0001
 1   
                  JUDICIAL MERIT SELECTION
 2   
                         COMMISSION
 3   
 4   
 5   
                  EVALUATION OF CANDIDATES
 6   
                    BY COMMISSION MEMBERS
 7   
 8   
         PUBLIC HEARING ON JUDICIAL QUALIFICATIONS
 9                       Volume IV
10   
11              Thursday, November 5th, 2009
12                        9:23 a.m.
13            The Gressette Building, Room 105
                  Columbia, South Carolina
14   
15   
16   REPORTED BY:     SONIA I. MENDEZ,
                      Certified Court Reporter
17   
     ___________________________________________________
18   
19                   COMPUSCRIPTS, INC.
            A Full-Service Court-Reporting Agency
20                  Post Office Box 7172
               Columbia, South Carolina 29202
21                      803.988.0086
                        888.988.0086
22                 www.compuscriptsinc.com
23   
24   
25   
0002
 1   MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE:
 2   
     SENATOR GLENN F. MCCONNELL, CHAIRMAN
 3   
     REPRESENTATIVE F.G. DELLENEY, JR., VICE CHAIRMAN
 4   
     PROFESSOR JOHN P. FREEMAN
 5   
     JOHN DAVIS HARRELL
 6   
     SENATOR JOHN "JAKE" M. KNOTTS, JR.
 7   
     AMY JOHNSON MCLESTER
 8   
     REPRESENTATIVE ALAN D. CLEMMONS
 9   
     REPRESENTATIVE DAVID J. MACK, III
10   
     H. DONALD SELLERS
11   
     SENATOR FLOYD NICHOLSON
12   
13   COUNSEL PRESENT:
14   JANE O. SHULER, CHIEF COUNSEL
15   PATRICK G. DENNIS
16   BONNIE B. GOLDSMITH
17   ANDREW T. FIFFICK, IV
18   J.J. GENTRY
19   E. KATHERINE WELLS
20   NANCY COOMBS
21   HEATHER ANDERSON
22   PAULA BENSON
23   JOEL DEASON
24   RICK FULMER
25              (INDEX AT REAR OF TRANSCRIPT)
0003
 1                   P R O C E E D I N G
 2                MR. CHAIRMAN:  We'll go on the record
 3   at this point.  Thursday, November the 5th, the
 4   Judicial Merit Selection Commission is called
 5   pursuant to Chapter 19 and Title 2 of the South
 6   Carolina Code of Law requiring the review of
 7   candidates to the Judicial office.
 8                The function of the commission is not
 9   to choose between candidates, but rather to declare
10   whether or not the candidates who offer for
11   positions on the bench, in our judgment, are
12   qualified to fill the positions they seek.
13                The inquiry we undertake is a thorough
14   one centered around the commission's nine
15   evaluative criteria and involves a complete
16   personal and professional background check on every
17   candidate.
18                These public hearings are convened for
19   the purpose of screening candidates for the
20   following positions.  One vacancy on the Supreme
21   Court; one vacancy on the Court of Appeals; 12
22   vacancies on the Circuit Court; 22 vacancies on the
23   Family Court; two vacancies on the Administrate Law
24   Court; six vacancies on the Equity Court; and ten
25   retired judges.
0004
 1                For today we will screen five
 2   vacancies on the Family Court, five vacancies on
 3   the Equity Court, and one vacancy on the
 4   Administrative Law Court.
 5                Staff has informed me that there's a
 6   couple of minor matters dealing with one legal and
 7   some personal information, and for that reason we
 8   need to have a brief executive session.
 9                Is there such a motion?
10                SEN. KNOTTS:  So moved.
11                MR. CHAIRMAN:  It's been moved.
12                Do I hear a second?
13                MR. McLESTER:  Second.
14                MR. CHAIRMAN:  The floor is now open
15   for discussion.  There being no discussion, we'll
16   go into a vote.
17                All in favor please raise your right
18   hand.
19                (All members present raised their
20   right hand.)
21                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Oppose?
22                Representative Mack is not here.  Has
23   anybody got a proxy?  If not, let the record show
24   that every member of the commission except
25   Representative Mack, who is not present, voted for
0005
 1   executive session.
 2                Sergeant, if you would seal the
 3   chambers, please.
 4                (Members went into executive session
 5   from 9:25 a.m. to 9:34 a.m.)
 6                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Lift the veil.  If
 7   y'all would open the door and have the sergeant
 8   publish in the hall that we are in open session.
 9                We'll go back on the record now.  We
10   are now in open session and having completed an
11   executive session in which this committee received
12   some personal data information and procedural
13   information.  Absolutely no formal actions were
14   taken in executive session.  So we're back in a
15   public session.  We do have some formal actions we
16   probably need to take.  And I'll turn to
17   Ms. Shuler.
18                What should we take up first here to
19   get us procedurally on the road to concluding these
20   hearings?
21                MS. SHULER:  I would like to take up
22   the change in the commission's rule.  Specifically
23   Rule Number 21.  We have a rule in 21 regarding
24   voting, and staff has requested to amend that rule
25   to add the following sentence.  "If a commission
0006
 1   member recuses him or herself from the vote or is
 2   absent without leaving a written proxy, the
 3   candidate found qualified and nominated must
 4   receive the majority of the votes of the members
 5   present and voting."
 6                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.
 7                SEN. KNOTTS:  So moved.
 8                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Senator from Lexington
 9   moved, then seconded.  The floor is now open for
10   discussion.
11                Is there any discussion?  If not,
12   we'll put it to a vote.
13                All in favor of adoption of the rule,
14   please raise your right hand.
15                (All members raised their right hand.)
16                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.
17                No need for names because it was
18   unanimous.  Let the record show that the full
19   commission is in attendance and every single
20   commissioner voted in the affirmative for the rule
21   change.
22                Next matter.
23                MS. SHULER:  The next matter is, for
24   the waived candidates from yesterday and today, I
25   will need to offer their personal data
0007
 1   questionnaire and sworn statements as exhibits to
 2   the public hearing record and also amendments to
 3   four waived candidates' PDQ and sworn statements.
 4                At this time I'd like to offer the
 5   following waived candidates' PDQs and sworn
 6   statements, which require technical amendments,
 7   which the candidates have provided to the staff and
 8   need to be made an exhibit as part of the record.
 9   And it's the following candidates:  Judge Brooks
10   Goldsmith, Judge George Edward Welmaker, Judge John
11   Calvin Hayes the III, and Judge Lee Alford.
12                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Is there any objection?
13   If not, herein now the personal data questionnaire
14   and sworn statements of all the waived candidates
15   as well as the amendments for the above candidates
16   will be entered into the record as this time.  Let
17   the record also show that every commissioner is in
18   attendance, and therefore has accepted it.
19                MS. SHULER:  Senator McConnell, if you
20   would just read the waived candidates so that we
21   know what PDQs and sworn statements were entered
22   into the record.
23                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.  The
24   protested -- the candidates for waiver whose
25   records we have now put into the record are, the
0008
 1   Circuit judges, Judge Ralph Cothran, Jr., Judge
 2   Paul Burch, Judge Brooks Goldsmith, Judge David
 3   Hill, Judge John Hayes the III, Judge Lee Alford,
 4   Judge Doyet "Jack" Early, and Judge George
 5   Welmaker.
 6                MS. SHULER:  Welmaker.
 7                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Welmaker, those are
 8   those.
 9                All right.  Retired judges also would
10   be Justice E.C. Burnett the III, Judge Ralph King
11   Anderson, Jr., Judge Thomas Cooper, Judge Thomas
12   Hughston, Judge Howard King, Judge James Williams,
13   Jr., Judge Timothy Brown, Judge Peter Nuessle, and
14   Judge Donna Strom.
15                Do I hear a motion, then, that these
16   candidates with their PDQs and questionnaires now
17   on record and amended, what is the wish of this
18   commission regarding their being qualified and
19   properly nominated?
20                SEN. KNOTTS:  So moved.
21                SEN. NICHOLSON:  So moved.
22                MR. CHAIRMAN:  So moved.  Do I hear a
23   second?
24                Professor Freeman seconds.  The floor
25   is now open for discussion.
0009
 1                Is there any discussion?  If not,
 2   we'll go to a vote.
 3                All in favor of that please raise your
 4   right hand.
 5                (All members raised their right hand.)
 6                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.
 7                I will not ask for the oppositions
 8   since the affirmatives are 100 percent.  Every
 9   commissioner is in attendance and every
10   commissioner has voted.
11                MS. SHULER:  That's it.
12                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Are there any other
13   housekeeping things we need to take up at this
14   time?
15                MS. SHULER:  No, sir.
16                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Would it be a fair
17   statement that we'll get around taking up -- I
18   think we've got a backlog of votes to consider for
19   nomination and qualification.  We'll get to that
20   later in the day, if that's acceptable.
21                All right.  With that, we're ready to
22   go forward.  The first one this morning will be the
23   Honorable Timothy M. Cain, Family Court, 10th
24   Judicial Circuit, Seat 2.
25                We'll stand at ease.
0010
 1                (Off-the-record discussion.)
 2                (Judge Timothy Martin Cain enters the
 3   room.)
