Why former South Carolina supreme court chief justice Jean Toal remains actively involved in the adjudication of civil and criminal cases in the Palmetto State remains something of a mystery…
The bigger mystery? Why ostensibly “conservative” lawmakers – who are poised to expand their purported “supermajority” at the S.C. State House this fall – continue to allow her to do so. Or, going one better, why they would continue putting judges like her on the bench in the first place…
Sadly, Toal is just a symptom of the disease.
For better or worse (mostly worse, as FITSNews has shown), the legislative branch in South Carolina runs the judicial branch – screening and electing judges, setting their budgets and exerting all manner of untoward influence over their rulings. I’ve repeatedly called for long-overdue reform of this system, only to see lawyer-legislators do the bare minimum in response. As a result, a bright red state continues to get deep blue “justice.”
Toal was a Democrat lawmaker for more than a dozen years. In fact, she’s the first of two former Democrat lawmakers inexplicably elevated to position of chief justice by so-called “Republicans.” Toal was elected chief justice by GOP-controlled legislatures in 2004 and 2014. A year after her “retirement” in December 2015, these same self-styled “conservatives” installed another former Democrat representative – Donald Beatty – as her successor.
Gotta love that GOP rule, right? Of course it’s not about partisanship… it’s about ideology. Judicial temperament. Judicial activism.
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The impact Toal and Beatty have had on the administration of “justice” in South Carolina has been unambiguously disastrous. In addition to the institutional coddling of violent offenders – which has had a materially deleterious impact on public safety – Toal and Beatty have zealously toed the status quo line when it comes to insulating the establishment.
In fact, Toal attended a hearing on this issue earlier this year – enthusiastically embracing the current method of judicial selection, which is rife with insider deal-making and institutional corruption.
Optimism abounds that new chief justice John Kittredge will be a more conservative jurist – and that he will be more open to judicial reform – but in the meantime Toal continues to exert disproportionate influence over the Palmetto State’s judiciary. And continues to do so nearly a decade after her “retirement.”
To be clear: I have no problem with retired judges assisting the court in docket management at the circuit level – not until their “assistance” becomes problematic, anyway. South Carolina clearly needs to do a much better job moving cases – especially criminal cases against violent defendants – and if retired/retiring judges can help advance justice (as opposed to doing favors to powerful legislators), I’m all for it.
Cops and courts are core functions of government, and we should staff them and fund them accordingly.
But when retired judges demonstrate a contempt for the laws they are supposed to be upholding – that’s a problem. And Toal has become emblematic of this problem in South Carolina.
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Earlier this year, Toal presided over convicted killer Alex Murdaugh’s initial evidentiary hearing in his bid for a new trial. Murdaugh’s attorneys argued his March 2023 convictions for murdering his wife and younger son should be tossed – and a new trial ordered – based on jury tampering allegations against Colleton County clerk of court Becky Hill.
Toal set an incredibly high bar for Murdaugh to clear, but when testimony was heard from the jury which convicted him – that bar was cleared. With room to spare, in fact. Multiple jurors not only confirmed the tampering, one made clear it impacted her decision to convict. And Toal didn’t even hear from the one juror allegedly thrown off the panel because she wouldn’t say she thought Murdaugh was guilty.
Nonetheless, despite setting the standard of proof herself – and watching as it was met – Toal inexplicably ruled that it had not been met.
The fix was in, people. Through Toal, the judiciary made it abundantly clear that protecting a verdict – and the reputation of one of its most beloved judges – was more important than upholding the Sixth Amendment right of the accused to a fair and impartial jury.
Since then, the state’s ongoing failure to prosecute Hill based on these tampering allegations – and to keep information related to additional alleged tampering securely under wraps – has further compromised the integrity of the proceedings (and, frankly, of the entire judiciary).
And to think… the prosecution of Murdaugh was supposed to restore public faith in South Carolina’s badly broken judicial branch.
Back to Toal, though. In the Murdaugh case, she flagrantly flaunted the law – and not just “the law,” but her own narrow interpretation of it – for what appears to have been the expressed purpose of reaching a preordained outcome. Based on that, how on earth is she still allowed to sit in judgment over cases? Especially given her unelected, retired status?
