by WILL FOLKS
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Citizens are safe when violent criminals are held accountable by police, prosecutors and judges. They’re even safer when these law enforcement and court institutions are held accountable to the public.
It’s incredibly simple… or at least it was.
In South Carolina, this system has been turned on its head… with violent criminals continually benefitting from a “catch-and-release” approach to justice. This institutionalized, accountability-averse mentality keeps communities under constant threat of danger, destruction and death – incentivizing violence and imperiling our way of life.
When you live in a world with no consequences, don’t be surprised when criminals act as though they are immune to them.
FITSNews has spent much of its existence fighting to reform this broken system – and our perpetual public shaming of certain judges, prosecutors and the politicians enabling them has had some impact in moving the needle. Some impact. Unfortunately, big ticket reforms have remained elusive at the S.C. State House – and the “catch-and-release” model rolls on.
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Thankfully, in many cases federal authorities have been standing in the gap – stepping in and filing federal firearm charges against certain defendants who have been perpetually coddled at the state level. This week, U.S. attorney Bryan Stirling announced another such victory – the sentencing of 33-year-old Devron Jakell Duncan.
Previously convicted for domestic violence, kidnapping and a gun charge, Duncan was prohibited as a result of these convictions from owning or possessing a firearm or ammunition.
Nonetheless, in the early morning hours of February 15, 2023, officers of the University of South Carolina Police Department (USCPD) patrolling the Five Points region of Columbia, S.C. initiated a traffic stop of a vehicle driven by Duncan which revealed him to be in violation of that condition.
“Duncan refused the officer’s commands to stay in the vehicle, pushed the officer, and ran,” a release from Stirling’s office noted. “After apprehending Duncan, USCPD officers searched the area and found a loaded 9 mm pistol that Duncan had tossed. Further investigation revealed that Duncan’s girlfriend was the purchaser of the gun and had previously told law enforcement that Duncan stole the gun from her residence.”
Duncan was sentenced by chief U.S. district court judge Sherri Lydon to thirty-three (33) months in federal prison – followed by a three-year term of supervised release. As there is no parole in the federal system, he will serve every day of his sentence.
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RELATED | DETENTION ORDERED FOR MURDER SUSPECT
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Duncan’s case was prosecuted as part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program which brings together all levels of law enforcement – and the communities they serve – in an effort to reduce violent crime and gun violence. According to Stirling’s office, the program is “tailored to particular communities to strategically address specific violent crime and public safety challenges.”
Sadly in South Carolina, a persistent “public safety challenge” is the repetitive leniency shown to violent offenders by state-level prosecutors and judges.
To be clear: Duncan is by no means the worst of the worst. In fact, it could be argued his criminal history is significantly less egregious than many of those who habitually elude accountability in the Palmetto State.
Still, he is a convicted felon who broke the law… and the consequences he is now facing as a result of his lawlessness are entirely appropriate. Now, if we could only get state prosecutors and judges to commit to imposing similar consequences – as opposed to patting violent criminals on the back each time they traverse the revolving door of our state-level system of “justice.”
Maybe then we could materially move the needle on public safety in the Palmetto State…
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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4 comments
Yet in Richland County, an elderly store owner was kept for three or four years in the Alvin S Glenn dungeon, and denied bond more than once. He was eventually and rightfully acquitted, but with four years of his life stolen by the Sheriff and Solicitor because his case was a big political football for them.
Add to the “big political football” the absence of any judge in the length and breadth of South Carolina who had the courage to grant Retired Professor Chow bail.
Those judged were probably chilled by what was done to now-retired SC Circuit Judge Alison Renee Lee, the first African American female elected Administrative Court judge and later Circuit Judge in South Carolina, and niece-by-marriage to the late iconic Judge Matthew Perry. With all her stellar career and credentials, Judge Lee’s nomination to the federal bench was quietly withdrawn because she had heeded the Eighth Amendment prohibition against excessive bail.
Heck! Judge Lee herself later had to, putting it charitably, muffle her respect for the Eighth Amendment when she “granted” Alex Murdaugh $7Million-bail (higher than the Prosecution itself even demanded) BEFORE Alex was even indicted for the Paul and Maggie case. It was only for the financial crimes and the road-side event which, in hind-sight, is understandable from a man in the throes of depression (and probably early hereditable dementia) so soon after the tragic and graphic loss of this beloved wife and younger son.
I repeat what I often said and wrote: Don’t be so quick to undermine the Constitution. You might need it some day.
The revolving door in Union County’s courthouse is beyond ridiculous. Every week the local newspaper lists all the perps who are turned loose with “time served”, usually a few days in jail if any. It is headline news when a thug is actually sentenced to time in the penitentiary, and the report always indicates something like 50 previous criminal charges. Our prosecutors and judges have absolutely no shame. If there is a reason or justification for this ongoing fiasco, I wish somebody would investigate and report it.
Another recent VIC of mine on an older story with recent developments:
Wow! How darn prescient do I prove to be again and again.
Austin Levi Stanley’s 16 July 2025 deposition in the Hampton County case of Stanley v. Will Folks and FITSNews was recently posted on the Public Index of that case; and I managed to read it though it is filed only in the tedious-for-the-elderly-to-read condensed version of four pages in one.
That deposition is amazing in that Mr. Stanley answers circa 90% of the questions with “I don’t know,” “I can’t remember,” and/or variations of that answer.
The ONE question Mr. Stanley answers without hesitation and with an emphatic simple YES is: “Q. Okay. Are you trying to put FITSNews out of business?
Mark Tinsley, one of Becky Hill’s once (and still?) BFF, is Austin Stanley’s lawyer against Will Folks and FITSNews.
And since that deposition, Becky Hill pled to perjury; and Alex Murdaugh’s wrongful convictions, which Mark Tinsley and Ever-Bluffing-Eric-Bland (“EBEB”) were instrumental/indispensable in inciting and procuring, were reversed.
Several other curious things happened, among them EBEB’s book Anything But Bland was apparently withdrawn from publication and the complete SLED interview of Rogan Gibson was “bought” by a YouTuber called “Jailhouse Calls” and reposted under the previous link with the beginning half and the ending quarter deleted, leaving only the middle quarter.
And Mandy Matney was found in contempt of court despite EBEB defending her.
So, even if Will Folks and FITSNews did not win their motion for summary judgment against Austin Levi Stanley, the tide seems to be turning against the would-be Murdaugh-framers.
And since I, thank God, have a 100% record of correct inferences and predictions, I project that when that case goes to trial the jury will either straight-up rule against Austin or award him only one dollar in total damages.
Time shall, God willing, tell if FITS remains steadfast in the face of tigers, jackals, and vultures.