 4                MR. CHAIRMAN:  We'll go back on the
 5   record at this time.  We have before us the
 6   Honorable Timothy M. Cain, Family Court, 10th
 7   Circuit, Seat Number 2.  If you would raise your
 8   right hand please, sir.
 9                Do you swear to tell the truth, the
10   whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you
11   God?
12                JUDGE CAIN:  I do.
13                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.
14                The Judicial Merit Selection
15   Commission has thoroughly investigated your
16   qualifications for the bench.  Our inquiries
17   focused on the nine evaluative criteria.  It has
18   included a survey of the bench and the bar,
19   thorough study of your application materials, a
20   verification of your compliance wit state ethics
21   laws, a search of newspaper articles in which your
22   name appears, a study of previous screenings, and a
23   check for economic conflicts of interest.  We have
24   received no affidavit filed in opposition to your
25   election.  No witnesses are present to testify.
0011
 1                I would ask you if you wish to make an
 2   opening statement, which is purely optional.
 3   Here's the procedure.  Counsel will ask you
 4   questions on behalf of the commission.  At the
 5   conclusion of his questions, if we have any, then
 6   we'll follow up, and then we'll wrap up the
 7   hearing.
 8                JUDGE CAIN:  In light of your busy
 9   schedule, I won't make an opening statement.
10                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you, sir.  Please
11   answer counsel's questions.
12                MR. FIFFICK:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
13                Mr. Chairman and members of the
14   commission, I have a few procedural matters to take
15   care of with this candidate.
16   BY MR. FIFFICK:
17          Q.    Judge Cain, you have before you the
18   personal data questionnaire that you submitted as
19   part of your application.
20                Is there any amendment that you would
21   like to make at this time to your PDQ?
22          A.    No, sir.  Not at this time.
23          Q.    Number 7, the -- we just have to get
24   it on the record.  I know you submitted it
25   previously, but --
0012
 1          A.    All right.  Yes.  I would -- excuse
 2   me, I would like to include the information
 3   contained in my letter dated October 6th, 2009 to
 4   Andrew J. Fiffick, Esquire.
 5          Q.    Thank you, sir.
 6                MR. FIFFICK:  At this time,
 7   Mr. Chairman, I would like that Judge Cain's
 8   personal data questionnaire and the amendment be
 9   entered as an exhibit into the hearing record.
10                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
11   ordered.
12                (EXH. 1 was enter into the record.)
13   BY MR. FIFFICK:
14          Q.    Judge Cain, you also have before you
15   the sworn statement you provided with detailed
16   answers to over 30 questions regarding Judicial
17   conduct, statutory qualifications, office
18   administration, and temperament.
19                With regard to the letter that you
20   just referred to, would you like to make an
21   amendment to Question Number 26 of your sworn
22   statement?
23          A.    Yes, sir.  I would like to include
24   that letter as part of this document as well.
25          Q.    Thank you, sir.
0013
 1                MR. FIFFICK:  At this time,
 2   Mr. Chairman, I would ask that Judge Cain's sworn
 3   statement be entered as an exhibit into the hearing
 4   record.
 5                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
 6   ordered.
 7   BY MR. FIFFICK:
 8          Q.    Judge Cain, would you please state for
 9   the record the city and judicial circuit in which
10   you reside.
11          A.    I live a little bit north of Walhalla,
12   South Carolina.  And that's in the 10th Circuit
13   comprised of Oconee and Anderson County.
14          Q.    Thank you, sir.
15                MR. FIFFICK:  With that, I'd note for
16   the record that based on the testimony contained in
17   the candidate's PDQ, which has been included in the
18   record with the candidate's consent, Judge Cain
19   meets the statutory requirements for this position
20   regarding age, residence, and years of practice.
21   BY MR. FIFFICK:
22          Q.    Judge Cain, why do you want to
23   continue to serve as a Family Court judge?
24          A.    Well, I still enjoy my job and I think
25   I've developed a feel for it, and hopefully, I'm
0014
 1   continuing to make a positive contribution to my
 2   community and the Family Court.
 3          Q.    Thank you, sir.
 4                Although you addressed this in your
 5   sworn affidavit, could you please tell the members
 6   of the commission what you feel the appropriate
 7   demeanor is for a judge.
 8          A.    Well, I think the appropriate demeanor
 9   for a judge is to be firm and courteous and
10   respectful for everyone who comes before the bench,
11   conduct the proceeding in accordance with the
12   requirements of law, and try to treat everyone the
13   same.
14          Q.    Thank you, sir.
15                What is your philosophy on pro se
16   litigants?
17          A.    Well, we're seeing more and more
18   self-represented litigants, and certainly everyone
19   has a right to represent himself or herself in
20   court.  And I see more and more self-represented
21   litigants who come in for uncontested divorces, and
22   we try to make sure that they understand the rules
23   of procedure.  And that they understand that I
24   cannot be their attorney, but they have a right to
25   represent themselves and cross-examine witnesses
0015
 1   and participate.  So I let them do that, of course.
 2                Now, on -- some of the folks come in
 3   and if they haven't complied with a procedural
 4   requirements and we're unable to have the hearing,
 5   I do try to let them know what is wrong with their
 6   paperwork so that they can resolve that and take
 7   care of it.  I don't dismiss their case.  I do an
 8   order of continuance and explain what I think they
 9   need to look at in terms of complying with
10   procedural requirements, so that they can have
11   their case rescheduled.
12                Most of the time, I try to do the
13   orders myself on those uncontested divorces where
14   folks are representing themselves unless they
15   obtain the forms from the Web site, the bar Web
16   site.  If it's in pretty good shape, I'll use that.
17   But many times we'll just do the order ourselves
18   and have that clocked, and the clerk will mail it
19   out to them.
20          Q.    Thank you, sir.  I have few more
21   questions that we ask of every candidate.
22                Have you sought or received the pledge
23   of any legislator prior to this date?
24          A.    No, sir.
25          Q.    Have you sought or have you been
0016
 1   offered a conditional pledge of support by any
 2   legislator pending the outcome of your screening?
 3          A.    No, sir.
 4          Q.    Have you asked any third parties to
 5   contact members of the general assembly on your
 6   behalf?
 7          A.    No, sir.
 8          Q.    Have you contacted any members of the
 9   commission?
10          A.    No, sir.
11          Q.    Do you understand that you are
12   prohibit from seeking a pledge or commitment until
13   48 hours after the formal release of the
14   commission's report?
15          A.    Yes, sir.
16          Q.    Have you reviewed the commission's
17   guidelines on pledging?
18          A.    Yes, sir.
19          Q.    As a follow-up, are you aware of the
20   penalties for violating the pledging rules?  That
21   is, it is a misdemeanor, and upon a conviction a
22   violator must be fined not more than $1,000 or in
23   prison not more than 90 days?
24          A.    Yes, sir.
25                MR. FIFFICK:  I would now note that
0017
 1   the Upstate Citizens Committee reported that Judge
 2   Cain is well qualified in all areas.
 3                Finally, I would just not for the
 4   record that any concerns raised during the
 5   investigation regarding the candidate were
 6   incorporated into the questioning of the candidate
 7   today.
 8                Mr. Chairman, I have no further
 9   questions.
10                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you, sir.
11                Any member of the commission have any
12   questions?
13                Senator from Lexington.
14                SEN. KNOTTS:  Judge Cain, what is your
15   philosophy on child support cases where -- both
16   where you have a person who is a hardworking father
17   or mother and maybe gets behind a couple of months
18   or something like that because of loss of job?
19                And then the philosophy on these that
20   we sort of -- what we call a classified deadbeat
21   dads and moms, where we have sometimes looked for
22   them for eight or ten years and they never have
23   tried to pay or anything like that and they have an
24   outstanding balance of 40-, 50-, $100,000 with the
25   state going to the extent of trying and the expense
0018
 1   of trying to find them.
 2                How do you -- what is your philosophy
 3   on those two different type of cases?  How would
 4   you propose to handle them?
 5                JUDGE CAIN:  Well, in a situation
 6   where you have a non-custodial parent who has been
 7   laid off from work or has a job and has fallen
 8   behind or missed a few payments, my philosophy on
 9   that is, if they will work with us, we will try to
10   work with them.
11                Sometimes folks get laid off and it
12   takes them sometime to get their Unemployment
13   Compensation Benefits coming in.  And we have about
14   14 or 15 percent unemployment rate in Oconee
15   County, so we try to be mindful of that.  And we
16   try to look at the record as a whole.  Has that
17   person been paying rather consistently over the
18   time they've been under and ordered to pay support
19   or have -- is it a situation where the person
20   doesn't pay until they're wheeled in by the clerk?
21                So we try to look at that record.  If
22   somebody has a job, we certainly want them to be
23   able to keep that job and will often set up an
24   arrearage account for them so that they can pay
25   some additional amount each week to apply against
0019
 1   the arrearage until it's paid or we'll give them a
 2   date by which they need to comply and bring the
 3   account current based on what they tell us they can
 4   do.
 5                It's a difficult situation.  And
 6   there's one thing I've learned in ten years on
 7   those child support cases, somebody and probably
 8   both parties are going to walk out unhappy with the
 9   ruling.  But my philosophy is in that situation, if
10   they try to work with us, we try to work with them.
11   Of course, we have wage garnishment that's
12   available too.