That is a question we plan on exploring in greater detail in the weeks and months to come…
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven children.
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37 comments
She is one smart cookie. It’s a shame that she stoops to doing judicial favors. I’ve experienced it firsthand.
I guess the main reason this situation in particular doesn’t bother me at all is because of the reams of rumors among the lowcountry Bar about all of the dirty tricks Murdaugh and his firm employed going back decades in controlling/manipulating the trial docket and the network of backchannels they had with the families of jurors in Hampton and Colleton county. I think it’s called being hoisted on your own pittard.
Two wrongs do not make a right.
Her alcoholism, which causes organic brain syndrome, does not make her nor you, “smart.”
The entire system of state government screams the need to be totally gutted of people like the two of you. She still gets behind the wheel while under the influence (verified).
“(verified)” how?
“organic brain syndrome” diagnosed how?
Put up OBJECTIVE facts or hold your peace.
I am NOT defending her. I am only OFFENDED by people throwing accusations and medical terms around without any proof.
Remember Matthew 7:1: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
If you are going to assert dementia and criminality of others WITHOUT PROOF, you lay the ground for that, God forbid, being some day done to you.
Decency, people! Some decency for God’s sake.
“(verified)” how?
“organic brain syndrome” diagnosed how?
Put up OBJECTIVE facts or hold your peace.
I am NOT defending her. I am only OFFENDED by people throwing accusations and medical terms around without any proof.
Remember Matthew 7:1: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
If you are going to assert dementia and criminality of others WITHOUT PROOF, you lay the ground for that, God forbid, being some day done to you.
Decency, people! Some decency for God’s sake.
Interesting. You regularly crow about how you want our judicial system to be harsher. Your silly take on the liberal bench, which is absolute fantasy, is founded on wanting judges to be less fair and more draconian. Of course, that’s already the case but no one at this Trump campaign opinion blog can be bothered to do any factual reporting.
So this ruling, a product of exactly what you want to happen in South Carolina (and honestly, what has always happened) is a problem?
Give me a break. Report on some of the real injustice going on, like the Attorney General bending over backwards to support Trump in his post-conviction efforts while at the same time blocking the efforts of actually innocent people to even look at their files. Otherwise go away. You aren’t part of the problem, you are the problem.
Yeah, Beatty ended bench warrants for magistrate court offenses that had a mandatory appearance. Driving under suspension, no problem just don’t come to court, no warrant will be issued for your arrest, you may have a trial in absence after 3 no shows but then your already suspended license just stays suspended.
Retired SC Chief Justice Beatty acted wisely in the face of abuse of the arrest powers by magistrates and solicitors.
Throwing prisons at every problem is no more a sound solution than throwing money at every problem.
Even if it were theoretically possible to build a prison/jail at every corner, the problem will remain of finding people to staff them.
And NO, the answer is NOT overpaying under-qualified people to be prison guards. That only attracts money-greedy, power-hungry people who cost society more in lawsuits resulting from abuse of detainees. Haven’t you heard and seen?
So, reduction of unnecessary incarcerations is a solution, not a problem.
Spoken like a liberal professor.
If “liberal” I were, why did USC fire me in 1993 for having CORRECTLY written that homosexuality is a choice, not inborn, and that the CORRECT percentage of gays in the population is closer to 1% than the FALSE 10% of the self-selection-biased, and now thoroughly discredited, Kinsey report of the last century?
USC fired me again AFTER a committee of other professors UNANIMOUSLY recommended my reinstatement.
There are no principled “liberals” or “conservatives” in a world that worships money and that values human beings by how much money they have and how much money they can extract from others in return for mere words.
That is what lawyers and judges offer: words. No science, no industry, no justice, no anything, just words.
The whole industry of abortion laws, immigration laws, gay marriage laws, trans laws, election laws, etc., is just theatrics for lawyers on opposing sides to make money.
There is an efficient and economical (meaning it costs less money) answer IN SCIENCE to every societal problem or aspiration; but lawyers do NOT want science because it takes away their source of money and power.
