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by JENN WOOD
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For years, South Carolina families have come to the State House with the same plea: fix the gaps that have failed us — so they don’t fail someone else.
In some cases, lawmakers responded with sympathy, public support, and promises to act. In others, they acknowledged the problem outright — even conceding the state lagged far behind the rest of the country.
Yet as the 2025–2026 legislative session moves deeper into its second year, several bills born directly out of those failures remain stalled — not because they were rejected, but because time is running out.
Under South Carolina’s two-year legislative cycle, bills that fail to advance before the end of the session don’t carry over, they expire — forcing advocates and sponsors to start over, regardless of how long families have already waited. Or how close those bills may have made it to the finish line.
While there are still more than a dozen weeks left on the legislative calendar, time is running out for several pieces of legislation FITSNews has followed closely:
- H.3602 (Jaden’s Law) — This bill was drafted after a fatal 2020 boating incident exposed deep cracks in emergency response and investigative procedures on South Carolina waterways.
- H.3522 and S.455 — These are companion bills aimed at making non-fatal strangulation a standalone felony, a change advocates say is long overdue in a state that has repeatedly been called out as the last national holdout.
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JADEN’S LAW: A BILL BORN FROM WHAT WENT WRONG
FITSNews first reported on the death of 19-year-old Jaden Phillips and the aftermath that followed — an aftermath his parents say was marked by confusion, delays, and missed opportunities for accountability.
On May 16, 2020, Phillips suffered catastrophic head injuries during a boating incident on the Congaree River. By the time help arrived at the Bates Bridge landing, precious minutes had already been lost — minutes compounded by jurisdictional confusion, misdirected emergency calls, and an investigation that, according to civil filings, did not begin in earnest until days later.
As detailed in our prior reporting, no field sobriety or breathalyzer testing was conducted on the boat’s operator at the scene. The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) — the agency responsible for boating investigations — was not promptly notified. And critical investigative steps that would be routine in a roadway crash were either delayed or never taken.
The Phillips family’s push for answers eventually led to Jaden’s Law — an effort to close those gaps by standardizing how serious boating incidents are handled, from dispatch protocols to scene security and mandatory investigative steps.
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The bill was prefiled in December 2024 and introduced in January 2025. It was immediately referred to the House Judiciary Committee, where it has remained for more than a year.
In that time, additional lawmakers have added their names as sponsors, most recently in January 2026 — a sign that support for the idea has grown.
But the legislation has not moved. No hearing has been scheduled. No committee vote has been taken. And without action, the bill faces the prospect of expiring before it is ever debated on the House floor.
For the Phillips family, that risk is painfully familiar.
“If the story remains the same, so will the ending,” they have said — a warning they hoped lawmakers would treat as a call to action, not a prophecy.
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RELATED | PROPOSED S.C. LAW ADDRESSES BOATING ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION
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STRANGULATION BILL: URGENT — STILL UNRESOLVED
The strangulation bills follow a different procedural path, but face the same ticking clock.
For years, FITSNews documented how South Carolina remained the only state without a standalone felony for non-fatal strangulation, despite overwhelming research identifying it as a key predictor of future homicide.
Victims, advocates, and experts testified repeatedly that strangulation is not just another form of assault — it is a method of control that can cause serious internal injury or death without leaving visible marks, and one that dramatically increases the risk of later lethal violence.
In April 2025, after emotional testimony and expert input, S.455 finally cleared the Senate judiciary committee with a favorable report — a milestone many believed signaled that South Carolina was at last ready to close the gap.
But nearly a year later, the bill remains flagged as “contested” on the Senate calendar — a procedural designation that can quietly halt progress unless leadership commits the floor time to move it forward.
Meanwhile, the House version — H.3522 — has yet to make it out of the aforementioned House judiciary committee at all.
The result is a familiar pattern: lawmakers publicly acknowledge a problem, concede the state’s lagging status, and then allow the legislation addressing it to drift — vulnerable to the calendar rather than the merits.
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RELATED | STRANGLED VOICES
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WHEN TIME, NOT VOTES, DECIDES
At this stage in the session, the danger facing these bills is no longer theoretical.
Each of these measures still faces at least one critical procedural hurdle before it can advance. Jaden’s Law (H.3602) and the House strangulation bill, H.3522, both remain in the House judiciary committee and cannot move forward unless they are scheduled for a hearing and reported out by committee. The Senate version of the strangulation bill, S.455, has already cleared committee but remains flagged as contested — meaning it must first get past that objection and be brought forward for active Senate floor consideration before any vote can occur.
If those steps don’t happen before the session ends, the outcome is automatic: the bills die.
Not because lawmakers voted them down.
Not because testimony failed to persuade.
But because the clock ran out…
For families like Jaden Phillips’ — and for survivors whose experiences informed South Carolina’s long-delayed strangulation debate — that distinction offers little comfort.
They didn’t come to the State House asking for symbolic support.
They came asking for change.
And as the two-year session clock continues to tick, the question is no longer whether lawmakers understand what went wrong — but whether they are willing to act before another legislative deadline turns hard lessons into another missed opportunity.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
As a private investigator turned journalist, Jenn Wood brings a unique skill set to FITSNews as its research director. Known for her meticulous sourcing and victim-centered approach, she helps shape the newsroom’s most complex investigative stories while producing the FITSFiles and Cheer Incorporated podcasts. Jenn lives in South Carolina with her family, where her work continues to spotlight truth, accountability, and justice.
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2 comments
These bill should die, and hopefully soon. I have long said that any bill that must be named after somebody’s deceased kid, so it can gain traction because it doesn’t have enough merit to stand on its own without the emotional momentum, is not a good bill. I stand by that.
The strangulation bill is another law for which laws are already in place to cover any evil or evil intent. Far fetched as it sounds, I can see some hapless good citizen being cast into the dungeon of our criminal justice system using this law, after having to resort to choking or similar in self-defense. It is another bad law that does not need to pass.
“More laws; less justice.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero
If the strangulation bill passes, will I go to prison for choking my chicken, even if I do it in the bathroom and no one else can see me?