13                With respect to the other situation
14   that you described, that's a tough situation as
15   well.  Where someone has perhaps been in jail for
16   an extended period of time or has absconded and
17   they've been found and they're brought in and they
18   have a large arrearage.  Of course --
19                SEN. KNOTTS:  I'm not talking about
20   the one that's been incarcerated and could not pay.
21   I'm talking about someone who has absolutely evaded
22   the system and didn't cooperate whatsoever.
23                JUDGE CAIN:  And there are people who
24   fall in that category.  And they come in and our
25   options are somewhat limited in terms of what we
0020
 1   can sentence.  We can sentence up to a year in jail
 2   on those cases.  And I think we're required to set
 3   an amount that somebody could reasonably be
 4   expected to pay, so that's what I'm trying to do.
 5                If somebody comes in and they owe
 6   $50,000 -- and every case is fact specific.  But if
 7   somebody owes $50,000, I don't know that I would
 8   always order them to pay $50,000 in order to stay
 9   out of jail.  I would order some sum, but it would
10   be hard for a lot of folks to come up with that.
11                But there are some people who just
12   will not pay and they'll do their time and they
13   will get out and they won't pay.  So we sentence
14   them -- oftentimes somebody in that situation is
15   looking at the maximum that Family Court can give.
16                I don't know if that answers your
17   question.  It's a problem.  It's a big problem.  I
18   don't know if that adequately answers your question
19   or not.
20                SEN. KNOTTS:  I'm just trying to get
21   an answer for those people that feel that the
22   message is being sent to the custodial parent and
23   the kids out there that need the child support on
24   the system and how it works for them and the ones
25   that get out there and work and try to do what the
0021
 1   Court says.  And those that just say, Hey, you
 2   know, they catch me, I'm not going to have to pay
 3   anything either, I'll go to jail three or four
 4   months, or six months, whatever.
 5                JUDGE CAIN:  Of course, we have to
 6   give them a purge.  But if they're not going to
 7   pay, then they're going to have to do the time.  I
 8   wish we had more options.
 9                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Any other questions?
10   If not, this concludes this portion of our
11   screening process.  As you know, the record will
12   remain open until the report is published and you
13   may be called back at such time as the need arises.
14   I remind you of the 48-hour rule and ask you to be
15   mindful of that.  So mindful that if, in fact,
16   someone approaches you about whether or not they
17   may advocate on your behalf in the event that the
18   committee reported you to the general assembly,
19   that you remind them of the 48-hour rule.
20                With that, we want to thank you for
21   offering and thank you for the service to the
22   people of South Carolina.  I couldn't help but
23   notice that the citizens committee in discussion,
24   you said that -- all they heard is positive
25   comments about you.  What a great record.
0022
 1                JUDGE CAIN:  Well, thank you very
 2   much, Mr. Chairman.  I'd also want to thank each
 3   member of the commission for the time that you put
 4   in.  I know what it's like to have 20 minutes to
 5   hear evidence and make a ruling.  So I appreciate
 6   the work that you do.
 7                And if I may, I like to comment and
 8   commend your staff, Ms. Shuler and Mr. Fiffick, for
 9   their professional and courteous work that they've
10   done on my case.
11                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you so much.  We
12   always appreciate hearing about the staff.  We
13   think we've got a good one too.
14                Thank you.
15                JUDGE CAIN:  Thank you.
16                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.  We'll go
17   off the record until the arrival of the next.
18                (Judge Cain exits the room.)
19                (Off-the-record discussion.)
20                (Judge Allen enters the room.)
21                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Good morning.  How are
22   you, sir?
23                JUDGE ALLEN:  Good.
24                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Have we got everybody?
25                All right.  We'll go back on the
0023
 1   record at this point.  We have before us the
 2   Honorable Kellum Wright Allen who's offering for
 3   Family Court, 11th Circuit, Seat Number 1.  If you
 4   would raise your right hand, please, sir.
 5                Do you swear to tell the truth, the
 6   whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you
 7   God?
 8                JUDGE ALLEN:  I do.
 9                MR. CHAIRMAN:  The Judicial Merit
10   Selection Committee has thoroughly investigated
11   your qualifications for the bench.  Our inquiries
12   focused on our nine evaluative criteria, and it's
13   included a survey of the bench and the bar, a
14   thorough study of your application materials, a
15   verification of your compliance with state ethics
16   laws, a search of newspaper articles in which your
17   name appears, a study of previous screenings, and a
18   check for economic conflicts of interest.  We have
19   received no affidavit filed in opposition to your
20   election.  No witnesses are present to testify.
21                I'll ask you if you have any brief
22   opening statement you wish to make.  The procedure
23   will be following that, and that's purely optional.
24   I'll turn you over to counsel.  Counsel will ask
25   you a series of questions, and then we'll see if
0024
 1   the commissioners have any questions.  And that
 2   will wrap up this portion of the screening process.
 3                JUDGE ALLEN:  I appreciate it,
 4   Mr. Chairman.  I'd just like to say that I've
 5   enjoyed my service on the bench.  I consider it an
 6   honor to have been a part of Judiciary of this
 7   state.
 8                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you, sir.
 9                Please answer counsel's questions.
10                MS. COOMBS:  Mr. Chairman and members
11   of the commission, I just have a few procedural
12   matters to take care of with Judge Allen.
13   BY MS. COOMBS:
14          Q.    Judge Allen, you have before you the
15   personal data questionnaire that you submitted as
16   part of your application.
17                Do you have any amendment that you'd
18   like to make at this time?
19          A.    No, ma'am.
20                MS. COOMBS:  Mr. Chairman, I would ask
21   that Judge Allen's personal data questionnaire be
22   entered as the next hearing exhibit into the
23   record.
24                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
25   ordered.
0025
 1                (EXH. 2 was entered into the record.)
 2   BY MS. COOMBS:
 3          Q.    Judge Allen, you now have before you
 4   the sworn statement that you provided with detailed
 5   answers to over 30 questions regarding judicial
 6   conduct, statutory qualifications, office
 7   administration, and temperament.
 8                Are there any amendments that you'd
 9   like to make to this sworn statement?
10          A.    No, ma'am.
11                MS. COOMBS:  Mr. Chairman, I would ask
12   that Judge Allen's sworn statement be entered into
13   the record as the next hearing exhibit.
14                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
15   ordered.
16                MS. COOMBS:  And a final procedural
17   matter, I would just note for the record that based
18   on the testimony contained in the candidate's PDQ,
19   Judge Allen meets the statutory requirements for
20   this position regarding age, residence, and years
21   of practice.
22   BY MS. COOMBS:
23          Q.    Judge Allen, would you please state
24   the city and circuit of your home address.
25          A.    I live in West Columbia.  I'm in
0026
 1   Lexington County.  My circuit is the 11th Circuit.
 2                You want my home address?
 3          Q.    No, that's fine.
 4          A.    Okay.
 5          Q.    Judge Allen, you were elected to the
 6   Family Court in 1998.  Why do you want to continue
 7   serving as a Family Court judge?
 8          A.    Well, I have enjoyed my service on the
 9   bench.  As I said earlier, I consider it an honor.
10   I think most folks with a legal background would
11   consider it an honor to serve in the judicial.
12                I believe I've done a good job.  I
13   have served now -- this has been my twelfth year.
14   I'm proud of the record that I have.  I believe I
15   have the background and skills to serve in the job.
16   I practiced for 22 years before I took the bench.
17                My practice was a varied practiced.  I
18   think I probably handled just about every type of
19   case from the law firm that I practiced with.  So I
20   think I have the experience.  I hope I have the
21   temperament, the background, and the knowledge to
22   do a good job for the people of the state.
23          Q.    Speaking of temperament, what would
24   you -- I know that that was a question in your
25   sworn affidavit, but would you explain to the
0027
 1   commission what you think is the appropriate
 2   demeanor for a judge.
 3          A.    I think a judge needs to recognize
 4   when people come into court, often times this is
 5   the low moment of their life.  I think a judge
 6   needs to recognize that if you give people an
 7   opportunity to have their say, that goes a long way
 8   in creating an atmosphere in the judicial system
 9   that's favorable.
10                I think a judge needs to be friendly,
11   but serious in the way he or she conducts a
12   hearing.  To repeat, I think that the understanding
13   that the person you're dealing with, in
14   particularly Family Court, because I would
15   guesstimate that more people have an experience,
16   unfortunately, with Family Court either themselves
17   or a family member than with any other court in
18   this state.
19                It's highly emotional, highly charged,
20   and I think you have to be mindful to dealing with
21   people from that standpoint.
22          Q.    What is your general philosophy about
23   pro se litigants?  In particular about the granting
24   or denying a request for a continuance made by a
25   pro se litigant?
0028
 1          A.    A continuance request?
 2          Q.    Yes.
 3          A.    It's pretty rare for us to have a
 4   continuance request.  I thought what you were going
 5   to ask me is about pro se generally.  We've seen
 6   a -- I won't use the word "explosion," but there's
 7   definitely been a rapid increase in the number of
 8   self-represented litigants.
 9                I would estimate in Lexington County,
10   which is a large county and a busy county, I
11   probably hear -- I'm guessing now -- a hundred
12   cases, give or take, in a week.  And of those
13   hundred, probably a third have at least one side
14   self-represented.  I have probably ten percent that
15   are both sides self-represented.