For ONE example, in post-conviction relief, a person convicted of a crime usually urges that the conviction would not have happened has the convict’s lawyer done this or that. And the judge sits on his/her butt and “finds” that there is or there is not “a probability” that, had the lawyer done/not done certain things, the conviction would/would not have occurred.
How can the judge possibly know that?
A scientific system would TABULATE all convictions and analyze AHEAD OF TIME which lawyer conduct and/or court rule led to a correct or incorrect conviction, as later proven by, for example, the real perpetrator showing up, DNA evidence, witness/victim recantation, etc.
Medicine does that ALL THE TIME and ahead of time. Medications/equipment are tested for safety and effectiveness ahead of being released to the public and monitored thereafter and withdrawn when unacceptable side effects show up.
ALL medical schools and hospitals have weekly or monthly morbidity and mortality conferences where a patient’s treatment and outcome are analyzed for successes/mistakes.
Do lawyers/judge do that? Of course not. That would take their power away. It would take away their power to sit on their butts and “find” from thin air that there was “probability” that this or that “confused the jury” or created an appearance of impropriety or this or that.
I am NOT to be pigeon-holed into the dichotomy of the intellectually-lazy. I am pro-SCIENCE.
True science may sometimes yield answers which “liberal” like and sometimes answers which “conservatives” like.
But neither side wants true science because it could interfere with their agenda.
Please try hard to edit your responses to others of unnecessary material before attempting to impress others with your insight.
Some people are a waste of flesh and have no rhythm. They are ridiculous and obnoxious.
She was a drunk with power back at the height of her judicial career and because she was part of “None Higher” regularly drove drunk! Yet she and her ilk are so ready to throw the book at the little people. She rode her family coat tales and political connections to the top.
Haha yes she loves to drink.
She should absolutely not be on the bench and the immediate past chief justice should not be allowed back on the bench ever again. There are several other current judges who will mandatorily retire at the end of the year, one who makes up his own rules, who should never be able to put on a robe again. Of course they are all pals with a certain half ass attorney who has already commented on this thread.
Have the courage to name names and support what you say with OBJECTIVE facts or hold your peace.
Attorneys are in the business of perverting justice for monetary gain. Judge shopping allows them to do this.
That’s how Arnold Goldstein operates
Who is Arnold Goldstein?
Who’s Arnold Goldstein?
I believe you meant Arnold Goodstein.
All right! Who is Arnold Goodstein?
Arnold is an Attorney out of the lowcountry. His wife is a circuit court judge in the 1st.
“Flouted”, not “flaunted”. And I am not entirely sure that Judge Toal did anything wrong vis-a-vis the Alex Murdaugh issue.
Thanks for the correction. Had I make it, I would have been branded “uppity.”
I wish people would start correcting “comprised of” into “consisting of.”
Otherwise, Jurist Toal did plenty wrong in the Alex Murdaugh case as had Retired/Active Judge Clifton Newman.
“made it”, not “make it”
“made it,” not “make it”
She should have never been on the bench, much less Chief Justice. I believe as Chief Justice, her edicts were responsible for all courthouses in South Carolina now being armed camps, where citizens must now pass through metal scanners and endure humiliation, “because safety”.
Have you any idea against whom then-lawyer-legislator Jean Toal ran when first elected to SC’s Supreme Court in late 1987?
To spare your having to look it up, the other candidate was Rodney Peeples, who was later publicly reprimanded by SC’s Supreme Court for influencing his neighbor, Pauline, to leave all her property to Peeples’ two daughters in will Peeples himself drew and witnessed. See In the Matter of Rodney A. PEEPLES, Circuit Court Judge, Second Judicial Circuit, Respondent. Opinion No. 22934 by the Supreme Court of South Carolina. Case Heard October 18, 1988. Decided December 9, 1988. Published as 297 S.C. 36, 374 S.E.2d 674 (1988).
Peeples was also apparently the other bane of the railroad, with the Murdaugh law firm suing the railroad and Peeples ruling against the railroad.
