|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Nothing brings South Carolina Republicans and Democrats together quite like trial lawyer-backed legislation aimed at facilitating their representation of violent criminals. This legislative session, the ceaseless crusade by lawyer-legislators to alter the Palmetto State’s criminal codes is being advanced anew by state representatives Gil Gatch and Todd Rutherford. The two attorneys introduced legislation to remove a state statute that currently requires judges not give those who perpetrate crimes while on bond “time served” credit towards their sentences.
Current state law on computation of time served by served by prisoners (S.C. Code § 24-13-40) mandates that “when the prisoner commits a subsequent crime while out on bond” or has their “bond revoked on any charge prior to trial or plea,” the time they subsequently serve in jail may not count towards the service of their sentence in the event they are convicted.
Rutherford and Gatch propose striking this statute, giving judges the ability to reduce convict’s sentences for the time they spent incarcerated awaiting trial once arrested for another offense/once their bond is revoked.
Several South Carolina judges have been notorious for releasing criminal defendants back into the public – only for them to re-endanger the public by committing (or allegedly committing) other crimes.
***
***
In 2023, Gatch represented Walter Clayton Pate III of Charleston, S.C. – a man who benefited from a string of controversial judicial decisions after being accused of voyeurism, kidnapping, attempted murder and criminal sexual conduct.
On August 28, 2024 – while free on his controversially issued bond – Pate was arrested and charged again with two counts of voyeurism in Charleston County related to the initial alleged attack. Despite Pate being out on bond awaiting trial for alleged violent crimes at the time of the filing of the second charges, he was released after being granted a $25,000 surety bond by Charleston County magistrate Alvin E. Bligen.
While South Carolina’s broken judicial system allowed Gatch to score his client (a definitional danger to the public) dubious bonds, he evidently believes that had any South Carolina judge had enough common sense to hold Pate in pre-trial detention after he was charged with subsequent offenses, Pate should have had the ability to have the time he spent awaiting trial deducted from his eventual (hypothetical) sentence.
As with anyone accused of committing any crime, Pate is considered innocent until proven guilty by our criminal justice system – or until such time as he may wish to enter some form of allocution in connection with a plea agreement with prosecutors related to any of the charges filed against him.
“As someone who defends Constitutional rights, I have found inequities in the law that need to be cleaned up,” Gatch told FITSNews. “We all know that some prosecutors can be overzealous and trump up charges. In those cases, we need to protect individuals.”
“I agree with our Founding Fathers’ philosophy of innocent until proven guilty,” he concluded.
***
Gatch and Rutherford aren’t the only objectors to the current statute. The S.C. fifth circuit public defender’s office has petitioned the state’s supreme court to find that part of the law unconstitutional.
“The Constitution is clear, you cannot simply put somebody in jail ad infinitum,” Rutherford told FITSNews. “What the bond bill does is allow someone to potentially serve time in jail, get convicted of a second offense and be re-sentenced to that same amount of time – and not give them credit for the time that they’ve already served.”
“I know that there are people that think that that is a good idea. But they ought to be honest with everyone that they’re talking to and say that they don’t believe in the Constitution,” Rutherford said.
The high-profile defense attorney also noted the statute relies on the word “commit.” The statute specifically prohibits time-served credit for defendants “when the prisoner commits a subsequent crime while out on bond.”
(Click to view)
***
“We don’t use ‘committed’ anywhere else in the statute,” Rutherford said. “We don’t use ‘committed’ in criminal law. We use ‘convicted.'”
Rutherford argued South Carolina’s backlogged criminal dockets – in which prosecutors choose which cases are called – deprive citizens of justice by failing to expediently try those alleged to have committed crimes.
Federal law guarantees the rights of defendants by mandating that prosecutors follow a speedy schedule in bringing their cases to trial. That’s something not seen in South Carolina, where as many as one-third of all criminal cases have been backlogged in recent years.
Rutherford used the a hypothetical example of a re-arrested cocaine dealer named “Johnny” to illustrate his point.
“So Johnny, who got arrested on this possession of cocaine charge and is now sitting in jail for three years and cannot call his own case, and cannot move for a speedy trial and have that necessarily granted – he’s just sitting there,” Rutherford said. “The solicitor, when Johnny goes up to have his bond reconsidered says, ‘Oh, Johnny’s bad, Johnny got rearrested. Blah, blah, blah.’
“Well, solicitor, if he’s so bad, call his case, try Johnny and send him to the Department of Corrections,” Rutherford insisted.
***
***
S.C. first circuit solicitor David Pascoe – a longtime advocate for judicial reform – told FITSNews Rutherford’s constitutional arguments were “much ado about nothing,” adding that “if it is unconstitutional, the South Carolina supreme court will make that decision.”
“I trust the court’s legal acumen a lot more than a pair of criminal defense attorneys in the legislature,” Pascoe said.
Pascoe argued the purpose of the law Rutherford and Gatch intend to “gut” exists to “prevent violent criminals from violating bond.”
“The law compels criminals to respect court orders, their bill disincentivizes the statute’s goals,” Pascoe said.
According to him, such a move would “send us back to the wild west of revolving doors for criminals thumbing their noses at the authority of our courts.”
Count on FITSNews to keep tabs on the progress of this legislation through the S.C. General Assembly during the upcoming legislative session, scheduled to gavel to order this coming Tuesday (January 14, 2025).
***
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.
***
WANNA SOUND OFF?
Got something you’d like to say in response to one of our articles? Or an issue you’d like to address proactively? We have an open microphone policy! Submit your letter to the editor (or guest column) via email HERE. Got a tip for a story? CLICK HERE. Got a technical question or a glitch to report? CLICK HERE.
7 comments
No reference to the former Honorable Bentley Douglas Price who enabled these two political chuckle heads!
Rutherford and Gatch are both liberal POS!
It’s a shame that Lindsey graham blocked Pascoe from being the u s attorney these past 4 years. He may be a democrat but he is extremely honest and would zealously go after crooked politicians in both parties. I’m sure Rutherford made some calls to graham to make sure he couldn’t get the nomination
Gatch and Rutherford should be ashamed! They don’t care that the state is over run with these misfits that are allowed to continue to perpetrate even more crimes as they are out on bond. I have no words to fully describe my disgust with these two and all lawyer legislators who screw the system every chance they get. They are a pain in the a$$!
Bad Lawyers everywhere. At least because SC has no statute of limitations on criminal offenses, we can go back to the 1980s and 1990s on crimes they should have been charged with but were protected from by their crony friends and other lawyers and crooked judges ). The evidence against them is beyond letting them get away this time.
Gatch is full clown show who calls himself a con conservative republican. Servant of the people??? More like serving his own bank account
While I think Gatch and Rutherford are decent and intelligent people, they are the prime examples of Lawyer Legislators that citizens are sick and tired of. REAL judicial reform can and will happen, but what these 2 want to reform is exacerbated “junk-law”. I encourage House Judicial Chairman Weston Newton and Senate Judicial Chairman Luke Rankin to kill any proposal such as these two have in mind.