Crime & CourtsPolitics

Watch: Lowcountry House Candidate Campaigns on Family Court Reform

“I know this judge is buddies with my ex’s lawyer. It doesn’t matter what my lawyer says. I’m going to jail if I go in front of this judge.”

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Fourth-generation veteran turned political candidate Carlton Walker is running for South Carolina House District 15 in Charleston and Berkeley counties, and has put reforming the Palmetto State’s court system at the top of his agenda.

Walker isn’t your typical political candidate. He’s proud to have spent the early years of his life in his family’s trailer park.

In fact, he smatters his campaign website with pictures of himself as a baby watching his grandfather fix a trailer’s roof – and of himself managing the park after his grandfather passed many years later.

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Walker served in the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Wasp, where he worked on the flight deck during 1993 during combat operations in Somalia. After the Navy, Walker went on to become a prodigious Cutco knife salesman, repeatedly breaking company records by making hundreds of thousands of dollars of sales in the Charleston area.

Walker is now a residential builder, having previously worked as a skilled laborer in numerous trades. He decided to run for office after experiencing what he maintains was unfair treatment during a child custody case.

FITSNews has been investigating the potential for fraud and corruption in South Carolina’s family courts, and wanted to hear directly from Walker as to what he feels the state is doing wrong – and what he’d change if voters were to send him to Columbia this November.

Walker began with a story from Navy boot camp.

“After having our butts busted for three days straight… my company commander unfurls this American flag in in the center of our company,” Walker recalled. “And he tells all 60 guys to gather around, grab a thumb and a finger on the flag”

“All of a sudden, he says, ‘I want you to look at every single man in this room,’ and we’re like, man, what is he doing?” Walker continued. “And then all of a sudden, he says one of the most profound things I’ve ever heard in my entire life, he says, ‘some of you in this room are never going to make it out of the United States military alive. You’re going to die what the Constitution stands for and defending this flag that you’re holding right now.'”

Walker’s expressed gratitude he didn’t die in defense of the nation and Constitution, but acknowledged those who did. He also expressed frustration with perceived injustices in the S.C. family court system which put constitutional liberties at risk.

“For all those who gave all, you’re going to tell me, in my state we have courts that are not following the Constitution?” he said.

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Walker argued the state’s current family court processes are violative of the Sixth, Seventh and Fourteenth Amendments.

Walker believes family court litigants sentenced to jail time for civil violations are entitled to the same legal protections as those facing jail time for criminal charges.

“If you are going into family court for a rule to show because your ex said, ‘Hey, you broke this rule’ and they’re asking for criminal contempt… you’re looking at criminal time,” he said.

Walker cited the S.C. supreme court’s ruling in DiMarco v. DiMarco, which he said concluded “that our family court is violating parents’ rights by locking them up without an option for a jury trial.”

Former chief justice Jean Toal‘s majority opinion reversed a family court’s contempt order “because the sanction ordered by the family court violate(d) petitioner’s rights under the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

Walker pointed to the penchant of South Carolina’s notoriously incestuous judicial system to deliver verdicts based on the personal connections of those representing the litigants.

“I want a jury to decide if I’m going to jail, because I know this judge is buddies with my ex’s lawyer,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what my lawyer says. I’m going to jail if I go in front of this judge.”

Conversely, “a jury doesn’t care about that relationship.”

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RELATED | JUDICIAL CORRUPTION: FAMILY COURT OFTEN OVERLOOKED

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Walker also pointed to what he believes is the habitual violation of another foundational liberty.

“The Seventh Amendment says any civil amount over $20, you have the right to raise your hand and say, I want a jury to decide if I have to pay this $20,” he said.

Virtually every alimony or child support payment ordered in South Carolina is over this constitutional threshold, however.

“Our neighbor state Georgia offers jury trials and family court for child support, alimony, legal fees,” Walker said. “Because, guess what, if you have a jury say you’re paying this, you can’t bitch.”

“The only way to break that favoritism and nepotism is a jury,” he concluded.

Walker cited Texas as the only state in the nation to respect the Fourteenth Amendment in its family court process, arguing parents are entitled to jury trials when facing the potential loss of of one of their children.

“Texas is the only state… that abides by the Fourteenth Amendment in family court,” he said. “If the state is trying to take away your kid (on) an emergency basis, sure they’ll take your kid – but guess what, within 90 days, you have an option to have a jury decide if the state can continue to keep your kid.”

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“Well, why would you want a jury?” Walker asked. “Oh, because your ex’s lawyers buddies with the judge that’s sitting on the bench that you’re going to go in front of.”

“The only way to break that relationship is to have a jury,” he said. “Because, guess what, the jury does not care that your ex’s lawyer goes out fishing with that judge and fills up that that guy’s boat with gas when they go out.”

Walker faces an uphill battle as he vies for a seat currently held comfortably by a Democrat. During the 2022 election, incumbent JA Moore won with 56.83 percent of the vote. During the last presidential election, however, Moore received just 51.81 percent of the vote.

In an attempt to put partisanship aside, Walker has been campaigning on the slogan: “Whether you vote red or blue, vote Carlton Walker, he’s for you.”

Regardless of whether he is elected to implement change in Columbia, Walker pledged to continue to advocate for reform to the state’s family court system.

“I put my life on the line in 1993 on the flight deck in Somalia, I had some Marine buddies …” Walker said, his voice trailing off as he recalled friends who didn’t return from home. “They didn’t do all this for for us to have lawyers and judges not following the Constitution. I don’t know if anybody can disagree with me.”

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …

(Via: Travis Bell)

Dylan Nolan is the director of special projects at FITSNews. He graduated from the Darla Moore school of business in 2021 with an accounting degree. Got a tip or story idea for Dylan? Email him here. You can also engage him socially @DNolan2000.

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1 comment

Bow Tie Albert October 30, 2024 at 3:36 pm

Does this judge know Segars-Andrews and why she was kicked off the SC family court bench?

Reply

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