AND YET, SC’s Legislature was then (and apparently still is) so anti-Catholic and anti-women that, even after Peeples withdrew, leaving Toal the only candidate, some scrambled to find another candidate to run against Toal until three days before the election.
But Jean Toal is Catholic only in the habit of crossing herself before and after prayers. Her support of the death penalty is definitely antagonistic to the Catholic Church’s current stance against the death penalty.
Any one who purports to be a Christian should always heed Jesus Christ’s rebuke, “I was a prisoner and you did not visit me. I was a stranger and you did not shelter me.”
Would someone PLEASE explain to me what so-called “conservatives” are really conserving?
Seven children, FITS? I thought you were recently blessed with Fritz, who augmented your brood to eight.
Or has the oldest already flown the nest?
Please reassure me because the other two possibilities are worrisome: you are becoming too stressed to count your children or, God forbid, one of them ….
“made it”, not “make it”
Continuing with Jean Toal’s self-identification as Catholic versus being a real Catholic or a real Christian for that matter.
Jesus Christ identified the love of money as the root of all evils; yet, all I hear and read from those who claim to be Christian “conservatives” in America is about money. More precisely, it is about taking someone else’s money.
The legal profession is basically taking someone else’s money to speak for them instead of allowing and equipping that other to speak for him/herself.
If any profession is an extension of the Pharisees who attacked Jesus Christ and insisted on His crucifixion, it is the 21st Century American lawyer, and more specifically, the South Carolina lawyer.
For that purpose (forcing people to pay money to the Pharisees) South Carolina judges and their aids were blithely and arrogantly willing to throw into a fearsome jail one who just demanded her BASIC human right to speak for herself.
Indeed, they were almost in competition as to who would devise the best plan to throw that would-be-speaker-for-herself in jail REPEATEDLY and keep her there.
They know who they are and the few who did not actively do it are still sinners by omission.
Perhaps a conscience after my repeated exhortations. Jesus Christ also gave the parable of the unfair judge who finally did the right thing after repeated exhortations.
Learn to find joy, not in the excess money you amass, but in the good you do.
An update, given FITS’ other story today, on Alex Murdaugh’s ACTUAL innocence may be appropriate here and now in light of another voice for Alex’s innocence having emerged:
SubZeroIQ has written extensively, thank God and due chapeau to FITS for letting most of it through, OBJECTIVE medical and scientific evidence of Richard Alexander Murdaugh’s (“RAM”) innocence.
It bears quick summarizing here that the Prosecution’s time of death is WRONG based on the victims’ stomachs’ contents of food that was too digested and too little for the deaths to have occurred ONLY 22 MINUTES after their known last, large and relatively fatty, meal.
RAM’s white T-shirt is THE one he wore to the kennels BECAUSE it has some blood from that chicken Bubba the dog killed. Because that shirt has NOT A SPECK of Paul’s blood or brain matter, RAM could NOT be the or a shooter.
Paul did not send his video of Cash the dog’s tail, NOT BECAUSE Paul was killed right after he made the video, BUT BECAUSE the video did NOT show “a pone” on Cash’s tail; and you see IN THAT VIDEO that Paul looks at his own hand after having slid Cash’s tail through it; and THERE IS NO PONE on Paul’s hand either. Therefore, Paul did not send the video because the video was USELESS and UNNECESSARY, and THE BATTERY, not Paul, DIED.
But there is MORE evidence which I noticed additionally, AND PROBABLY Alexander Blain, the present owner of Moselle noticed too.
The first two NONE LETHAL shots to Maggie are downward. Why?
My initial thought is the shooter is a short-statured FEMALE with experience AND MUSCLE MEMORY of shooting animals; she thus instinctively aims at the level of an average animal’s, not human’s, head.
NOTHING refuted that theory of SubZeroIQ’s.
But another theory is not mutually exclusive and emerges from the angles.
The shooters went to Moselle to SCARE Paul and Maggie out of disclosing that NO DOGS were involved in Gloria Satterfield’s death.
REMEMBER: by that time, Mandy Matney, Mark Tinsley, Eric Bland, AND the Satterfield heirs KNEW from court records there had been a settlement and that RAM had kept the loot for himself. But they were playing dumb about it.