16                Usually it's a no-fault divorce.
17   Usually it has a few straightforward issues, but
18   there's definitely a lot more self-representation
19   in the Family Court.
20                My general philosophy about it is --
21   and this has really come down -- we had a lot of
22   meetings with the chief justice, the judiciary that
23   is, about self-represented litigants, and she has
24   encouraged us to, while we remain the umpire, the
25   judge, to try to make the court system more
0029
 1   accessible to self-represented folks.  And I try do
 2   that.  There is no real gain to anybody, including
 3   the opposing litigant, for someone to get tripped
 4   up over a technicality.
 5                So we're seeing a lot more of it.  I
 6   think that's a lot of people's sole experience with
 7   the judicial system.  And I try to remain the
 8   umpire, but to get the cases heard.  My main goal
 9   is to treat people fairly and keep the case moving.
10          Q.    What suggestion would you offer for
11   improving the backlog of cases on the docket in
12   Family Court?
13          A.    I thought you might ask me that
14   question.  That is a tough one.  What I'd like to
15   say, and I know it's not a popular answer, is the
16   chief justice has shown us in all of our judicial
17   meetings probably for the last ten years that the
18   judiciary in this state, I think, hears more cases
19   than any other judiciary in any other state.  I
20   don't believe there's been an addition to the bench
21   in probably a decade.  I could be wrong about that.
22   I think somewhere in the mid-'90s is the last time
23   there was an addition to the bench.  And like any
24   citizen, I'm mindful of the fact that money's
25   tight.  I realize that.
0030
 1                Sometimes I think that we perhaps
 2   don't utilize all of our resources logistically,
 3   completely.  Now, I'm not in the administration end
 4   of the judiciary so I don't really know that.  But
 5   I kind of sense that sometimes we have more man
 6   power in point A than we need, and not enough at
 7   point B that we could use, if you see what I'm
 8   saying.  But that's anecdotal.  I can't prove that,
 9   but that's my sense of things.
10          Q.    When you leave the bench, what would
11   you like your legacy as a Family Court judge to be?
12          A.    I would hope that people would say
13   that I have worked hard, tried to treat them
14   fairly, treat them the way I'd want to be treated
15   if I were on the other side of the bench.  I would
16   hope that the lawyers would feel that they had
17   gotten a fair share.
18                I remember when I was a new attorney
19   and I was trying a case in Richland County.  This
20   has been a long, long time ago in the late '70s.
21   And a judge who later went on to the Supreme Court
22   was the circuit judge at that time.  I had a -- to
23   me it was an important case and to my client it was
24   an important case.  And the lawyer on the other
25   side was older and more experienced than I was.
0031
 1   And the judge treated me the same as he treated the
 2   other lawyer.  I never forgot that.  So I've tried
 3   to emulate that.
 4          Q.    Thank you, Judge Allen.
 5                And just a few housekeeping questions.
 6   Have you sought or received the pledge of any
 7   legislator prior to this date?
 8          A.    No, ma'am.
 9          Q.    Have you sought or have you been
10   offered a conditional pledge of support of any
11   legislator pending the outcome of your screening?
12          A.    No, ma'am.
13          Q.    Have you asked any third parties to
14   contact members of the general assembly on your
15   behalf?
16          A.    No, I haven't.
17          Q.    Have you contacted any members of this
18   commission?
19          A.    I have not.
20          Q.    Do you understand that you're
21   prohibited from seeking a pledge or commitment
22   until 48 hours after the formal release of the
23   commission's report?
24          A.    I do.
25          Q.    Have you reviewed the commission 's
0032
 1   guidelines on pledging?
 2          A.    I have.
 3          Q.    Are you aware of the penalty for
 4   violating the pledging rules, that it is a
 5   misdemeanor, and upon conviction you'd be fined --
 6   subject to a fine of $1,000 or in prison not more
 7   than 90 days?
 8          A.    Yes, sir.
 9                MS. COOMBS:  And Mr. Chairman and
10   members of the commission, I would just note that
11   the Midlands Citizens Committee found Judge Allen
12   well qualified for each of the nine evaluative
13   criteria.  The committee provided the following
14   summary statement, quote, Judge Allen is truly an
15   asset to our state judiciary.  The committee
16   greatly appreciate his honorable and outstanding
17   service as a Family Court judge.  He is very
18   eminently qualified to serve as a Family Court
19   judge, end quote.
20                And I would note for the record that
21   any concerns raised during the investigation
22   regarding Judge Allen were incorporated into his
23   questioning today.
24                Mr. Chairman, I have no further
25   questions.
0033
 1                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.
 2                We'll see now if any member of the
 3   commission has any questions.  Any member of the --
 4   senator from Lexington.
 5                SEN. KNOTTS:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
 6                Judge, I want to thank you also for
 7   serving in Lexington County Family Court.  And I
 8   also agree that you are an outstanding judge.  I've
 9   known you for a long time, and you do a great job.
10                But I've had some concerns over the
11   past several years.  Not concerns about any -- you
12   particularly, and not only Lexington County but
13   also in other parts of the state from people
14   calling law enforcement, citizens, clerks, people
15   of that nature.  Where the state goes to great
16   expense and extensive searches of people who are in
17   the arrears of child support that are actually
18   evading the system.  Not the ones that have been in
19   jail and couldn't pay, but people who they may even
20   had to go out of state and have them turned over to
21   the state to help find -- through the special
22   forces that they have up there, to find deadbeat
23   dads and deadbeat moms.
24                JUDGE ALLEN:  Right.
25                SEN. KNOTTS:  And whenever they
0034
 1   finally get them, they bring them before the Court.
 2   And the Court -- where they -- say $40,000
 3   arrearage that they have never attempted to pay or
 4   whatever.  They just left those children to be
 5   raised by the custodial parent with no help
 6   whatsoever or having to get on the road with DSS in
 7   some cases.
 8                And they bring them before a judge and
 9   the judge basically -- what the other side feels,
10   that they don't do anything to them.
11                JUDGE ALLEN:  Right.
12                SEN. KNOTTS:  And they, in fact, in
13   Lexington County, I believe, they have went to the
14   old 18-something law on -- they found in the books
15   concerning failure to support your children or
16   something of that nature to try to combat that.
17                JUDGE ALLEN:  That's right.
18                SEN. KNOTTS:  What is your philosophy
19   on those types of people, and also your philosophy
20   on the ones that just basically has been trying to
21   pay and struggling to pay, but because of the
22   economy they got behind a month or two or six
23   months or whatever.
24          A.    I agree with you.  You're hitting that
25   on the head.  They're really two kinds of child
0035
 1   support cases that I see, and I imagine this is
 2   pretty universal.  You have the one situation where
 3   a payor has been a pretty good payor and has fallen
 4   behind a month or two and their arrearage might be
 5   $600.  And then you see a second set of cases
 6   where -- it's usually a man -- has been in arrears
 7   for years.  And I've seen a few over $100,000.  But
 8   it's, unfortunately, not uncommon anymore to see an
 9   arrearage of 40,000, 60,000.  And you're right,
10   we -- I know in Lexington, I can't speak for other
11   counties, but in Lexington we have started using a
12   bench warrant method to immediately pick a person
13   up for failure to pay.
14                And when they come in front of you,
15   what you usually see is a person who has a -- let's
16   take your example of a $60,000 arrearage, has no
17   job, hasn't worked, often has an addiction, and the
18   real prospect that you're going to get that $60,000
19   is pretty small.  So what I have come to believe
20   is, the best that I can do in a situation like that
21   is to figure out what number I can impose, as a
22   condition to purge, that I can realistically get.
23                For example, the authority that the
24   Family Court has to enforce child support is a year
25   in jail, $1,500 fine, or 300 hours of community
0036
 1   service, or all three.  So that is my ammunition.
 2   That's all I can do.  So I either can put a fellow
 3   in jail for a year or something less, or try and
 4   fashion some type of an order by which hopefully he
 5   can pay the recipient something.
 6                So just to speak real straight with
 7   you, the trick is to find the number that you can
 8   get somebody to pay.  If you say, Okay, I'll put
 9   you in jail, Mr. Payor, for a year unless you pay
10   the $40,000, if you pay the $40,000, you'll be
11   released.  You'll never get it.  They don't have
12   $40,000, unless, unless they have a family member
13   who's going to basically bail them out.
14                Therefore, to me the notion -- and I
15   have the clerks try and help me follow up on my
16   sentencing to see if I say, All right, you've got a
17   year in jail hanging over your head, but if you pay
18   $5,000 or $7,500, you can be released.  That will
19   give $7,500 towards that 40,000.  Often times
20   that's the best you're going to be able to do.
21   Otherwise they're going to be sitting over in
22   Lexington County Detention Center and the taxpayer
23   will be paying for that person and they can be
24   sitting there up to a year.
25                Then they get out of jail.  Their
0037
 1   child support has continued to run and instead of
 2   it being $40,000, now it's $50,000.  They served a
 3   year, they get out, they knock around for a month
 4   or two, and they're right back into the cycle.
 5                So those high number arrearage cases,
 6   I don't have a perfect answer.  The best I've been
 7   able to come up with is to try and figure out what
 8   is a realistic number that they can get their
 9   family to help them come up with so they can pay
10   something to the recipient.
