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The law would extend police officers' ability to pull over vehicle occupants solely for not wearing a seat belt, whereas current law requires another violation before a traffic stop.
Copeland, one of the longest-serving coroners in the state, told Richardson, R-Hilton Head Island, in an e-mail this week: "I've never taken a seat belt off a dead person."
The coroner invited the senator to "stand at a front door and tell a family that their child or husband or wife or father or mother is dead as a result of a foolish error while driving -- especially when I know that the death would definitely have not occurred if only they had been wearing a seat belt."
Richardson, who said the original seat belt legislation that was enacted in 1990 was a good idea, this week said he needed more information on the bill before deciding whether to back it. He hadn't read Copeland's challenge.
"At the end of the day, I'm more likely to support it than not, but I want to hear it fully vented out," Richardson said.
He said he is concerned that allowing police to more freely pull over drivers could lead to racial profiling.
"I am totally in support of making people wear seat belts," Richardson said. "The only thing that I'm looking at is ... the enforcement might cause problems. There's been reference that studies have shown that it has been used for racial profiling."
Proponents point to a Department of Transportation study that found that the stricter seat belt law would prevent 105 highway deaths and 1,102 injuries each year. Opponents worry about racial profiling and an added infringement on civil liberties.
The seat belt law was inserted into a bill introduced in the senate on Feb. 12, 2003, by Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, that re-quires hearing-impaired drivers to have a notation on their licenses indicating the handicap. The Senate is set for more debate and a vote next week.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, won't vote for the stricter law because he said it would set a "slippery slope" precedent for further infringement of civil liberties.
"The issue to me is not the wearing of the seat belt," McConnell said from his cell phone as he was driving to Charleston on Thursday. "It's the invasions of liberty and the precedent that such a law will make. This law will now permit the police to stop a person in their property, in their liberty, and in a place which is not a danger at that moment to either themselves or another person."
He said the precedent of another government-sponsored restriction could extend to tobacco and unhealthy foods.
"They run around saying that this many people died this weekend and they possibly could have lived if they had worn their seat belts," he said. "I fear on both sides that there's a degree of speculation."
McConnell said police are better left concentrating on drunken drivers and speeders, not pulling over otherwise law-abiding citizens because they didn't buckle up.
The bill's sponsor, Sen. Hutto, said there appear to be enough votes to pass the stricter seat belt law, but supporting senators might fall short if opponents talk the bill to death on the Senate floor in a filibuster. He said he favors a tougher law because he believes it would save lives.
Hutto said of his opponents' arguments, "There are many things where we infringe upon people's total liberties. A guy could say, 'Well I have the right to smoke marijuana.' We have made a policy decision, no you don't. Another guy could say, 'I have a right to drink and drive.' Well, we made a policy decision, no you don't."
