The election for S.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice should be very soon, a week or so. Though it is suicidal to oppose anyone of power in this state, I feel it necessary to speak out on the subject, which I have by sending the letter below to every Senator and Representative in the S.C. Legislature.
Though Jean Toal, current chief justice, has been said to be a potent force behind the scenes in many cases and political activities in this state, including some I watch closely, my main opposition to her reelection is the lack of any punishment in her hit and run cases, which you may read about in some of the articles linked below. The average citizen would face much legal action, most likely handcuffed and at least some jail time before posting bail, and who knows what else? But like mayor Benjamin, she got off far easier than any citizen would, with no major fault found.
The law is quite clear on hit and run, and DUI. To have a politician, judge, and any other government official that makes and/or enforces the law, not face at least what the lowest of us must, smacks of something very questionable. In her case, it seems the honorable action would have been to resign. But she did not, even after twice leaving the scene of the accident.
People in high places do have advantage, and it takes a lot to have them answer for their violations. A legislator is stopped on capital grounds, unstable, slurring, smelling, and his attorney, another legislator, claims it was a rock in his shoe. Legislators have questionable financial reports, and their peers are the judges of their own, so they get off, unless so egregious a case, blood flows from it. They speed to the State House, far exceeding the limit, but it is OK as they have written the law so it allows them the liberty to speed, even though we get a large fine, and possibly jail, if we went at some of their speeds. The list goes on.
Power, position, money: they speak on a level that we, the average citizen, cannot. Ethics reform must include all three branches, not just two. And there must be independent oversight. At present, within the judicial system of our state, the chief justice is part of the oversight of magistrates, judges, and attorneys. This is a festering sore among those in the legal field, just as it is among us outside of it. But no one steps up to say publicly, at least not if they are involved in the legal/political system in S.C. A legislator flatly stated that legislators are afraid in this chief justice election. Attorneys must stay on good graces as the Office of Disciplinary Council (ODC) answers directly to the chief justice. There is a case I am following closely where the ODC cleared an attorney of a complaint without any personal interview of the complainant, and when they cleared the attorney, they would not reveal why. Yet it appears that the hard evidence shows a blatant legal violation, one that will be appealed. Retribution comes in many stealthy ways.
Power, money, position, and behind the scenes knowledge all give advantage that we, the lowly citizens, will never know.
If you want to write to the legislature either yea or nay, go here.
Joseph Azar is the owner of Upstairs Audio in downtown Columbia, S.C.
ARTICLES ATTACHED BY AUTHOR
Time For Chief Justice Jean Toal To Retire (PJ Media)
Chief Justice Jean Toal To Seek Reelection (WIS News)
The Jean Toal Driving Experience Rolls On (FITSNews)
Chief Justice Jean Toal Of South Carolina; Scofflaw, Arrogant, Moron, Liar (No Ethics)
Justice Pleicones Will Face Toal (The State)
Jean Toal Articles (FITSNews)
Scoppe: More At Stake In Chief Justice Race (The State)
37 comments
Well said, Joe! I have contacted my Representative about this already.
Agreed.
They don’t really give a rat’s patootie. Aids will roundfile your correspondence or delete your message.
Vote them out at the earliest opportunity.
My Representative, Kenny Bingham ALWAYS replies to my emails. A dedicated public servant IMHO.
Good points Joe, but one thing: Will you PLEASE put down that goddamn phone while you drive? I’m truly worried you’re going to kill some person or biker one day.
Seriously, the guy is either stopped at a green light or swerving lane to lane. Good thng the guy doesn’t drink, too.
Thank for helping us out! The fact that legislators are scared of her is proof positive she has to go. Call them and give them the courage to do the right thing! Email, write and call them.
They should be more afraid of us than her or Bobby Harrell!
God help SC but until He does, we all have to do our part.
Go here to sign a petition to let the legislature know how you feel about Toal!:
http://www.change.org/petitions/restore-the-integrity-of-our-supreme-court-elect-costa-pleicones
Oh no, not Costa; bag lover.
Poor ol’ Joe. Still trying to be relevant. Isn’t there a mayoral race somewhere that you can enter and lose (again)?
It’s a pity that Joe didn’t have the resources to round up students at Benedict and Allen University and supply them with alcohol in exchange for their mayoral vote.
