31 magistrates disciplined since 2000, review finds

Would a 1975 Rolls Royce in your driveway be enough to sway your judgment?

It certainly looked suspect to court investigators when they learned that a Jasper County magistrate had accepted the classic car.

The Supreme Court publicly reprimanded Magistrate Joyce Lynn Leavell in 2003 after she failed to disclose that she had received the car from her former employer, a lawyer who argued a case before her a year after the gift.

Leavell is one of 31 South Carolina county magistrates to be publicly reprimanded, suspended or removed from office for job-related transgressions since 2000. There are currently about 300 county magistrates statewide.

The Herald-Journal reviewed recent disciplinary action taken against county magistrates after Spartanburg Magistrate Johnny Cash was removed from office last week for having two intra-office affairs.

Offenses ranged from cocaine possession to keeping court money at home for "safe keeping," from dismissing traffic tickets for friends and relatives to refusing to let a defendant present his case in court. Fourteen of those magistrates either were removed from office or resigned or retired shortly before the Supreme Court handed down a disciplinary ruling.

"The quality of the magistrates is very uneven," said John Crangle, director of South Carolina Common Cause, a nonpartisan government watchdog group. "You have some very good ones and some very poor ones."

The magistrates' checkered record comes from a combination of a lack of legal qualification and the way they are appointed, reformers and legal experts said.

Magistrates are not required to have law degrees, and until recently were only required to have a high school equivalency diploma. Since 2005 new magistrates have been required to have bachelor's degrees, a change that Common Cause pushed hard for in the late 1990s.

"Magistrates are generally not considered part of the legal fraternity -- it's within the legal fraternity (especially law school) that people learn ethical restraints on their behavior," said Eldon Wedlock, professor emeritus at the University of South Carolina School of Law.

New magistrates are required to take a class on the areas of the law they rule on and are required to pass a test on the material.

"With all courses like that, you have to wonder how much of it takes," Wedlock said.

Still, magistrates are the lowest level of the justice system, deal with the most people and as such are expected to relate to them, Wedlock said.

State senators keep this in mind when nominating magistrates for their counties, said Sen. Jim Ritchie, R-Spartanburg.

"We are trying to strike a balance of people who are knowledgeable in the law and able to solve problems at a community level," Ritchie said.

This community connection, however, may also be a source of corruption.

Many of the magistrates were disciplined for doing favors for friends or not recusing themselves when they had a clear conflict of interest.

"A lot of times, they know people in the community," Crangle said.

Impropriety in the magistrate court is nothing new.

"It's been an ongoing thing throughout the years," said County Councilman Rock Adams, who said he noticed problems during his 28 years as a highway patrolman.

Magistrates are nominated by local senators and are then given what amounts to a rubber stamp by the full Senate and the governor. Before reforms, magistrates often openly campaigned for the senators who nominate them.

"The way these magistrates are selected leaves a lot to be desired," Crangle said. "They were political hacks that were appointed by the Senate," Crangle said. "Magistrates aren't nearly as political as they used to be. Still, a lot of these magistrates are cronies of the senators."

Some senators are also lawyers and argue cases in front of the very magistrates they appoint.

"You don't know where their loyalty is," Wedlock said. "If they view their position as a matter of political grace, they're unlikely to be impartial."

Ritchie said that he seldom argues cases before magistrates but on those occasions he has never felt that his being a Senator has held any sway.

"I look forward to appointing judges with a strength of character that don't feel burdened by that (apparent conflict of interest)."

Other states use different methods of selecting magistrates. In North Carolina, for example, magistrates are selected from an applicant pool by superior court judges. The applicants must have at least an associates' degree.

Ritchie said he "would not object to the county council being part of the (nomination) process."

Sen. Glenn Reese, D-Spartanburg, owner of the Spartanburg Krispy Kreme franchise, said he thought Senators should continue to have oversight and appointment powers.

Reese did, however, say that supervision of magistrates was sometimes lacking.

"I think it works if we're not blind to the signals," Reese said.

Sen. John Hawkins, R-Spartanburg, also a lawyer, could not be reached for comment.

Alexander Morrison can be reached at 562-7215 or alex.morrison@shj.com.