They LIKELY tried to extort RAM but he responded that, if they do not buzz off, RAM will tell the truth (supported by Paul and Maggie) and no one gets anything.
So, Mandy Matney’s agents went to scare Paul and Maggie into silence about Gloria Satterfield’s NATURAL death (as opposed to death by dogs) but things got out of hand and the scarers had to silence Paul and Maggie forever.
So, Alex Blair COULD have the new evidence based on the angles of the first shots.
Now a new observation which Alex Blair COULD have gathered from the STRUCTURE of the henhouse which Alan Wilson suggest was as flimsy as a cardboard shipping box. SC’s AG had one in his arms while examining Kenny Kinsey, Ph D, in the Prosecution’s rebuttal.
First, a hen house could NEVER be constructed out of cardboard. The hens would have pecked through it in no time.
Second, cardboard COULD NOT hold the henhouse’s wood door and its metal hinges. These would have torn through the cardboard and fallen in not time.
So, there is much Alex Blair could have discovered in Moselle upon cool reflection.
But always ask who profits from what.
Unraveling…
Consider language in Murdaugh’s plea agreement and the significance of federal and state sentences running CONCURRENTLY …. and what happens to Murdaugh federal conviction if state verdict is overturned.
There is no parole in federal prison. State parole hinges on McMaster’s (or his successor’s) SCPPPS appointees… a moot point in case of state reversal.
If I’m not confused about this, it’s curious no attorneys have pointed out this chicanery.
I like your nom de plume, Be Kind Anyway, and hope you commented out of kindness.
I also hope you, and Dick and Jim, AND U.S. District Judge Gergel, AND SC Associate Justice Verdin, AND Retired/Active SC Circuit Judge Clifton Newman, and Retired/Active SC Chief Justice Jean Toal, take this comment of mine in the same kindness in which it was meant.
ALL of you have NOT been loved enough to allow you to be creative. The judicial system accepted you AND ELEVATED YOU only ON CONDITION that you worship it with all its flaws, which, in many instances amount to crimes and to misprision of felons, such as the prosecutors who suborn perjury.
Another commenter accused ME of “trying to impress with [my] insights.” Not in self-righteousness, but in desire to share the joy as while I have the duty to share the knowledge: You have NO IDEA how liberating it is to be concerned ONLY with what God thinks of me, not what other human beings think of me. As such, I do not need to put appearances because I have faith that God sees what is in my heart.
Going back to the SC lawyers and jurists I mentioned; but first stopping at SC Associate Justice Verdin. In the recently-released (but undated) video of her investiture, she acknowledged her parents’ disappointment that she went into law instead of Medicine BUT made belated amends to her parents by proudly introducing her twin sons as beginning medical students. Best to them and to all medical students.
I will not hide that I believe that Medicine is far superior to law, not because it is my profession, but because we study, and bow to, NATURE, not our predecessors.
Nature is never wrong. Lawyers’ predecessors MORE OFTEN THAN NOT are wrong. Yet “respected” jurists are expected to parrot their predecessors verbatim and glorify that mindlessness with Latin “stare decisis” or English “respect for precedent” or “rule of law” which is really rule of lawyers and bowing to emperors without clothes.
This is a long but necessary introduction to this bold but compelling statement: Once, God willing, Alex Murdaugh’s convictions or the murders are vacated, ALL his guilty pleas to “financial crimes” should be withdrawn as made by a DEPRESSED widower and bereft father STILL in the shock of having the death of his loved ones FALSELY pinned on him.
Judge Clifton Newman and Judge Gergel asked Richard Alexander Murdaugh (“RAM”) every question PRESCRIBED BY THEIR PREDESSORS IN LAW to determine if his guilty pleas were “knowing and intelligent.”
But they did NOT ask him the essential question: was he too depressed to make a “knowing and intelligent” decision?
And even if they had asked, how could RAM possibly know the correct answer?
