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by DAVID PASCOE
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Here we go again. Another round of cronyism at the Statehouse. Another example of insiders elevating insiders at the expense of the people of South Carolina. And this time, the stakes could not be higher, because they are doing it with our Supreme Court.
While the latest scandal doesn’t involve the election of a legislator’s spouse, cousin, or child like past elections, it is just as outrageous: Jay Lucas, the former Speaker of the House, is now telling legislators that the mandatory retirement age of 72 does not apply to him as he seeks a ten-year term on the South Carolina Supreme Court. He is 68. That means if he wins, he plans to serve well past the age every other judge in this state has respected for decades.
When asked directly whether he believed he could serve until age 79 or 80, he told the Judicial Merit Selection Commission (JMSC), “I think I can serve my entire term.”
Just like that. No hesitation. No humility. No respect for the law. A former Speaker telling the Legislature, who elects the judges, that the rules simply do not apply to him.
This is exactly what happens when a political class owns the judiciary. They believe they are untouchable.
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Let’s be clear: the issue is not Jay Lucas’ age. It is the corrupt system that allows a former Speaker, a man who led the very lawmakers who now control the JMSC, to walk into a hearing and declare himself exempt from the law.
This is what I have been warning about for years. This is why I have spoken to Republican groups across the state for the last four years demanding JMSC reform. This is why I testified in the House that lawyer-legislators should have zero control over choosing judges.
Because if you allow legislators to elect the judges they practice in front of, you will get exactly what we have now – a judiciary that serves politicians instead of the people.
A judiciary where:
A former Speaker believes he can rewrite the law with a shrug.
Conflicts of interest are not the exception but the rule.
A system where judges look over their shoulder to make sure not to offend a lawyer legislator on the JMSC.
Power, not justice, determines who gets a seat on the state’s highest court.
John Crangle said it plainly: Lucas’ interpretation of the law is “a brazen violation” of both the Attorney General’s opinion and the intent of the statute. He’s right. And every South Carolinian should be furious that this is even being debated.
Our judiciary must be a place of integrity, independence, and equal justice under the law. Instead, our legislature is turning it into a political spoils system, where those with influence get rewarded and those without it get run over.
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RELATED | DAVID PASCOE: JUDGE ME BY MY ENEMIES
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When I led the recent Statehouse corruption probe, the political class and their consultants did everything they could to stop me.
And now, here we are watching that same old guard try to elevate one of its own members to the Supreme Court while pretending the rules don’t apply.
The citizens of South Carolina deserve better than this. They deserve an independent judiciary they can trust. They deserve judges selected on merit, not political connections. They deserve a system where no man, not even a former Speaker, is above the law.
When are the people of South Carolina going to rise up and say enough is enough? I believe that 2026 is the year. If not now, never.
If we want a justice system that actually delivers justice, then we have to dismantle the cronyism that has infected our system for decades. We need real JMSC reform. We need to remove lawyer-legislators from judicial selection. We need to end the era of insiders appointing insiders.
And we need leaders who are not afraid to call it what it is: corruption.
I fought it before. I’ll fight it again. South Carolina deserves nothing less.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
David Pascoe is solicitor for South Carolina’s first judicial circuit, which includes Calhoun, Dorchester and Orangeburg counties. He is a Republican candidate for attorney general of the Palmetto State.
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8 comments
Supposedly that was Lucas’ whole reason for leaving the house. Block this clown and any other legislator that thinks they deserve to be in the judicial system, Citizens are sick and tired of the corrupt SC leadership game. All at our expense
And Pascoe is correct on every point he made. The biggest roadblock he faced in the corruption probe was none other than swamp creature Alan Wilson. Wilson wanted to whitewash everything and same courts helped him stop Pascoe from digging deeper.
Right Cody, who cares if he has integrity!
The “law” David Pascoe wants Mr. Jay Lucas to worship is unscientific, unnatural, anachronistic, and UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
By what magic was it decided that a man or woman cannot serve as a judge after age 72?
That “law,” and the judiciary which once long ago upheld it, should be under SCIENTIFIC attack because it promotes MAGICAL THINKING (which includes belief that judges have magical powers to know what is reasonable and what it unreasonable and that they pass those MAGICAL POWERS by figuratively laying their hands on selected lawyers, mainly prosecutors.
And some of the prosecutors on whom South Carolina’s supreme court figuratively laid their magical-powers-transmitting hands include those who gave this state and this county the travesty of Richard Alexander Murdaugh’s (“RAM”) two-murder FALSE conviction.
But thank God, (1) I survived the most recent episode (few minutes ago) of my numerous-false-arrests-caused angina, which episode caused me to wake up with chest pain a couple of hours ago; (2) my vision is not too blurry to post this or to review selected parts of the official transcript; and (3) THE OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT of RAM’s two-murder trial is now available in digital (meaning word searchable format) on C-Track on South Carolina’s Judicial Branch’s website.
My preliminary review of excerpts CONFIRMS my assertion that Paul and Maggie COULD NOT HAVE BEEN SHOT as early as only 22 minutes after their KNOWN large, and relatively fatty, last meal.