11                SEN. KNOTTS:  With that said, the
12   message that's being sent from what I'm gathering
13   and the people that are talking to me, the message
14   being sent to the person that's trying to abide by
15   the court order and make the payments, and gets
16   behind, you know, the easy ones to find.
17                I mean, those are the ones that the
18   sheriff -- he gets a handful of your papers, and
19   the first one that the sheriff goes out and picks
20   up is the one who he knows where he's at and knows
21   where he works and he's two months behind or
22   something like that.
23                The message that's being sent to them
24   is, Look, if I can evade them and keep going, the
25   further I can go, the more money I can put in my
0038
 1   pocket now.  And then whenever I get caught, the
 2   judge's going to give me a lump sum to pay and then
 3   it's over with.  That's the message that's being
 4   sent, and I'm trying to find an answer to how we
 5   can change that message to the person who's trying
 6   to abide by the law.
 7          A.    Fortunately, the example that we've
 8   talked about with a $40,000 arrearage is still --
 9   you know, that's the small portion of cases.
10                The second part of your question is,
11   what's my philosophy about a person who has fallen
12   behind just because of hard times and obviously
13   you've got to take that into account.
14                Another big factor is, just being
15   pragmatic about it is, if a person comes in front
16   of you and they still have a job and you lock them
17   up, the odds are they're going to lose that job.
18   It's very tenuous.  I don't lock somebody up who
19   has a job unless it's a last resort.
20                Again, I only have two weapons.  I can
21   put them in jail or I can set a number by which
22   they can purge.  And to me the blend of that is the
23   best I can do.  To hold a jail sentence over their
24   head and if they can pay whatever that magic number
25   is.
0039
 1                You see so many -- here's another
 2   little phenomenon that's happening too.  We're
 3   seeing more women as payors.  When I first started
 4   practicing law in 1976, you almost never saw a
 5   woman criminal defendant nor would you see a woman
 6   payor.  I'm just guessing now, but I'd say probably
 7   15 percent of the cases I see in child support
 8   cases are woman payor.  And in the criminal side
 9   it's probably higher than the female.
10                SEN. KNOTTS:  Do you have the power to
11   put a lien on something -- say, a person has a
12   workman's compensation case pending.
13                JUDGE ALLEN:  Absolutely.
14                SEN. KNOTTS:  Do you have the
15   authority to place a lien on that?
16                JUDGE ALLEN:  Absolutely.
17                SEN. KNOTTS:  How about a civil
18   judgment?
19                JUDGE ALLEN:  A lot of times it gets
20   reduced to a judgment as a last resort.
21   Truthfully, a judgment against someone who has no
22   assets and ability to pay isn't worth much.  But
23   that's absolutely the last resort.  But you do see
24   the liens.
25                Another thing that we see a lot of --
0040
 1   I didn't know much about Social Security law when I
 2   started on the bench.  But I've had to learn that
 3   there are lots of folks out there who are on total
 4   disability Social Security.  This is a very common
 5   scenario when you see somebody coming and they're
 6   drawing $800 a month in SSI or in total disability
 7   Social Security.  So you're dealing with someone
 8   who is a low-income person to begin with.
 9                SEN. KNOTTS:  Judge, what do you mean
10   by "purge"?  Is that doing away with the balance,
11   or is that setting it aside or --
12                JUDGE ALLEN:  No.
13                SEN. KNOTTS:  When you get purged from
14   the voter list, you're taken off.  And the general
15   public doesn't understand the word "purge."
16                JUDGE ALLEN:  The way it works is
17   this, when we're enforcing child support, that's a
18   civil contempt.  The keys to the jailhouse are
19   owned by the litigant.  We're saying, Mr. Payor,
20   I'm going to give you the keys to the jailhouse.
21   I'm going to sentence you to a year or six months
22   or whatever, up to a year, but you can purge, you
23   can unlock that key to the jailhouse by paying
24   $3,500, $500, 6,000, whatever it is.  So they
25   purge, they unlock the keys to the jailhouse in a
0041
 1   civil contempt.  So it's an unlocking and not a
 2   wiping away, so to speak.
 3                SEN. KNOTTS:  What happens in that
 4   scenario with the word "purge" to a person who
 5   owes, say, 52,000, approximately $52,000, and the
 6   sentence was 7,500 plus a hundred or one year?  How
 7   would that be explained as a purge?
 8                JUDGE ALLEN:  I'm not sure what you're
 9   asking me.
10                SEN. KNOTTS:  What happens to the
11   remainder amount?
12                JUDGE ALLEN:  It's still there.  It
13   doesn't go away.  If we use your example, a guy
14   owes 53,000 and I looked at the paperwork.  Here's
15   what I'm seeing that's handed to me.
16                I'm seeing John Smith who's come in
17   front of me.  He has a balance of $52,000 in unpaid
18   child support over X number of years.  And I say,
19   All right, John Smith, I find that you're in
20   willful civil contempt, you have willfully failed
21   to pay your child support.  It's not a situation
22   where you were disabled, couldn't pay, in a bad
23   accident, ill, but you willfully failed to pay.
24   Your sentence, John Smith, is one year in the
25   Lexington County Detention Center.  But you may
0042
 1   purge, you may unlock that jailhouse door by paying
 2   $7,500.
 3                Upon your release, you must continue
 4   to pay what you were previously ordered.  A $100 a
 5   week or whatever the ongoing payment was, plus we
 6   establish an arrearage payment to knock down the
 7   remainder of the 52,000 from the 8,000 or whatever
 8   he pays to get out.
 9                I know that I'm throwing a lot of
10   information at you here.  But he would have a
11   $44,000 balance under our example and I may add an
12   arrearage payment towards that in an addition to
13   the ongoing payment.
14                But the short answer is, it doesn't go
15   away.  He still has that total balance.
16                SEN. KNOTTS:  I think where the whole
17   problem is the use of the word "purge."  Because
18   people understand the word "purge" as doing away
19   with or removing the balance.  So that's one of the
20   reasons that I have asked the Family Court judges
21   all over the state the same questions that
22   basically I've asked you about the child support.
23   To find out how that's being done all over the
24   state so that I can answer the questions being
25   given to me.
0043
 1                And also find out if there's anything
 2   we can do in the legislature to help the Family
 3   Court.  But the thing is --
 4                JUDGE ALLEN:  There is one suggestion
 5   that I would have.
 6                SEN. KNOTTS:  That was my next
 7   question.  What would you suggest?
 8                JUDGE ALLEN:  I don't know -- I'm not
 9   that technology savvy, so I don't know if this is
10   doable or if it seems to be or would be.
11                One of the big problems that I see
12   is -- and, again, at the risk of being sexist, I'm
13   going to say that the fellah is the payor.  A lot
14   of times they do get these big balances and they
15   become hopeless.  If they're hopeless, the system's
16   hopeless.
17                The best thing that could be done, in
18   my opinion, is to never let those big balances
19   accumulate.  There's a whole lot of difference if
20   you're seeing a payor who owes a $1,500 versus a
21   $35,000 balance.
22                I'm not being critical, but I do not
23   understand.  I think I've held court in about 26
24   different counties throughout the state in my
25   12 years.  I don't understand how the people are
0044
 1   generated to come before the Court for child
 2   support.
 3                You would think that the people with
 4   the highest balances would be the ones you would
 5   see, but it's a mixed bag.  I'll see people with a
 6   high balance and I'll see people that are $100
 7   behind and the next person's who's coming behind is
 8   $100,000.  My point is this, if there were a way
 9   for the clerk's offices to spit out the people as
10   soon as they start getting behind, rather than
11   letting this big balance accumulate, I think that
12   creates some of the problem.
13                Because at some point a blue-collar
14   minimum-wage earner is going to have a very hard
15   time overcoming that big balance and he'll just
16   throw in the towel and he'll become the deadbeat
17   father.
18                SEN. KNOTTS:  Well, that goes back to
19   what I said earlier about the law enforcement
20   officer that gets a fistful of papers and the first
21   ones are the ones where he knows where he's
22   working, knows where he's at, and he goes to get
23   that and sort of clears his little docket that he's
24   got for picking up people.
25                And then the hard ones, you know,
0045
 1   they'll go there three times and then he turns it
 2   back into the Clerk of Court.  And then they'll
 3   spit it out six months later and issue a bench
 4   warrant.
 5                So I appreciate what you do and I
 6   think you've given me some answers to some of the
 7   things that I needed to find out.  I thank you for
 8   the job you do in Lexington.
 9                JUDGE ALLEN:  I appreciate it.  I have
10   one thing that might be of some interest to you.  I
11   was holding court in Edgefield County about a year
12   ago.  And I asked the Clerk of Court, I said,
13   What's the population in Edgefield.  She said about
14   25,000.  I said, How many people are on the child
15   support roll in the county now.  She said they're
16   1,500 payors.  And I said, All right, let's do the
17   math.
18                Let's use the men/women analogy.  It's
19   simpler for me to say it this way.  If you got
20   1,500 men in Edgefield County paying 1,500 woman,
21   that's 3,000 people that are involved in the
22   system.  And if they have two children per
23   relationship, that's another 3,000.  So that's
24   6,000 Edgefield citizens who are touched by this --
25   just the child support component of Family Court.
