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by DYLAN NOLAN
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Four-term South Carolina attorney general and 2026 gubernatorial candidate Alan Wilson has unveiled a slate of judicial reform proposals ahead of his final legislative session as the Palmetto State’s top prosecutor.
Wilson convened the media this Thursday (October 30, 2025) in the lower lobby of the S.C. State House – just outside of the governor’s office – to announce his support for a number of criminal justice reforms including stricter bond conditions for violent and repeat offenders, harsher sentences for child predators, a rebalancing of the state’s judicial selection commission and a 21st century information system to preserve the records of violent criminals.
“One of the greatest pleasures I’ve had serving as attorney general for this last 15 years is the opportunity to work with the amazing men and women who work in our criminal justice system,” Wilson stated, lamenting that many of these individuals “are out there doing the very best that they can in a criminal justice system that sometimes is riddled with holes, gaps and flaws.”
Wilson said his final legislative press conference as attorney general was “to talk about some reforms that I have been advocating for, not just this year, but over the last 15 years.”
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Wilson recounted his efforts on behalf of legislation to change how South Carolina selects its circuit court judges. The state’s current model features a constitutionally mandated Judicial Merit Selection Comission (JMSC) that has allowed a small group of highly-influential lawyer-legislators to have an outsized role in hiring and firing of jurists.
“Two years ago, I went to the legislature and I lobbied,” Wilson said. “I lobbied across the state. I went and gave hundreds of speeches and met with members of the General Assembly and pushed them to reform the way that we elect judges in South Carolina.”
Wilson called the JMSC reform bill passed last legislative session “a great first step,” but emphasized “it was only a first step.”
While Wilson acknowledged the lack of political will to amended the state’s constitution to remove the JMSC entirely, he expressed his support for giving the governor full authority to appoint all JMSC members.
“This is important because everyone can vote for their house member and their senator but but they cannot vote for the other 168 members of the General Assembly,” Wilson noted. “(But) everyone gets to vote for and against the governor.”
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In addition to proposing a change to the panel that screens potential judges, Wilson advocated for the creation of a mechanism to remove judges for cause prior to the expiration of their lengthy term on the bench.
“I am calling on the General Assembly to create a vehicle for a retention election,” Wilson said. “When a judge violates the judicial canons or is habitually drunk or habitually abusive or refuses to keep violent criminals in jail when the law otherwise requires them to keep them locked up – there needs to be a vehicle for calling them to the General Assembly and calling for a basically vote of no confidence, a retention vote.”
Who would call for the retention election – and the exact details of how those elections would be conducted – would need to be hashed out with legislators, Wilson said.
The veteran prosecutor expressed hope that lawmakers would aid themselves – and the public – in determining which jurists appropriately exercised their authority by mandating the production of judicial transparency reports summarizing how jurists have ruled in cases they’ve presided over.
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“This judicial ruling transparency report would give the people of South Carolina full transparency,” Wilson said, noting how the document would let the public see “how judges are ruling, whether they’re letting violent criminals out, or what the average number of years they’re giving in a sentence.”
In addition to the aforementioned slate of reforms, Wilson advocated for a number of policies that would crack down on repeat violent criminals and sexual offenders. For starters, he proposed giving the governor the authority to appoint sixteen new circuit court judges – one for each of the state’s judicial circuits – in an attempt to alleviate the state’s lengthy judicial backlog.
“We are going to create 16 additional terms of court that can move the backlog of violent criminal cases,” Wilson said.
He also called to further tighten bond statutes in an effort to staunch the flow of repeat violent offenders who are routinely granted bonds under the state’s current statutes.
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“We need to continue to enforce no bond for violent offenders and repeat offenders, people who come back with a repeat violent offense do not need to be let out on bond,” Wilson said, adding there is a low on the books that already demands these individuals remain incarcerated as they await trial “but that does not always happen.”
Wilson noted the state’s pre-trial reform commission was supposed to have met “last summer, and it was supposed to make findings and recommendations to the General Assembly.”
“I don’t know that that commission has met – but I think it should be permanent,” Wilson said he believes the committee “should be standing, and I think every year it should be required to do a report to the General Assembly on findings and recommendations on the state of our criminal justice system.”
He also expressed his support for requiring cash bonds for “serious offenses.”
Wilson touted his expansion of the state’s internet crimes against children (ICAC) program, and called for a stiffening of the statutorily prescribed penalties for sexual offenders. He also expressed his willingness to take a case to test the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2008 ruling in Kennedy v. Louisiana – which held that sentencing a defendant to death for any crime other than homicide or crimes against the state is unconstitutional per se under the Eighth Amendment.
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“I’m looking for a test case to give the Supreme Court, this new Supreme Court, a chance to get it right,” Wilson said. “I believe that we need to implement the death penalty for people capable of doing that to the most vulnerable in our society.”
Wilson also asked lawmakers to raise both minimums and maximums when it comes to sentencing for sexual predators.
“Currently under South Carolina law first degree exploitation of a minor is a mandatory minimum of three to twenty years,” Wilson said. “My proposal would be a minimum of 25 years in prison. If you’re coercing a child or producing child sex abuse material, basically child porn, the penalty should be just as stiff, because these are the people who are capable of manufacturing child porn are also capable of raping children.”