Please…don’t give him any ideas!!
I agree! She needs to go!
There is no doubt Toal was involved in my Court Case. My attorney’s felt the same; but, were scared to death to challenge anything. I was warned about an appeal and ended up losing my A$$. The attorneys did not want to challenge anything. The defendant had a close tie to Toal. My attorneys were suppose to be the best, had great reputations, let me get raped due to Toal and politics!
There was a great deal of abuse of process and power.
I had a case before her once. It was obvious that she was protecting the lower court circuit judge in that matter. US Supreme Ct case law was clear. But she went against it anyway. They do protect their own when there are very serious illegal rulings made.
Good points all, Mr Azar. You did forget not prosecuting a sitting Sheriff Metts who was implicated in a sworn affidavit by a then sitting Magistrate. An affidavit that is as good as open court testimony which has not been cross examined. If people were not afraid of losing their SC retirement pensions perhaps we could move the ball forward. Sworn affidavits should be the impetus to move towards formal charges as well as legislating whistle blower protection from any immediate or delayed retributions. This way the sworn witness in the affidavit and the defendant are under criminal/civil procedures.
Is it true that Toal and T-bone will be joining the Joie Chitwood Thrill show soon?
Way to go Joe. Thank you for sticking your neck out, when others are too afraid or intimidated, as always.
There is a case I am following closely where the ODC cleared an attorney of a complaint without any personal interview of the complainant
Read more at https://www.fitsnews.com/2014/01/31/azar-corrupt-sc-chief-justice-must-go/#oILIKTM2dWCJmFeq.99
Probably because the complaint was bullshit on its face.
Joe, is that really you! Here Joe, you sold me my first turntable inn1976 so here is some dbase stuff for you for writing such a good read; your a much better writer than a politico but don’t stop old friend: https://sites.google.com/site/scemaildatabase/
Want evidence of her alcoholism? Get her curbside household garbage from … .. .
Garbology–it works.
Harden Street?
This election is controlled by fear and it should not be. Toal, who thinks she is above the law, runs the judicial system like a menacing dictator. America sends troops into harm’s way to oust dictators in countries half a world away but our elected officials “fear” casting a simple vote to oust one in our own backyard! What is wrong with the picture? Every vote for Pleicones is a vote to restore honor and integrity in our justice system.
An election driven by fear is not really an election at all!
The day I listen to Joe Azar is the day I visit a local bar and have bullet have put in my head! Loser.
Thank you Joe for having the guts to say what others are thinking, but are too afraid to verbalize or write about. Toal is disgusting, a liar and corrupt to the core. I know of lawyers who have bragged about getting away with all sorts of stuff against their clients because they were close with Jean. The other justices are kept in the dark – or it may be that the other justices just don’t want to know. Thank you again Joe. I would contact my house member, but he is such a dumb ass and so far up Jean’s ass, he can’t even listen to the truth any more (same as yours). The boys on Devine Street are already talking about who they can get to run against him because of this issue alone. Thank you again.
I agree. The James Smith’s of the legislature need to be replaced. Smith just walks around with his mouth half open with this golly-gee look on his face – then he just votes like Toal tells him to vote. He has played the army boy thing as much as he can and it no longer has the luster it once did for him. This is not what Columbia or South Carolina needs.
Our happy hour discussion resulted in a consensus opinion last night that the smart, progressive and more honest legislators are voting for Pleicones and the less than bright (Lourie, Campsen), more ethically challenged (Harrell, Leatherman) and the weak (Courson, Smith) are aligning with Toal.
can we get more details on the DUI and hit and run.
for example, was the DUI corroborated with a blood test at a hospital?
with the hit and run, was the victim left injured without a phone call to the authorities, and if so, what were the injuries and how long did the victim have to wait for an ambulance?
that would give your story more force and effect.
just a suggestion.
hit and run by itself is a problem, but when a victim is left helpless and injured, then that’s the point of severe penalites for that type of violation.
