By Skylar Laird
COLUMBIA — The state’s top prosecutor wants a team of traveling attorneys and investigators to help end a backlog of criminal cases across the state.
At least 11,600 cases statewide involve suspects who were indicted at least three years ago and are still waiting for their day in court, House Speaker Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, told reporters Wednesday, Jan. 31.
To relieve some of that backlog, Attorney General Alan Wilson is seeking $1.5 million in the upcoming state budget to hire nine attorneys, investigators and paralegals. The request would also cover their travel and living expenses as they worked with solicitor’s offices across the state.
Seven of the nine people would be split into two teams, each with two prosecutors, an investigator and a paralegal.
The teams would help bring older cases to trial while the local prosecutors handle new cases. A victim’s advocate and a technology expert would complete the traveling teams as needed.
The Attorney General’s Office already sends its prosecutors to help out when a court is particularly underwater, Wilson said.
But Wilson’s prosecutors have their own cases, so they typically stay long enough to bring only one or two cases to trial.
The roaming teams, on the other hand, would stay in one court circuit as long as it took to clear out the backlog. In some cases, that might mean working out of one county for a year or two, Wilson said.
The COVID-19 pandemic, when courthouses spent months closed, exacerbated the problem.
But the backlog dates back further, mostly because regional solicitors lack the prosecuting attorneys to bring the cases to trial, Wilson said.
They “don’t have the ability to meet the demands that some of these backlogs are presenting,” Wilson said.
That leaves defendants either languishing in overcrowded jails or out in public on bond, where they could potentially commit another crime, Smith said.
“Those backlogs are jeopardizing the safety of the citizens of South Carolina,” Smith said.
Meanwhile, witnesses’ memories get fuzzy and key investigators leave the departments where they were working, making it more and more difficult to prove what happened, said Rep. Phillip Lowe, R-Florence, chairman of the House budget-writing subcommittee for criminal justice.
And victims of violent crimes have to wait years as well to see justice, Wilson said.
“At the end of the day, this is really about getting justice to victims in South Carolina,” Wilson said.
Even with the proposed teams, it would still likely take years to get through the backlog of cases awaiting trial, especially as crimes continue to happen, Wilson and other advocates of his plan agreed.
But if the initial two teams prove successful in getting cases to trial, lawmakers could expand the program with more money in future budgets for more prosecutors, Smith said.
The state budget passed last summer provided solicitors $15 million additional to hire and keep public defenders. That’s the other half of the solution for clearing backlogs, since courts need attorneys on both sides to bring cases to trial, Wilson said.
So far, solicitors have hired around 60 new public defenders, but some of those hires were to fill vacancies due to turnover, Wilson said.
“You’ve got to move both levels (prosecutors and defenders) to effectively move these cases,” Wilson said.
Solicitors received $9 million in 2022-23 specifically to modernize their case management systems, which in some offices consisted of legal pads or Excel spreadsheets, Wilson said.
The teams are the last step toward finally clearing out the backlog, Wilson said.
“This has been an ongoing problem, but this is an ongoing solution,” Wilson said.
Skylar Laird covers the South Carolina Legislature and criminal justice issues. Originally from Missouri, she previously worked for The Post and Courier’s Columbia bureau.
Warrants pending
Statewide, there were 86,338 warrants pending for more than a year as of Jan. 1, 2024. The following ranks the 10 counties with the highest number.
Warrants allow police to arrest a person suspected of a crime. The Attorney General’s Office does not have statistics on how many General Sessions indictments, which officially accuse someone of a criminal offense, are awaiting trial, a spokesperson said.
- Richland: 9,244
- Charleston: 7,644
- Greenville: 7,176
- Lancaster: 4,076
- Spartanburg: 4,041
- Sumter: 3,951
- Beaufort: 3,541
- Berkeley: 3,504
- Florence: 3,449
- Aiken: 3,385
Source: SC Commission on Prosecution Coordination, as of Jan. 1
