Now Henry McMaster Wants Bond Reform?

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After presiding over soaring increases in violent crime over the last few years, South Carolina governor Henry McMaster has finally decided it is time to use his bully pulpit to push for bond reform.

More than six years into his tenure as governor …

“Before that General Assembly goes home in May, they need to pass bond reform, and they need to see that we slam that revolving door,”  McMaster told reporters in his office this Tuesday.

Really?

Talk about a definitional case of “too little, too late.”

Excessive judicial leniency as it relates to bonds (and sentencing) has been a growing problem in the Palmetto State since the day McMaster took office in 2017 … one with increasingly fatal consequences. And while the blame for this problem lies exclusively with powerful lawyer-legislators in the S.C. General Assembly (who handpick our state’s judges), McMaster and other executive branch leaders have done next-to-nothing to call them to account.

Just last month, in fact, I reported on the latest lackluster efforts on this front …

“The longer political leaders stall, the worse this problem is going to become,” I noted in that report.

Indeed.

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In addition to stalling, McMaster chose an extremely curious context for his announcement: A weekend shooting involving teenagers on Isle of Palms, S.C. Two individuals were arrested in the aftermath of that shooting, but local police have yet to say whether either of them were involved in the incident – which left at least five individuals (most of them teens) wounded.

In other words, this is an unsolved case … one in which there is a higher-than-usual likelihood of first-time juvenile offenders being implicated. Accordingly, it has zero current relevance to the bond question … and wouldn’t have any relevance until such time as individuals were charged criminally and appeared before a judge to set their bond.

Having arrived massively late to this party, McMaster is now attempting to put his cart way ahead of his horses … picking a high-profile case in the hopes of making a splash, not a difference.

Pushing back effectively against the governor was Alexandra “Ally” Benevento of the Columbia, S.C.-based Strom Law Firm – an attorney who has jousted with me on various judicial reform issues in the past. In addition to citing pervasive problems with Palmetto State detention centers, Benevento brought up a fundamental question of fairness.

Should bond be based on one’s ability to pay it? Or should it be based on specific factors enumerated in the law?

“If you have the ability to pay the bond, you can get out,” Benevento told lawmakers this week, according to a report filed by Alexander Thompson of The (Charleston, S.C) Post and Courier. “If you don’t have the money to pay bond, you’re going to sit in jail.”

She is absolutely correct. That is far too often the case …

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Benevento told me this week “a person’s ability to pay bond is not a factor in their level of danger to community or risk of flight.”

“So a judge can always deny bond,” she said. “If bond is appropriate, the amount paid doesn’t ensure safety. Either a person is a flight risk or a danger to community or they aren’t.”

Bottom line? Lawmakers need to strengthen existing bond requirements (and amounts) and apply those tougher standards uniformly across the boards – especially as it relates to repeat violent offenders. Race shouldn’t matter. Wealth shouldn’t matter. And their attorney being a member of the S.C. General Assembly sure as hell shouldn’t matter.

At the same time, they must take long-overdue steps to address conditions in county detention centers – especially Richland and Charleston counties.

McMaster may have thought he was earning an “atta-boy” by dipping his toe in this debate … after six years. Unfortunately, all he has done his highlight his lack of action.

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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 seven children.

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