and Sewer Authority. Specifically, Lambries asked the circuit court to declare that all resolutions, acts, ordinances, and statements made by County Council in violation of FOIA were null and void, and he sought injunctive relief to prevent future amendments of an agenda in the absence of "truly exigent circumstances." The circuit court noted the purpose of FOIA is for the activities of government "to be in open session and not behind closed doors." The court found that "the amendment of the agenda was performed in open session and in accordance with Saluda County Council rules of order as codified in their ordinances," and S.C. Code Ann. 4-9-110 (1986) authorized counties to establish their own rules and order of business. The circuit court denied Lambries's motion to alter or amend under Rule 59(e), SCRCP, reiterating that it "d[id] not agree with the plaintiff's fundamental position that a county council cannot amend agendas for regularly scheduled meetings without advance notice or exigent circumstances." The Court of Appeals reversed in a split decision, the majority finding (1) an agenda is required for regularly scheduled meetings, and (2) County Council's amendment of an agenda less than twenty-four hours before the meeting violated the "spirit" and "purpose" of FOIA's notice requirement. The Supreme Court concluded FOIA's notice statute did not require an agenda to be issued for a regularly scheduled meeting, and FOIA contained no prohibition on the amendment of an agenda for a regularly scheduled meeting. View "Lambries v. Saluda County Council" on Justia Law

This direct appeal involved a constitutional challenge to the Town of Hilton Head Island's business license tax ordinance, which required businesses within the Town to pay an annual license fee based upon a business's classification and gross income. "Kigre has clothed its many arguments in the premise that the Ordinance is not sound policy," but the Supreme Court found that none rose to the level to sufficiently challenge the ordinance's constitutionality. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the trial court. View "Town of Hilton Head Island v. Kigre, Inc." on Justia Law