It also CONFIRMS that the Prosecution KNEW IT and did everything possible to distract from that exonerating fact:
FIRST, Creighton Waters peremptorily struck an otherwise-qualified juror SOLELY BECAUSE he is a pathologist.
OFFICIAL TANSCRIPT pp 403-404:
[19-20] THE COURT: Thank you, sir. Just wanted to confirm since I saw you hesitated to get up.
[21] THE JUROR: Oh, I’m fine.
[22] THE COURT: But you sound good to me.
[23-24] THE JUROR: I work full-time at the hospital as a pathologist, so I’m fine.
[25 to page 404, line 2] THE COURT: Oh, okay, good. Thank you, sir. You can go back and stand right where you — in front of the bench and we’ll see —
[3] THE JUROR: Back there with those people?
[4-5] THE COURT: No. Right in front there by the clerk. He’ll show you.
[6] THE JUROR: Oh, okay. Thank you. Okay.
[7] THE COURT: He’s good to go.
[8-9] (All parties returned to the courtroom. Jury selection continued.)
[10] THE CLERK: What say you for the State?
[11] MR. WATERS: Please excuse the juror from this case.
[12-13] THE CLERK: Juror 22, you can have a seat back with the panel.
[14] Juror 729. What say you for the State?
[15] MR. WATERS: Please present this juror.
[16] THE CLERK: What say you for the defendant?
[17] MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Swear this juror.
[18] THE CLERK: Have a seat to your right.
[19] Juror 864. What say you for the State?
[20] MR. WATERS: Please present this juror.
[21] THE CLERK: What say you for the defendant?
[22] MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Please swear the juror.
[23-25] THE CLERK: If you will have a seat to your right, please. Your Honor, that’s your twelve.
NEXT and ETCETERA, please stay tuned to, God willing and FITS permitting, my future posts.
For more on why the system must be SCIENTIFICALLY challenged instead of worshipping laws made my magic-mongering men, first praise God I stayed alive and y’all stayed tuned for the second proof that the Prosecution KNEW that Paul and Maggie had together a dinner of the same contents, which dinner ended at 8:30 pm on 7 June 2021.
That proof is again from THE OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT of RAM’s two-murder trial, which transcript is available on C-Track and shows, at page 432, lines 9-22, Creighton Waters telling the jury:
I told you that you’re going to hear evidence that Maggie did not like being in Moselle as much as she liked Edisto, the beach house, but that on June 7, 2021, she came back to Moselle. And the evidence is going to show that she arrived about 8:15, and the evidence is going to show that — from the cell phones that Paul was there at the house, at the main house, and Alex Murdaugh himself says that they ate dinner. And the autopsy is going to reflect both Paul and Maggie having similar stomach contents, indicating that they recently shared a meal together.
About 8:30, like 15 minutes after they arrived, Paul’s phone starts moving towards the kennels.
Please pray for my continued survival from this angina and stay tuned for more exculpatory excerpts, God so willing and FITS permitting.
And is “justice” what was done in South Carolina’s “trial of the century”?
Before, God so willing, I proceed to the clincher of the Prosecution KNOWING the relationship between the last meal and the more precise timing of death, I destroy the Prosecution’s unfairly in the media (before, during, AND after trial) ridiculing the Defense’s two-shooter theory as some midget vigilantes who rode by Moselle hoping to find guns lying around.
I often wrote my REASONABLE conclusion that Maggie was shot with Paul’s PREVIOUSLY-STOLEN $8K gun.
Think of it: what would someone do with such an expensive gun? Resell or re-paint it and use it. So, the REAL SHOOTER could be the thief of Paul’s stolen gun OR have could have bought it from the real thief.
NOTHING impossible, implausible, or irrational about either possibility.
Now notice what the Prosecution’s own expert admitted at page 353, lines 12-17, OF THE OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT under oath but after considerable obfuscation:
A Based on my examination, those are the marks that I was able to conclude that matched. When I looked at the totality of that cartridge, that fired cartridge case, excuse me, to look at the firing pin or breach face marks, I was unable to determine that — if it was fired by the Item 33 rifle, or by another rifle that was similar.
Noticed “or by another rifle that was similar”?
The expensive guns Richard Alexander Murdaugh (“RAM”) bought for Paul and Buster were IDENTICAL but for the color. Paul’s was stolen, replaced, and the replacement, too, stolen. But Buster’s gun, which was often “borrowed” by Paul (after losing TWO SIMILAR guns) and friends, was staying put and minding its own business in the Moselle gun room on 7 June 2021.
That Buster’s rifle is the rifle taken from the Moselle gun room by the investigators and labeled State Exhibit 33.
Prove me wrong if you can.
Between a prosecutor who wants judges to ignore the Eighth Amendment and a politician who may bring his legislative skills to the bench, I would choose the latter IF I were a voter.
The two appellate jurists opposing Jay Lucas could have saved the State much shame and treasure and spared wrongly-prosecuted people much suffering, had that judiciary insisted that SUBSTANTIVE due process includes all available methods to precisely time all unwitnessed murders.
Please read on with an open mind.
