LOWCOUNTRY SOLICITOR RESPONDS TO CRITICS
We had heard from our network of Lowcountry legal sources that South Carolina’s ninth circuit solicitor Scarlett Wilson was no shrinking violet … and apparently we heard right.
Wilson came out swinging against her critics this week, responding to a letter from a group of defense attorneys accusing her of prosecutorial misconduct – and urging the S.C. Attorney General’s office to investigate her.
According to Wilson, the attorneys questioning her “reached back nearly a decade and plucked (nine) cases out of the roughly 150,000 warrants that we handled, about 750 of which were called to trial.”
Wilson noted that none of the disputed prosecutions were handled by her personally and several others “were resolved before I became Solicitor.”
After addressing the specifics of the allegations against her, Wilson aggressively defended her office’s conduct saying “prosecution is a tough business and I am not going to cower in fear of offending some misguided criminal defense lawyers.”
“While we push hard for justice through vigorous prosecution, we do so in a reasonable, honest and efficient manner,” Wilson wrote. “Both prosecutors and defense attorneys zealously represent their party’s interests and from time to time, we have heated disagreements. This is a natural part of our adversarial system. My office aims to strike hard blows, not foul ones. Prosecutors who attempt to ‘win at all costs’ seriously undermine our entire justice system and have no place in the Ninth Circuit Solicitor’s Office.”
Wilson added that she welcomes an investigation by S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson, and promised to make all of her employees and case files available for his office to review.
Of particular interest in Wilson’s letter?
The extended references it makes to an anti-prosecutorial misconduct tirade launched by liberal S.C. Supreme Court justice Donald Beatty at a recent solicitor’s conference (the same tirade was referenced in the letter attacking Wilson).
We’ll address that controversy in another post, though, as Beatty’s comments are clearly deserving of additional scrutiny …
18 comments
Two page letter, really two fucking pages Scarlett
Took Rhett only 8 words to tell you to kiss his ass
Next time why not just say,” Frankly I don’t give a damn”. Otherwise you are beginning to sound like Grand Tango, bless your heart
I like how she didn’t capitalize justice. Accident? Doubt it. But then again, Beatty is a doofus.
Check her record …. so many repeat offenders getting off easy. And her murder conviction record really sucks!
Where can we do this, check her record?
Charleston Thug Live!!!
I’d hit it.
Me, too- she’s got a little of that crazy Michele Bachmann look to her, and we all know how good the crazy ones are in the sack…
—and especially so if she is on the verge of a nervous breaddown…
and she is
“While we push hard for justice through vigorous prosecution, we do so in a reasonable, honest and efficient manner,” ….. words one will never hear describing Jean Toal’s corrupt Office of Disciplinary Counsel where she can reward her servants and punish her enemies….. and have Don Beatty rubber stamp whatever she tells him to do.
“While I am familiar with most of the cases cited in the purported SCACDL letter…” -Scarlett
pur·port
verb
past tense: purported; past participle: purported
p?r?pôrt/
1.
appear or claim to be or do something, esp. falsely; profess.
“she is not the person she purports to be”synonyms:claim to be, profess to be, pretend to be; appear to be, seem to be;
be ostensibly, pose as, impersonate, masquerade as, pass for
“this work purports to be authoritative”
“the purported letter”
Uh…it is an actual letter. It is not something that “appears or claims to be or do something.” It is an actual fucking letter. Not a “purported” letter. The allegations in the letter may be “purported,” but it is an actual letter, not a “purported” letter. And this broad used it twice in her letter. Must be the word of the day. Wow. What a fucking idiot.
She goes on and on throughout the letter about how this is a small group within the organization, its just a few members, blah blah blah. So purported there refers to the notion that it is an official SCACDL communication, not whether it is a letter at all.
Then she should have stated “the letter purported to be from SCACDL…” That wording would have made clear what you say she meant to say.
He/She is only an attorney. Be kind.
Why? To avoid someone making a nonsensical reading of what she wrote? It is perfectly clear as it is.
Prosecutorial misconduct? In South Carolina?
Is the Pope catholic? well, we can’t use that one…
Can you keep your doctor? nope…not that one
Is Sen Graham a Reagan conservative? dang, not that one either…
Is Nancy Mace smokin’ hot? ding-ding-ding
The requirement that the prosecution prove beyond a reasonable doubt every element of a crime in order to convict a defendant is often time consuming and expensive. The burden of proof imposed on the prosecution and the presumption of innocence granted every defendant are based on the “Due Process” Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
The realities of scientific testing, time constraints for trial, and costs to taxpayers “burden of proof” often forces prosecutors to threaten defendants with maximum prison sentences if they even contemplate going to a jury trial thus resulting in plea deals for admissions of guilt.
The realities for defendants accused of crimes are very large legal bills from dedicated defense attorneys, qualified expert testimony, and a prosecutorial misconduct often beginning with biased arresting agencies themselves extending to biased judges at all levels.
Anyone convicted of a crime has the right to appeal that conviction if they believe a legal error has occurred. If you have been convicted of a crime and plan to appeal, you are no longer known as the defendant, you are now the appellant in the case.
In criminal cases, an appeal asks a higher court to look at the record of the trial proceedings to determine if a legal error occurred that may have affected the outcome of the trial or the sentence imposed by the judge.
An appeal rarely challenges the decision of the jury, but
rather challenges any legal errors that the judge or the prosecution may have
made during the trial. Any ruling that the judge made during the preliminary
hearing, during pre-trial motions and during the trial itself can be appealed
if the appellant believes the ruling was in error.
A criminal conviction can be appealed on the basis that the strength of the evidence presented a trial did not support the verdict. This type of appeal is significantly more expensive and much more lengthy than a legal error appeal and even more rarely successful.
Two cases that caught my attention was the 1995 illegal recording made by sheriff deputies between a murder suspect and his attorney and the forensic gun powder residue tests effectively convicting Brett Parker.
1995:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1696&dat=20001115&id=4QsfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=FpgEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5468,1909453
http://www.jackswerling.com/wp-content/themes/jackswerling/inc/024_FEDERAL.pdf
http://onlineathens.com/stories/111800/new_1118000009.shtml
Brett Parker:
http://www.abccolumbia.com/news/local/Experts-Witness-from-TX-Testifies-208823011.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-bad-bet-who-killed-tammy-parker/
http://www.abccolumbia.com/news/local/Brett-Parkers-Attorneys-Seek-Appeal-209405131.htmlhttp://www.wistv.com/story/22533703/attorney-parker-cant-afford-appeal
http://article.wn.com/view/2013/09/24/Witness_problems_prompt_attorneys_in_Brett_Parker_gambling_c/
Veracity and accuracy of forensic testing:
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/displayArticle.aspx?articleid=22698&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
You can dismiss all of this or sit down as adults and ask, is this where we are? A simple truth in all of this is if every person arrested and charged with a crime asked for a jury trial, our judicial system would collapse. If bonds were denied and jury convictions became the norm our industrial-prison complex would collapse.
My solution is to be honest in all of this. People are simply raised up by incompetent parents and educated in an equally incompetent education system then go out and raise their children the same way. This is the nexus for maladjusted juveniles and adults. The other solution is how tax payer revenue is actually spent must be adjusted in light of unequal amounts appropriated towards maladjusted adults in one form or another.
The funny thing about her letter is that it does nothing to refute the reams of supporting documentation provided by SCACDL. I guess its the old lawyer saying, “If you don’t have the law, argue the facts. If you don’t have the facts, argue the law. And if you have neither the law nor the facts, bullshit like crazy.”
So where is the follow up?? have we dropped all this.