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by JENN WOOD
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With a decisive ‘Stand Your Ground’ immunity hearing set to begin on South Carolina’s coast this week, attorneys for two men implicated in the fatal 2023 shooting of a North Carolina insurance adjuster have filed new paperwork for the court to consider. Specifically, they have submitted a detailed merits brief asking an Horry County judge to throw out the wrongful death lawsuit — even as a parallel fight escalates over newly produced forensic phone data, expert testimony and what evidence the court will ultimately consider.
The latest filings add multiple new layers to an already fast-moving evidentiary battle: a formal defense brief asserting statutory immunity under South Carolina law, a plaintiff motion seeking to remove confidentiality protections from newly produced location and speed data, and — most recently — a newly filed plaintiff memorandum opposing efforts by the defense to exclude key forensic audio expert testimony ahead of the hearing.
At stake is what evidence S.C. circuit court judge Eugene C. Griffith, Jr. will consider — and what the public may ultimately see — as proceedings are set to commence in Conway, S.C. this Tuesday (February 17, 2026).
The lawsuit stems from the September 2023 roadside shooting of 33-year-old Scott Spivey on Camp Swamp Road in rural Horry County – just two miles south of the North Carolina border. The admitted shooters — Charles Weldon Boyd and Kenneth Bradley Williams — were not criminally charged after prosecutors concluded they acted in accordance with the Palmetto State’s Protection of Persons and Property Act, a.k.a. its ‘Stand Your Ground’ law.
Spivey’s family has continued to pursue civil claims, arguing the shooting was not justified and that the original investigation was deeply flawed — allegations that later triggered a separate corruption probe led by the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) and the departure of multiple Horry County Police Department (HCPD) officials.
Because ‘Stand Your Ground’ immunity bars civil liability as well as criminal prosecution, the hearing beginning tomorrow functions as a gatekeeping proceeding. If immunity is upheld, the wrongful death case ends without a jury trial.
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DEFENSE FILES FORMAL IMMUNITY BRIEF
On February 11, 2026, attorneys for Williams filed a nine-page brief (.pdf) supporting pretrial immunity under the statute – and asking the court to dismiss the case before it reaches a jury. The filing argued the self-defense record is corroborated and satisfies the statutory elements required for immunity.
The filing asked the court to find that Williams is immune from the civil action based on self-defense and to dismiss the case before it ever reaches a jury.
According to the defense summary, the record showed Spivey was intoxicated, driving aggressively and repeatedly brandishing a pistol at other motorists before the fatal confrontation on Camp Swamp Road.
“The undisputed and corroborated record establishes” that Spivey repeatedly waved a semi-automatic pistol at motorists, then exited his vehicle and fired — prompting return fire from the defendants, the brief stated.
The defense brief argued that the statutory requirements for ‘Stand Your Ground’ immunity are satisfied based on several core facts it says are supported by the record.
According to the filing, the defendants were lawfully present in an occupied vehicle and were not engaged in any unlawful activity at the time of the encounter. The filing further asserted they had no prior connection or relationship with Spivey and had already called 911, remaining in contact with dispatchers and providing real-time updates as events unfolded. The brief maintained that Spivey exited his vehicle while armed and fired first, and that driver Weldon Boyd attempted to reverse and avoid the confrontation before shots were ultimately exchanged.
The filing also stressed that South Carolina law extends Castle Doctrine-style protections to occupied vehicles and eliminates any duty to retreat when a person is lawfully present and faces an imminent deadly threat.
“An occupied vehicle constitutes a protected location under the statute,” the brief argued, adding that the defendants “returned fire only to stop an imminent deadly threat.”
The brief relied heavily on prior S.C. appellate rulings, including State v. Glenn and State v. Dickey, to frame how trial courts should evaluate pretrial immunity claims.
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RELATED | ‘STAND YOUR GROUND’ SHOWDOWN: DEFENSE PUSHES BACK
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COURT-ORDERED SLED DATA — AND CONFIDENTIALITY FIGHT
Those arguments now intersect with a separate discovery dispute tied to judge Griffith’s order (.pdf) from earlier this month compelling SLED to generate targeted reports containing GPS, location and speed data from both Spivey’s and Williams’ phones — along with a forensic attempt to recover deleted Facebook Messenger messages. The court ordered the production but temporarily designated the material as confidential pending further ruling.
That order required SLED to produce:
- GPS and location data
- Speed data, if captured
- Time-windowed movement records
- A forensic search attempt for deleted Facebook Messenger messages between the defendants
The production window was limited to roughly 5:35 p.m. EDT to 6:00 p.m. EDT on the afternoon of the shooting — the critical period surrounding the encounter.