To this day, Joe Biden is unaware of his age-and-repeated-CoViD-19-infections intellectual decline and insists on speaking in what TO HIS INTERNAL EAR sound like complete sentences but to the outside world are confusing ambiguous statements.
Had RAM not been depressed, he would have CORRECTLY seen what were called his “victims” AND THEIR LAWYERS for what they are: his greedy accomplices in the crime of exaggerated (if not outright fabricated) insurance claims. None of RAM’s so-called “victims” would have gotten a penny had any other lawyer represented them. These “tire separations,” (if these, not drunk driving, are the real cause of the auto accidents of RAM’s so-called “victims”) hardly get compensated in any other counties outside SC’s 14th Judicial District.
And I am still trying to figure out what that Moore’s and that J.J.’s injuries were that they so b—-ed at RAM for retaining part of the compensation for. Both Moore and J.J. look as strong as oxen and both continued gainful employment.
And of course, Gloria Satterfield’s heirs always knew, or should by now know, that there were no dogs but that Gloria dies of TERMINAL renal failure associated with chronic, poorly-managed diabetes.
And everyone plays dumb about “where the money is.” Everyone knows “the money” went BACK to insurance adjustors and lawyers who rolled over and paid OBVIOUSLY fraudulent (or, at the most charitable, wildly exaggerated) insurance claims.
And those who fawn over those “victims'” new lawyers are really dreaming that said lawyers would get new millions for any and every one willing to insult RAM.
In sum, the law should be advanced to include, before accepting a guilty plea, an OBJECTIVE examination of the criminal defendant’s PSYCHOLOGICAL ability to make a correct decision. After all, isn’t that where MOST false confessions come from? Psychological collapse.
FITS shall, God willing, win an award in courage if he lets this comment through.
To be clear, I’m talking about parole as it relates to the financial crimes. Life without parole for murders does not matter if state convictions are overturned. In this case, connecting sentencing in the federal financial crimes to the state murder convictions, ultimately gives the state court power over the federal court – an especially dangerous precedent when the state gaining more power is as corrupt as South Carolina.
Also, the SC judicial branch has been laying groundwork to scapegoat county clerks and county courthouses for quite awhile. It’ll be win-win for the state as the negative publicity for county courthouses can easily be parlayed into more control for the state.
Thank you, Be Kind Anyway, for your civilized response.
I, too, wish to be clear: there are NO financial crimes by Richard Alexander Murdaugh (“RAM”) which have been proven beyond reasonable doubt in either state or federal court to a jury of RAM’s peers OR admitted to by a defendant TRULY capable of making a knowing and intelligent decision about a guilty plea.
It matters not that RAM is himself a trained lawyer.
Trained lawyers can be so depressed as to make the ULTIMATE self-destructive decision of suicide. A most recent sad example is the prominent lawyer, Andrew Theodore Fiffick, IV, who was a key member who screened all candidates for state-wide judgeships from Master-in-Equity to Chief Justice.
Andy Fiffick suddenly took his own life this July, leaving behind an earthly-fatherless 8-year old girl and an earthly-fatherless 10-year-old boy. Yet no one, NOT ONE JUDGE among the many Andy Fiffick had eased into their seats, had the medical awareness and courage to say out loud that the law AS CURRENTLY PRACTICED saps people of the courage to confront and REMEDY problems.
Because, thank God, my training in the law is ENTIRELY self-tuition and unpolluted by the “a good lawyer knows the law, a great lawyer knows the judge” mentality, I have the courage to repeat here that RAM’s so-called “victims” of “financial crimes” are really his partners in the financial crimes of fraudulent (or wildly exaggerated) insurance claims. The essential partners for those “financial crimes” are the local insurance adjustors and insurance defense lawyers who roll over and pay huge settlements for dubious claims in return for kickbacks from the plaintiffs’ lawyers of RAM’s ilk.
Judges and prosecutors are playing dumb about that reality because, once they leave their state jobs and join private practice, they benefit from that corrupt system whether as plaintiffs’ lawyers or insurance defense lawyers.
The REAL victims are those of us immaculate drives who nonetheless see our mandatory insurance rates rise month after month because insurance companies pay huge settlements for invalid claims.