0046
 1   And if you assume that only roughly half of your
 2   cases are paid through the Court and half are not,
 3   add another 6,000 of child support payments that
 4   are going directly from man to woman.  So that's
 5   12,000.
 6                The point is, in the county of
 7   Edgefield 25,000, half the county, 12,000 -- and I
 8   would submit that it's probably the same statewide
 9   whether it's a big county like Richland or a small
10   county like Edgefield -- half the population is
11   involved in the Family Court system.  So it does
12   touch people's lives.  There's no question about
13   that.
14                Probably every person in this room has
15   had some experience either through a family member
16   or personally with the Family Court system.  So
17   it's involving people's lives.
18                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Professor Freeman.
19                PROF. FREEMAN:  Judge, we've been --
20   I've been living my whole life in the Midlands here
21   since moving to South Carolina in '73, and I'm so
22   glad I did.  So I've known you a long time and I
23   want to commend you on the outstanding job that you
24   do.  Everybody in the Midlands knows that.
25                You said something that was of great
0047
 1   interest to me.  That was on the self-represented
 2   litigants.  You said, if I heard you right, that
 3   now approximately one-third of your cases involve
 4   such litigants and about ten percent involve
 5   self-represented against self-represented.
 6                You've been on the bench now 12 years.
 7   As best you can recall, tell me what the numbers
 8   would have been when you started.
 9                JUDGE ALLEN:  I would say less than
10   one percent self-represented against
11   self-represented.  That was almost nonexistent and
12   probably half as much of a pro se litigant on one
13   side.
14                PROF. FREEMAN:  Just to -- I don't
15   want to monopolize things, but just quickly.  What
16   is driving this, poverty?  What is driving this?
17   Are the legal fees too high?
18                JUDGE ALLEN:  Legal fees are all over
19   the place.  That's a real phenomenon.  And I see
20   that from my vantage point, legal fees are all over
21   the place.  The Internet, I think, has got a lot to
22   do with it.  You know, there's so much out there
23   now that people -- we go on the Internet to WebMD
24   and find out why our leg hurts.  I think that's
25   just the mentality with the younger generations
0048
 1   that have come along after mine.
 2                I'm in an affluent county, Lexington
 3   County.  So I don't think that it's -- I couldn't
 4   say that it's necessary driven by the economy.  It
 5   would contribute to it, but I don't think that's
 6   the primary reason.  I would say it's the Internet.
 7                PROF. FREEMAN:  "Do it yourself" kind
 8   of mentality?
 9                JUDGE ALLEN:  Part of that, yes.  Yes,
10   sir.
11                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Representative Delleney
12   and then Senator Knotts.
13                REP. DELLENEY:  I'm just curious, you
14   know, from my vantage point, one of the biggest
15   problems was society as a single-parent home.  And,
16   you know, a two-parent family would be a cure for a
17   lot of juvenile delinquents and a lot of people
18   going to college and a lot delinquency problems and
19   that kind of thing.  I think that the bar is really
20   committing a disservice on our population for
21   making it so easy to get a divorce.  I think it
22   ought to be harder to get a divorce.
23                What I see are people coming into my
24   office who are being bullied by these things they
25   get off the Internet.  I'll see a woman come in
0049
 1   that a husband has figured this out and has
 2   determined what they're going to do and she's going
 3   to do it.  And she's wanting to ask a couple of
 4   questions about this, because I don't help them.
 5   And then I see other people who kind of think
 6   they've mastered the situation, go out and -- you
 7   know, you want a divorce, I can show you how to get
 8   one.  They go to court and there's something wrong
 9   and the judge says, Well, you've got to get this
10   fixed.  Then they come up in our office and want us
11   to fix it.  But I just think the bar or whoever's
12   doing this is really committing a disservice on the
13   citizens of South Carolina.
14                JUDGE ALLEN:  I understand your
15   concern and it's a legitimate concern.  There's so
16   many aspects to that.  I fell like I may be going
17   into more detail than you want.  But I have been on
18   the bench long enough that I've seen -- let's see
19   where to start.  When you have pro se litigants,
20   95 percent of them are garden variety cases.
21   They're -- it's a short marriage, young couple, no
22   assets, no joint debts, often no children.  That's
23   kind of an easy self-represented case.  Easy in the
24   sense for the system, me, to handle it.  Easy in
25   the sense for them, the self-represented, to
0050
 1   understand what they're doing.
 2                Where I see a disservice -- and we
 3   were talking about this out in the hall when some
 4   of the judges were gathering here a few minutes
 5   ago.  Where I see a disservice -- to use that
 6   word -- is that -- when it's more complicated than
 7   that, when there are children involved, when there
 8   are assets and debts that need to be untangle and
 9   the self-represented person dives into that, then
10   the judge's in the dilemma, do you try to help them
11   through and then take your hat off as judge and
12   you're kind of -- you're helping a side, and you
13   can't do that.  But if you don't, then you leave
14   them in the mess that you're describing when they
15   walk back into your office and say fix this because
16   it got messed up in Family Court when I tried to do
17   it myself.  I don't have a good answer for that.  I
18   don't know.
19                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Senator from Lexington.
20                SEN. KNOTTS:  Judge, a while back we
21   had a bad docket problem in Lexington County and
22   the Chief Justice assigned a Richland County judge
23   to come over to Family Court to get the docket down
24   and to set up some procedures on how to keep it
25   down.
0051
 1                Do you feel that that helped or has it
 2   improved, and what is the status of the docket now?
 3                JUDGE ALLEN:  I'd say it's held
 4   steady.  The docket in our county -- if you file a
 5   case today, statistically that case will come to an
 6   end in about ten months, which is not that bad in
 7   the Family Court system.  Now, there are
 8   exceptions.  And I can show you some cases I heard
 9   yesterday that were filed in 2005, but they're
10   extenuating circumstances for that.  So, generally,
11   the system is working.
12                As you know, what we're doing now is
13   two mechanisms that have helped.  One is mediation.
14   I'm not sure who on the panel -- I don't know who's
15   an attorney and who's not, but mediation has helped
16   our state with its backlog of legal cases.  And
17   I'll confess, it has done even more than I thought
18   it could do.  I'm not sure the system could survive
19   right now without mediation.  Mediation is
20   basically when the litigants go over and they hire
21   a lawyer to try and work out their case, and that's
22   helping a lot.
23                The other thing that we're doing in
24   Lexington County is we're pretrying cases.  And
25   that was implemented when Judge Riddle came over,
0052
 1   and we stuck with the pretrial system.  And I
 2   would -- the straight answer to your question is,
 3   we're holding our own.  I think we're about a
 4   ten-month mark from the day the case is filed to
 5   the day that it comes to an end.
 6                SEN. KNOTTS:  The other thing is, how
 7   are we handling people that -- I believe I talked
 8   with you a couple years back where we had a system
 9   over there that it was a person that was put on
10   notice and it was an uncontested divorce and he
11   worked for a steel company and he was out there
12   fixing to unload a truck from out of state and he
13   was the only sole employee of the company, except
14   for the manager.  And he had to stop what he was
15   doing, come down there to the court to hear his
16   case.  And, of course, that was creating a problem
17   for the company, for the truck driver from out of
18   state, and also for him.
19                Have we addressed that issue?
20                JUDGE ALLEN:  We're not using that
21   system at all in Lexington County.  Now, as you
22   know, in the circuit court the common pleas docket
23   does run that way.  In other words, the civil
24   cases, the lawsuits, you've got 300 cases on the
25   docket and you try Case Number 1, and when the
0053
 1   judge finishes with Case Number 1, he goes on to
 2   case Number 2, and 3.  And therefore, there's no
 3   real notice to the litigants.  It's kind of a hurry
 4   up, come on over here, and try your case.
 5                In Family Court you get a
 6   predetermined time.  Your case is at ten o'clock or
 7   11 o'clock.  It's kind of good news, bad news.
 8                The good news is, you do have a
 9   predetermined time, you make arrangements to get
10   off work if you need to.  The bad news is, when a
11   case settles, that time goes down.  And it's
12   precious.
13                Here's a concrete example.  I had to
14   pretry a case Monday.  It's set for four days of a
15   trial in Lexington County.  We only have two
16   judges.  So one of us will devote four entire days
17   to that one case.  If that case goes down, that
18   time gets lost.  The only way that can be avoided
19   is by having a couple of backup cases, which we do.
20   If those go down as well as the primary case, the
21   time gets lost.
22                But if you don't have a preset time,
23   then you run into the problem like what you've
24   described.  So it's an imperfect system.
25                SEN. KNOTTS:  We had some testimony in
0054
 1   here from other judges throughout the state that
 2   had some different types of system like in
 3   Greenville, Spartanburg, in those areas that
 4   address those type of issues that we had.  And I'm
 5   glad that we have changed from that old system,
 6   because now we're not getting as many complaints.
 7                Thank you.
 8                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Representative Mack.
 9                REP. MACK:  Judge Allen, I have not
10   met you until a little while ago.  I just wanted to
11   say how impressed I was with you.  Not only with
12   your high test scores, but also the way you're able
13   to communicate the practicality of this very
14   complex problem.  As a non-attorney, you've made a
15   lot of things much more clearer.  One of the things
16   I see is that there's no black-and-white answer
17   with this very complex problem.  Especially with
18   families and children and breaking up
19   relationships, potential new relationships.  It
20   just could be a nightmare, and I just really
21   appreciate what you do.