The court ruled the information was relevant and discoverable — but directed that it be treated as confidential pending further ruling.
“The information shall be treated as confidential until otherwise ruled on by the Court,” the order states.
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PLAINTIFF MOVES TO LIFT CONFIDENTIALITY DESIGNATION
Within days of that production, attorneys for Spivey’s estate filed a new motion (.pdf) asking the court to declare that the newly produced SLED data — specifically GPS coordinates, timestamps and speed records — was not confidential and should not be restricted under the prior consent confidentiality order.
According to the motion, the newly produced material consisted of objective device-generated location and movement data tied to Spivey’s phone — not private communications or medical records.
Plaintiff’s counsel argued that the newly produced forensic data reflected only movement in public space and did not include any private message content. According to the motion, the information belongs to Spivey’s estate and was extracted with the estate’s consent in coordination with investigators. The filing further maintained that the material does not implicate medical, health-related, or otherwise privileged communications, and therefore should not be treated as confidential under the existing court order.
The motion actually went further — characterizing the location trail as evidence of a sustained pursuit.
“When viewed collectively, this objective record provides substantive evidence of conduct occurring continuously and in public locations during the relevant period,” the filing stated, adding it depicted a “relentless pursuit” of Spivey by Boyd and Williams.
Plaintiff’s attorneys also told the court that SLED’s forensic search did not recover any deleted Facebook Messenger message content beyond what had already been publicly disseminated — and argued the absence of recovered messages cannot itself be confidential.
Defense counsel has not consented to lifting the confidentiality designation, according to the filing.
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RELATED | NEW MOTIONS TARGET DEVICES, DEPOSITIONS, DELETED MESSAGES
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EXPERT AUDIO TESTIMONY BATTLE ESCALATES
Defendants are also moving to narrow what expert evidence the court may consider at the immunity hearing — specifically targeting the proposed testimony of plaintiff’s forensic audio expert, Dr. Robert C. Maher. In a motion in limine (.pdf) and supporting memorandum (.pdf), defense attorneys asked the court to exclude or sharply limit Maher’s gunshot timing and sequencing opinions, arguing his analysis is methodologically unreliable and inconsistent with physical casing evidence recovered from the scene and the vehicles involved.
The defense challenged multiple aspects of Maher’s work, including his conclusion that 29 gunshots are audible on the recordings, his grouping of shots by likely firearm source, his opinions regarding shot origin, his reliance on compressed mobile audio files, and the absence of device-specific testing or scene reconstruction. Based on those criticisms, defendants have requested a Rule 702 gatekeeping ruling and possible full exclusion of Maher’s opinions.
Rule 702 governs whether expert testimony is sufficiently reliable to be presented in court. It requires judges to act as evidentiary gatekeepers by determining whether an expert’s methods are scientifically sound, properly applied and grounded in sufficient underlying data. If those standards are not met, the court may limit or exclude the testimony.
Plaintiff’s counsel has now pushed back with a newly filed opposition memorandum (.pdf), arguing the defense motion improperly attempts to turn factual disagreements about what the audio recordings show into an admissibility challenge. According to the filing, defendants do not dispute Maher’s qualifications or claim his methods are novel or discredited, but instead object to the conclusions he reached because they conflict with the defense narrative.
The opposition brief argued that Rule 702 is intended to ensure an expert uses reliable methods — not to let the court choose between competing interpretations of the evidence before the hearing. It also noted that in a ‘Stand Your Ground’ immunity hearing, the judge acts as the fact finder and is expected to hear and weigh disputed technical testimony rather than block it ahead of time. Plaintiff’s attorneys say Maher used widely accepted audio forensic techniques, recognized the limits of the recordings, and kept his opinions focused on shot timing and audibility — not on who fired, what weapon was used, or anyone’s intent. They argued disagreements with his conclusions should be addressed through cross-examination and competing evidence, not by excluding his testimony altogether.
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IMMUNITY HEARING LOOMS
All of these disputes — immunity standards, phone forensics, deleted messages, GPS data, expert audio science and confidentiality designations — now converge as the ‘Stand Your Ground’ immunity hearing begins tomorrow.
Because a successful immunity ruling would end the wrongful death case before trial, both sides have moved aggressively in recent days to shape the evidentiary record judge Griffith will review — and to define the legal standards he will apply in weighing it.
The coming rulings will determine not just what evidence comes in — but whether the case proceeds at all.
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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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