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Jun 10, 2003
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Posted on June 08, 2003
Senators' squabble shows need for better magistrate selection process


Magistrate Court is the only level of the Justice System that many South Carolinians will ever see. The judges who preside over these courts should be chosen for their judgment, their intelligence and their training, not just who they supported in the previous Senate election.

The current fight over reappointing magistrates demonstrates why South Carolina needs an improved method of selecting these judges.

Spartanburg County's two Republican senators, John Hawkins and Jim Ritchie, want to replace Magistrate Larry Hutchins. The county's Democratic senator, Glenn Reese, does not.

The senators are supposed to recommend the magistrates for the county to the governor. The rest of the Senate confirms the governor's appointments, if the county's Senate delegation approves. Because the county's delegation is divided, none of the county's magistrates has been reappointed. They are all serving on holdover status.

Senators have usually had unquestioned power to choose the magistrates that serve in their counties. In an ideal situation, a senator who is close to his community knows the people there and their needs and chooses someone in whom he has confidence to serve as a wise judge.

In practice, senators have rewarded their political cronies and supporters with jobs as magistrates. Sometimes, these appointees have had no experience and little aptitude for the job.

Political connections should not be main criteria for selecting magistrates.

In recent years, the General Assembly has reformed this level of the judicial system, increasing the qualifications for individuals to serve as magistrates. Newly appointed magistrates are required to have at least a two-year college degree, and it increases to a four-year degree in 2005. Magistrates who aren't licensed attorneys also must be recertified every eight years.

But it's also time to reform the selection process for these judges.

Senators shouldn't have the sole power to select them. There should be an objective segment to the process. There are several possibilities for lawmakers.

They could set up a magistrate review panel that works on a countywide basis the way the judicial review panel works on a statewide basis. This independent panel could evaluate the jobs of current magistrates when they come up for reappointment. It also could evaluate the qualifications of potential magistrates.

If lawmakers didn't want to establish new commissions, they could use the existing circuit judges in each judicial circuit to evaluate potential appointees.

The important goal is to devise an objective evaluation process that puts emphasis on selecting a qualified person of good judgment to serve as magistrate rather than allowing senators to simply use magistrate's positions for political patronage.


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For just a moment, I thought I had been transported backward in time from 2003 to 1953! Listening to the House Judiciary Committee discuss the Domestic Violence Prevention Act of 2003, I was deeply concerned, albeit appalled, in regard to comments made by several of our representatives.

Domestic violence: Old ideas and excuses must be replaced by new attitudes, tougher state laws
South Carolina is suffering from a silent epidemic. It does not go by the name of AIDS or SARS, but it is more widespread and can be equally deadly.

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Recently, a task force on corrections completed a study on certain aspects of the state's correctional systems and submitted its findings and recommendations to the General Assembly. The task force, which was chaired by Sen. Mike Fair, focused upon the issues of (1) education and employment, (2) health care, (3) faith-based programming and 4) volunteerism.

S.C. prisons: Budget crisis demands that we find ways to run system more efficiently
On Jan. 15, 2003, I began my tour of duty as director of the S.C. Department of Corrections. I think that I can safely state that no one in this Cabinet was fully prepared for the budget mess that we inherited.

All material ©2003 Spartanburg Herald-Journal