22                I think one of the things that I think
23   the legislators will agree that we have, you know,
24   almost a study committee for almost everything.
25   But one of the things I do think we need a study
0055
 1   committee or think tank or whatever you want to
 2   call it is, a methodology to try to iron out this
 3   complex problem a little bit more.  And I would
 4   love to see you at the center of that whenever we
 5   do ever get that.  But I appreciate your time here
 6   today and what you've communicated to this
 7   commission.
 8                JUDGE ALLEN:  I appreciate it.
 9                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Any other questions?
10                Judge, before you go I want to -- we
11   have citizens committees.  They're our eyes and
12   ears.  They give us a lot of interviews and give us
13   a lot of input.  I can't help but go back to
14   something they wrote in here.  They said, "Judge
15   Allen is truly an asset to our state judiciary.
16   The committee greatly appreciates his honorable and
17   outstanding service as a Family Court judge.  He is
18   eminently qualified to serve as a Family Court
19   judge."
20                I've been off and on the screening
21   committee for decades, and some of the testimony
22   I've heard from you today is some of the most
23   articulate I have ever heard in front of this
24   committee.  And I can only say that this citizens
25   committee really has given you a tribute that's
0056
 1   well deserved and we're very fortunate to have you.
 2                JUDGE ALLEN:  Thank you.
 3                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you, sir.
 4                Is there anything further?  If not,
 5   this concludes this portion of our screening
 6   process.  As you know, the record will remain open
 7   until the report is published and you may be called
 8   back at such time as the need arises.  We know of
 9   nothing pending.  I'll remind you of the 48-hour
10   rule and ask you to be mindful of that.  So mindful
11   that if anyone inquires about whether or not they
12   may advocate for you in the event that you are
13   screened by the committee, that you remind them of
14   the 48-hour rule.
15                With that, again, thank you for
16   offering.  Thank you for your service to the people
17   of South Carolina.  Have a great day, sir.
18                JUDGE ALLEN:  Thank you very much.
19                MR. CHAIRMAN:  We'll go off the
20   record.
21                (Judge Allen exits the room.)
22                (Off-the-record discussion.)
23                (Judge Vinson enters the room.)
24                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.  We'll go
25   back on the record at this time.  We have before us
0057
 1   the Honorable Jerry Deese Vinson, Jr., Family
 2   Court, 12th Circuit, Seat Number 3.  If you would
 3   raise your right hand, please, sir.
 4                Do you swear to tell the truth, the
 5   whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you
 6   God?
 7                JUDGE VINSON:  Yes, sir.
 8                MR. CHAIRMAN:  The Judicial Merit
 9   Selection Commission has thoroughly investigated
10   your qualifications for the bench.  Our inquiries
11   focused on our nine evaluative criteria.  It has
12   included a survey of the bench and the bar, a
13   thorough study of your application materials, a
14   verification of your compliance with state ethics
15   laws, a search of newspaper articles in which your
16   name appears, a study of previous screenings, a
17   check for economic conflicts of interest.  We have
18   received no affidavits filed in opposition to your
19   election.  No witnesses are present to testify.
20                I'd ask you if there's any brief
21   opening statement that you wish to make.  It's
22   purely optional.  The procedure is this, we will
23   turn you over to staff counsel who will ask you a
24   series of questions.  At the completion of that,
25   any commissioners may have follow-up questions to
0058
 1   that and we'll wrap the hearing up.
 2                JUDGE VINSON:  Thank you, Senator.
 3                I would like to say briefly what a
 4   privilege and pleasure and honor it is to serve as
 5   a member of judiciary and particularly Family
 6   Court.  When I sought this position six years ago,
 7   I really had no idea how incredibly rewarding and
 8   satisfying serving as a Family Court judge would
 9   be.  And have the opportunity to, I hope,
10   positively affect families and have a positive
11   effect on children's lives.  It is a great
12   privilege and it's a humbling responsibility.  And
13   I thoroughly enjoy it and I'm very grateful for it.
14                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you, sir.
15                Please answer counsel's questions.
16   BY MS. BENSON:
17          Q.    Judge Vinson, you have before you your
18   personal data questionnaire that you submitted as
19   part of your application.
20                Is there any amendment that you would
21   like to make at this time to your personal data
22   questionnaire?
23          A.    No, ma'am.
24                MS. BENSON:  Mr. Chairman, I'd ask
25   that Judge Vinson's personal data questionnaire be
0059
 1   entered as an exhibit into the record.
 2                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
 3   ordered.
 4                (EXH. 3 was enter into the record.)
 5   
 6   BY MS. BENSON:
 7          Q.    Judge Vinson, you also have before you
 8   the sworn statement that you provided with detailed
 9   answers to over 30 questions regarding judicial
10   conduct, statutory qualifications, office
11   administration, and temperament.
12                Is there any amendment that you would
13   make to this document?
14          A.    No, ma'am.
15                MS. BENSON:  Mr. Chairman, at this
16   time I'd ask that Judge Vinson's sworn statement be
17   entered into the hearing record as part of the
18   hearing.
19                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
20   ordered.
21                MS. BENSON:  One final procedural
22   matter, I would note for the record that based on
23   the testimony contained in the personal data
24   questionnaire, which has been included in the
25   record, that Judge Vinson meets the statutory
0060
 1   requirements for this position regarding age,
 2   residence, and years of practice.
 3   BY MS. BENSON:
 4          Q.    Judge Vinson, as a Family Court judge
 5   will you please state your city and circuit of
 6   residence.
 7          A.    I live in Florence, South Carolina.
 8   It's the 12th Judicial Circuit.
 9          Q.    Thank you.
10                Judge Vinson, why do you wish to
11   continue serving as a Family Court judge?
12          A.    I've had the opportunity now to do
13   this for five and a half years.  As I said before,
14   it's a very satisfying and rewarding position and
15   it really does afford judges an opportunity to have
16   a positive impact on people's lives, to address
17   very difficult situations that face families and
18   children.  And I think I said in the documents,
19   which were filed as part of the application, that I
20   enjoy problem solving.  And that really is what
21   Family Court is about.
22                It's not necessarily just making
23   decisions all the time, but helping parties'
24   sometimes make decisions for themselves.  I spend a
25   great deal of time on complicated cases, on longer
0061
 1   cases, meeting with the lawyers before time --
 2   before the hearing is actually scheduled, some days
 3   before and then even on the day of the hearing, to
 4   try to help them craft resolutions to the issues
 5   and problems that they have.
 6                But I'm not afraid to make those
 7   decisions if I need to.  In fact, I consider it to
 8   be my responsibility as a judge to do so.  But I
 9   also consider it my responsible as a judge to try
10   to help these litigants help themselves find
11   solutions to these issues.  And to that end, in
12   Florence and wherever I'm sitting, I promote
13   mediation as an alternate to resolution as methods
14   to resolve the issues that the parties have between
15   them.  Not only in private cases, but also in DSS
16   cases.
17          Q.    Judge Vinson, you noted in your PDQ
18   that you've taken a number of innovative approaches
19   in some of your problem solving.  And I wondered if
20   you might want to share some of those with the
21   commission.
22          A.    There have been a number of different
23   situations that have presented themselves to me.  I
24   recall one case in particular that had been through
25   three judges before.  It's an ongoing custody
0062
 1   battle.  The parties had sufficient funds to
 2   litigate almost endlessly.  By the time I was
 3   involved in the case, it had been approaching
 4   $800,000 in attorney's fees.  Repetitive litigation
 5   over issues with custody.
 6                And one of the things that I was
 7   concerned about was that because different judges
 8   were hearing that over a period of time that that
 9   was problematic.  They were getting maybe
10   inconsistent results because judges take different
11   approaches.
12                So in that particular case I had
13   retained jurisdiction.  No other judge can hear any
14   issues concerning the parties and their children
15   except for me.  And I even kind of took on the role
16   of being a super parent to the youngest child
17   because the parents couldn't even agree on how to
18   deal with the issues.  So I became kind of the last
19   resource.  If they couldn't deal with it, then it's
20   presented to me.
21                I've actually become kind of close to
22   the child, and I actually have her cell phone in
23   chambers now.  I've had it there for about six
24   months because her grades aren't good, and I've
25   taken away her driver's license as well.  It's a
0063
 1   sad comment on the parents, but it was something I
 2   felt was necessary.
 3                Another interesting thing that came up
 4   recently is I had an adoption, a private
 5   adoption -- well, a DSS adoption, actually.  And
 6   the family had relocated to Japan.  The father was
 7   in service and had been station in Japan.  They had
 8   three brothers who had come from DSS foster care
 9   and they had not been able to complete the adoption
10   before they relocated and we were trying to figure
11   out how to do that.
12                I wasn't comfortable with just doing a
13   conference call type of arrangement for the
14   adoption.  And so we made arrangements to do it by
15   Skype, which is an Internet tool that you use.  It
16   has cameras and we were able to do that.  It was
17   about eleven o' clock at night when we started in
18   Japan and it was about nine o'clock in the morning
19   for us, but we were able to conclude that adoption.
20                It took about two hours.  A little
21   longer than usual but it has brought to mind that
22   there are many resources that we can use in Family
23   Court to accomplish the things that we need to
24   accomplish to help families and children.