Wilson also spoke of his desire to stiffen penalties for those found guilty of distributing child pornography, advocating for a ten year minimum and twenty year maximum sentence.
And for those found in possession of the child pornography – Wilson called for stiffer mandatory minimum sentences, noting the current statute has no mandatory minimum term of imprisonment.
“We want to give sentencing enhancements based on the age, violence and quantity of photos and videos held,” he said. “So it could start at a certain level, and based on the severity of the possession of child porn, it could go up to seven to ten years.”
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He also proposed the state impose a mandatory minimum sentence for those found to be in possession of child porn for a second time.
In addition to his proposed sentencing reforms, Wilson cited a loophole in the Palmetto State’s criminal justice system made painfully clear by the murder of 22-year-old Logan Hailey Federico – allegedly committed by career criminal Alexander Devonte Dickey near the campus of the University of South Carolina in downtown Columbia, S.C. on May 3, 2025.
Dickey was no stranger to law enforcement. His criminal history included more than 40 arrests, but was prematurely put back on the streets after being sentenced as a first-time offender because prior convictions from other counties were missing from his South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) “CATCH” report.
“This was a preventable thing,” Federico’s father Stephen Federico told FITSNews. “This wasn’t some guy that just went off the rails one night. This guy had a 10-year criminal history. The system failed. It failed Logan.”
Wilson proposed a digital overhaul to consolidate the state’s dozens of record-keeping systems into one universally accessible database.
“You have thousands of people with inputs into the criminal justice system, and all it takes is for one of those human beings to make a mistake,” Wilson said, proposing South Carolina follow in North Carolina’s footsteps by establishing “a state of the art integrated Criminal Justice Information Program,” similar to the Tar Heel State’s CJLEADS information system.
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South Carolina families deserve a fair, transparent and accountable judicial system. I've long argued the current system allows select legislators to hand pick judges without meaningful checks from the executive branch. Right now, the Governor doesn't have a seat at the table… pic.twitter.com/VfvXu4ugrG
— Alan Wilson (@AGAlanWilson) October 20, 2025
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Wilson’s sweeping reform proposals come as a coalition of conservative lawmakers spanning the party’s center and far-right factions have united behind a DOGE SC bill which would empower the state’s executive to appoint members to the JMSC.
While Wilson didn’t mention the DOGE bill specifically during his prepared remarks, he did clarify to members of the media that he supports the proposal in principle.
Wilson noted he has pursued the passage of many of the aforementioned reforms for a decade and a half, but that many similar pushes “fell by the wayside due to special interests.” When FITSNews asked him who those interests were – and why this time would be different – he pointed to the individuals who benefit from the state’s current criminal justice system.
“The special interest might come from people who stand to lose power if they lose the ability to control the selection and the vetting mechanisms,” for judges.
“I’m not going to call out individual names, because at the end of the day, I think most people want to have good government, but there are some people out there in all three branches of government who benefit from the current system,” he said. “My job is it’s not about benefiting any one group or special interest or stakeholder. It’s about benefiting the people of South Carolina.”
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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10 comments
Curious. Who are the habitually abusive and drunk judges Alan Wilson is talking about?
This is nonsense. You aren’t a news site, you are a paid for lobbying blog.
And if if you disagree, come on and say it. Tell us in writing you don’t get paid to spew this bullshit. Any time any place. Bet you won’t.
I can name several, they are ironically the same ones who refuse to hand out stiff sentences to pedos
Don’t get me wrong, Wilson is a terrible attorney and very disingenuous since he perpetuated the system. He couldn’t even try cases as AG because of his ineptitude. All of those sheriffs are hanging around hoping he wins so they have a shot at the SLED chiefs job. It’s no secret that Wilson is no fan of Chief Keel ever since Keel called him out during the state house corruption investigation that involved Wilson’s political handlers.
Wilson never spoke out about Jean Toal’s alcoholism and her crashes into park vehicles and leaving the scene. Her excuses were pathetic.
In one of her hit and runs, a responding officer went to her house to questioned her. The officer reported she smelled of alcohol And at the time in that case, she was the Chief Justice for the SC Supreme Court. Another incident, she smashed into a vehicle at a parking garage and left the scene.
SC is run by special interests groups. A “ fair, transparent and accountable judicial system “ will never be found in this corrupt state
Wilson never spoke out about Jean Toal’s alcoholism and her crashes into park vehicles and leaving the scene. Her excuses were pathetic.
In one of her hit and runs, a responding officer went to her house to questioned her. The officer reported she smelled of alcohol And at the time in that case, she was the Chief Justice for the SC Supreme Court. Another incident, she smashed into a vehicle at a parking garage and left the scene.
When you have local state police departments spying on you and hacking your devices withOUT lawful subpoenas, that is Wilson’s idea of LAW AND ORDER.
Yes. It goes on. Be careful, Will.
GREAT
GREAT
Like everyone, I’m for “Law and Order,” in South Carolina, but also in Washington. So Attorney General Wilson, what is your stand on releasing the Epstein Files? Nancy Mace has publicly supported it, how about you?