Dr. Ellen Riemer spoke of Paul and Maggie’s stomach contents in milliliters, which due to the specific gravity OF WATER being 1, converts to grams OF THE SAME NUMBER. One cc of water is one milliliter of water and weighs one gram.
Now that the OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT of Richard Alexander Murdaugh’s (“RAM”) two-murder trial is out, I comfortably confirm what I have been asserting for almost three years now: the food in Paul and Maggie’s stomachs at autopsy was too little and too digested for them to have died ONLY 22 MINUTES after their KNOWN large, and relatively fatty, last meal.
Although no stomach contents photos were apparently entered at trial, Dr. Riemer’s testimony leads to ONLY ONE SCIENTIFICALLY-BASED conclusion: Paul and Maggie died around 9:30 pm, NOT as early as 8:44 pm, on 7 June 2021.
And here is Dr. Riemer’s testimony on direct examination by Creighton Waters in the State’s case-in-chief:
[Page 3381, lines 10-11] Q Did both Maggie and Paul, did you make any observations about their stomach contents?
[12-21] A Yes. So part of the autopsy, I’m not just looking at the wounds. I’m examining all of the internal organs, and when I — this is how I knew it went through the pancreas and the kidney. Because, remember, I’m not just looking outside of the body. I have to — I do everything, look at all of the internal organs and dissect each one. And it — when examining the stomach it’s — I will document the contents of the stomach, and they each had a lot of recently digested food fragments. So, you know, there was a — they had a full stomach of food.
[22 Q And were those stomach contents consistent with one another?
[24 to page 3382, line ] A Yeah, they looked identical to each other. They were kind of gray/tan, you know. I couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but it may have included meat. I didn’t see any corn or, you know, green beans or anything like that. But whatever it was, they were identical to each other. And I believe she had 600 MLs, which is, like, it’s — 450 MLs is a pound, so it’s like almost one and a half pounds of food. And he had 500 MLs, which is a little bit more than a pound. But they looked similar like they may have shared a meal together.
Those 500 or 600 ccs of “tan/gray” “couldn’t tell exactly what it was” is LIKELY half coffee because they had high caffeine in their toxicology report but is definitely TOO DIGESTED for the first 22 minutes after the last meal.
The Prosecution knew it but counted on the Defense to miss it. The Defense continues to ignore that part, either out of embarrassment for having missed it ab initio OR out the local legal “profession’s” obsession with discrediting me even if it means leaving their client rotting in a wrongful incarceration.
Next, God so willing and FITS permitting, I shall quote a part from Blanca Simpson’s testimony which proves the Prosecution was keen on blind-siding the Defense about the REAL time of death.
David Pascoe wants us to believe the judges consider ONLY the pleasure of the lawyers-legislators who elect them.
What about RETIRING judges who consider the pleasure of the law firms or industrial companies which hire the retired judges as partners or as general counsel as Nexsen-Pruitt (now Maynard-Nexsen) hired Billy Wilkins and as Boeing hired Michael Luttig?
Does David Pascoe want us to ignore those?
What about the politicians who install retired judges on commissions as Governor McMaster did for Dennis Shedd?
Or what about Alan Wilson hiring W. Jeffrey Young, who “retired” vey young, pun indented?
Does David Pascoe want us to ignore those?
What about rogue prosecutors who hire retired judges as Hatchet-for-Hire Heather (Heather Weiss). when she was Interim 5th Circuit Solicitor, did for Royce Knox McMahon, who (as Hatchet-for-Hire’s employee) could not even win a conviction against a pro se criminal defendant?
Heck! What about the pleasure of South Carolina’s Chief Justice who, ALONE and at his/her SOLE PLEASURE, doles out the court assignments of retired judges/justices?
Does David Pascoe want us to ignore those?
And if David Pascoe’s answer is for South Carolina’s governor to appoint judges as the U.S. President appoints federal judges with the advice and consent of the senate, the Governor DOES appoint a whole category of jurists: COUNTY MAGISTRATES with the advice and consent of the state senate.
How miserably many of those appointments proved to be with the number of county magistrates reprimanded, removed from office, or arrested?
Does David Pascoe want us to believe that judges consider ONLY the pleasures of lawyers legislators?
WHAT IS THE ANSWER THEN?
My answer, free from false humility, is: (1) VERY STRICT recusal laws; and (2) laws which permit the reopening of any case where it can be proven that the presiding or contributing judge acted out of personal interest.
Remember the Cash-for-Kids scandal in Pennsylvania, which scandal resulted, among other things, in the reopening of all juvenile convictions by Former Judge Ciavarella, but too late for one juvenile who committed suicide in Ciavarella-ordered detention?
Do you know that the U.S. is the ONLY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD where a federal judge may sit on the case of his paternal-paternal first cousin?
And with more frequent co-habitation without benefit of clergy, why are judicial candidates NOT required to disclose the personal and financial interests of “life partners” as they are required to disclose spouses?
David Pascoe’s attack on Jay Lucas is snake oil.
So long as we recognize that the men and women who aspire to judicial positions may be influenced, the answer is broader and stricter disclosure and recusal laws, not exclusion of a category from judicial service SOLELY for age or previous public service.