The police report stated that the investigating officers detected a strong odor of alcohol on Toal. The story was published in the State News. Toal reportedly had several drinks at a SC Bar Association function in Columbia prior to the crash. Her excuse for leaving the scene of the vehicle she hit near her home was, that she had her automobile car stereo turned up extremely loud and that she also had her automobile air conditioner fan motor turned up on full blast. Thus, she claims because of such, she heard nothing – felt nothing – saw nothing, too. Hence, she is a pathological liar. Her excuses are simple ludicrous, to say the least. Everyone across the state that knows of the incident agrees; she was DUI.
South Caolina judicial system 50 years behind the times,social inequality is the rule
Good Gawd Almighty, No legislator in his right mind will vote for Toal unless she has his balls in a jar on her desk. NONE will any damned sense will vote for Toal. Those who vote for Toal will find out it was not a good decision. I promise you that. Courson, go ahead and move to Still Hopes. James Smith, your days as a rep are over. It was not nice knowing you. You are a first class wuss.
(Lexington) March 30, 2007 – South Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Toal was cited Thursday for leaving the scene of an accident involving an unattended vehicle.
That’s according to the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department.
According to the department, a witness saw Toal strike an airport employee’s parked vehicle with her car Thursday afternoon. She then left the scene.
Major John Allard says the 63-year-old Toal was ticketed after she returned to the scene at Columbia Metropolitan Airport Thursday afternoon. She was not arrested.
Allard says airport Police Chief Randy Blackmon asked Sheriff James Metts to investigate because the car that was hit belonged to an airport employee.
According to Toal, she was going to the airport with a friend to pick up another car. While pulling her van out of a parking lot at the airport, she bumped another car.
She says she realized she may have struck another car, so she got out to look for damage. According to her, she didn’t see any damage to either vehicle, so she went on with her day.
That included a speech at USC School of Law and a photo shoot for US Airways magazine.
The person who witnessed the incident notified the airport authorities as well as the owner of the car. Investigators were able to get in touch Chief Justice Toal about three hours later.
Toal returned to the airport to meet with the owner where she was then ticketed.
This isn’t the first time she has been accused of such an incident. In May of 2001 her van clipped the back of a car parked a few doors down from her Shandon home.
An officer cited the chief justice for two violations – driving too fast for conditions, and leaving the scene of an accident.
A police incident report from that night suggests Toal admitted she had been drinking earlier that evening. Toal insisted that alcohol was not a factor in the collision.
SOURCE http://www.wistv.com/story/6303385/chief-justice-toal-cited-for-leaving-the-scene-of-an-accident
Azar is hardly lowly. He has done incredibly well with his audio business. He attends Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Columbia. He has a political reason for all this. He has had many runs for politics. And many run ins with the City of Columbia. Shuttup, Azar, and go back to your wine, women, and song.
There is something very fishy about Toal’s financial disclosure in today’s The State. There is one ton of inherited money there. I do not blame her and her family for utilizing all the laws they can to avoid taxes, but to claim she has not gotten any money from the estates just isn’t adding up. That “family” house at 3000 Palm Blvd, Isle of Palms, SC has her name all over it. Toal is not really giving all the details on that old time money.
The documents I could get to come up from the Charleston Register of Deeds office did show that Ken Wingate, was involved in preparing some of those trusts and such. Guess that explains how Ken walked away from those ethical issues he was having with Jean’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel a couple of years ago.
Of course Toal lied. I thought of that also when I read the article. I am not surprised Monk did not call her out on it, but he probably does not know enough about the depth of the Hoefer money to question her.
I have heard Greg Adams say in the past he thought Toal’s abuse of the judicial and attorney discipline systems should be brought to light.
Good luck! I have bitched about her for years going back to the crooked Sabre/DSS CEECUS contract win that her hub was tied to with Sabre and she had considerable choice in contractor selection for about a 100 MM implementation. They, Sabre eventually sold the contract to HP because so much hell was raised. She, Stevie Benjamin, Clyburn, Jake, Charles Austin, Jimmy Metts and the crowd are the reason I got the frig out of Columbia and so should you all.
http://www.eastislandsrentals.com/properties/3000-palm/
The Sand Pit, named after a family business, is a newer home on the Isle of Palms with an “old beach” feel. This house has a very open, yet comfortable main living area and 6 large bedrooms.
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/300-Ocean-Blvd-Isle-Of-Palms-SC-29451/10935476_zpid/
Last sold for $4,800,000 in March 2012.
Sand Pit…get it?