25          Q.    Judge, what do you consider the proper
0064
 1   demeanor and temperament for a judge?
 2          A.    Well, patience is definitely a must
 3   for Family Court.  I actually keep a little stone
 4   on my bench that's engraved "patience" as a
 5   constant reminder that losing my temper, or showing
 6   anger, or really showing any emotion at all is not
 7   appropriate.  And so patience is very important.
 8   Respect for the litigants.  And that respect that
 9   you show for the litigants is often reflected
10   immediately back towards the judge and respect they
11   show for the Court.  And those two things help
12   tremendously in my ability to help litigants in the
13   courtroom.
14          Q.    What would you like your legacy to be
15   as a Family Court judge?
16          A.    I hope that I'll do some things to
17   improve the system.  I have spent a great deal of
18   time working on different things.  Particularly
19   right now we're working on best legal practices for
20   abuse and neglect cases in the bench/bar committee.
21   And I have the privilege of serving the chair for
22   the subcommittee that's drafting that document.
23   Without affecting any type of rule changes or
24   statutory changes, what we're trying to do is to
25   uniform -- or create a uniform practice throughout
0065
 1   the state for all abuse and neglect attorneys using
 2   the same forms.  Structuring very rigid compliance
 3   with the time formulas and the statutes.  We're
 4   doing things to assist with that.
 5                And the goal, of course, is to move
 6   these families through abuse and neglect process.
 7   If we're going to reunify that family, we're making
 8   sure they get the services they need as promptly as
 9   possible to allow those children to be back with
10   their families.  And if not, then we're freeing
11   those children up for adoption as quickly as
12   possible so that they don't have to remain in our
13   foster care system any longer than is absolutely
14   necessary.  Helping families, helping children is a
15   legacy that I would like to have.
16          Q.    What recommendations do you have about
17   alleviating the backlog in Family Court?
18          A.    I have to say that in Florence we're
19   lucky not to have any backlog, and some of that is
20   by design.  We have had mandatory mediation in
21   Florence County for years.  I think mediation as a
22   mandatory process throughout the state would help
23   tremendously in dealing with some of the backlog
24   issues that we have.
25                It requires a cooperative effort,
0066
 1   though, not only by the bench but also by the bar.
 2   The bar has to believe that mediation is an
 3   effective process and they have to buy into that
 4   process to make it work.
 5                I've noticed that in Florence County
 6   where we've had mandatory mediation for, I guess,
 7   about ten years, I try very few custody cases which
 8   are among the most litigious, contentious, and
 9   time-consuming cases that present themselves to the
10   Family Court.  And we're able to resolve in whole
11   or in part so many of our custody cases through
12   that mediation process.
13                Sometimes not at mediation, but it
14   gets the parents thinking along the lines that
15   there are ways to resolve this between us.  We
16   don't have to have a judge make that decision for
17   us.  So mediation is certainly one tool and
18   arbitration as well.  Some of the lawyers are
19   beginning to discover that arbitration is an
20   excellent tool as an alternative to a disputed
21   resolution.
22                A method I used a little bit when I
23   was in practice on some difficult cases might have
24   taken four or five days to try, maybe some personal
25   property issues, that we really didn't want to tie
0067
 1   up the Court's time to do that and we're able to
 2   streamline that process and spend four or five
 3   hours with an arbitrator to end those issues.  And
 4   ask the Court to deal with the issues that were
 5   more important.
 6                So alternative dispute resolution, I
 7   think, is a very effective way to help manage the
 8   dockets as they're backing up.
 9          Q.    What is your philosophy in dealing
10   with pro se litigants in Family Court?
11          A.    Pro se litigants are always a
12   challenge.  The main thing is to try and help them
13   through the process in every way that we can.  For
14   instance, if a pro se litigant is attempting to
15   obtain a divorce -- and in Florence County we're
16   lucky to have legal services do clinics from time
17   to time.  They give the pro se litigants all the
18   forms they need and most importantly sometimes a
19   script to utilize when they come to court so they
20   know what to say to the judge.
21                So as I go to other counties and I
22   don't have that tool for those litigants to use, as
23   long as they've got their pleadings, I try to help
24   them get through the process to get to the Court
25   the information I have to have on the record to be
0068
 1   able to address the issues that are before the
 2   Court.  So I try to be especially patient with the
 3   pro se litigants and explain to them why I have to
 4   do the things that I do in the courtroom.
 5                I begin the process of pro se
 6   litigation by explaining to the pro se litigants
 7   what I must expect of them as pro se litigants and
 8   making sure they're comfortable with being in the
 9   courtroom as self-represented litigants.  Sometimes
10   they don't really understand what's expected of
11   them.  I explain to them that I have to expect that
12   they understand our law and our court rules as they
13   apply to the process.
14                And sometimes that stops them and they
15   say, Well, I'm not sure I'm really comfortable
16   being here today without an attorney.  If they are,
17   then I try to help them get through the process.  I
18   cannot try their case for them.  That would be
19   inappropriate, but I do try to help them through
20   the process.
21                The difficulty sometimes is when I
22   have pro se litigants who are in opposition to each
23   other and I have to be oh so careful about trying
24   to help one side or the other through that process.
25   So it's really a balancing act, but it is a little
0069
 1   bit of a tight rope sometimes.  I do try to help
 2   them at least present the basic information so that
 3   they can begin to present the evidence they need
 4   for me to hear to make decisions concerning the
 5   relief they've requested.
 6          Q.    Thank you, Judge Vinson.
 7                I have a few housekeeping issues.
 8   Have you sought or received the pledge of any
 9   legislator prior to this date?
10          A.    No, ma'am.
11          Q.    Have you sought or have you been
12   offered a conditional pledge of support of any
13   legislator pending the outcome of your screening?
14          A.    No, ma'am.
15          Q.    Have you asked any third parties to
16   approach members of the general assembly on your
17   behalf?
18          A.    No, ma'am.
19          Q.    Have you contacted any members of the
20   commission?
21          A.    No, ma'am.
22          Q.    Do you understand that you're
23   prohibited from seeking a pledge or commitment for
24   48 hours after the formal release of the
25   commission's report?
0070
 1          A.    Yes, ma'am.
 2          Q.    Have you reviewed the commission's
 3   guidelines on pledging?
 4          A.    Yes, ma'am.
 5          Q.    And are you aware that the penalty for
 6   violating the pledging rules is a misdemeanor, and
 7   upon conviction, the violator must be fined not
 8   more than a $1,000 or in prison not more than 90
 9   days?
10          A.    Yes, ma'am.
11                MS. BENSON:  Mr. Chairman, I would
12   note that the Pee Dee Citizens Committee reported
13   that Judge Vinson is well qualified for each of the
14   nine evaluative criteria.  They noted with respect
15   to his character that he is consistently described
16   as fair, organized, and passionate about children
17   and the law.  And with respect to his judicial
18   temperament, he is gracious and respectful to
19   parties and attorneys.
20                I would note, for the record, that
21   I've incorporated any concerns that the
22   investigation has shown into the questioning of
23   Judge Vinson.  And I have no further questions.
24                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.
25                Judge Vinson, I'll see if any
0071
 1   commissioners have a question.  But I will just
 2   tell you that the citizen's committees are our eyes
 3   and ears.  And it's very meaningful and a good
 4   tribute to you that they would make those comments
 5   about you.
 6                JUDGE VINSON:  Thank you, sir.
 7                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Again, I would ask if
 8   there are any other questions?
 9                With that, this concludes this portion
10   of our screening process.  As you know, the record
11   will remain open until the report is published.
12   You may be called back at such time, if the need
13   arises.  We know of nothing that is outstanding.  I
14   will remind you, though, of the 48-hour rule and
15   ask you to be mindful of that.  So mindful that if,
16   in fact, someone should approach you and say that
17   they would like to advocate or maybe not advocate
18   on your behalf, that you would remind them of the
19   48-hour rule.
20                JUDGE VINSON:  Certainly will.
21                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you for offering,
22   and thank you for your service to the people of
23   South Carolina.
24                JUDGE VINSON:  Thank you.  It's my
25   privilege.
0072
 1                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Have a good day, sir.
 2                JUDGE VINSON:  Thank you.
 3                (Judge Vinson exited the room.)
 4                (Off-the-record discussion.)
 5                (Judge Kinon entered the room.)
 6                MR. CHAIRMAN:  We'll go back on the
 7   record at this point.  We have before us the
 8   Honorable Lisa A. Kinon who is offering for Family
 9   Court, 15th Circuit, Seat Number 2.  Would you be
10   so kind as to raise your right hand.
11                Do you swear to tell the truth, the
12   whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you
13   God?
14                JUDGE KINON:  I do.
15                MR. CHAIRMAN:  The Judicial Merit
16   Selection Commission has thoroughly investigated
17   your qualifications for the bench.  Our inquiries
18   focused on our nine evaluative criteria and it's
19   included a survey of the bench and bar, a thorough
20   study of your application materials, verification
21   of your compliance with state ethics laws, a such
22   of newspaper articles in which your name appears, a
23   study previous screenings, and a check for economic
24   conflicts of interest.  We have received no
25   affidavits filed in opposition to your election.
0073
 1   No witnesses are present to testify.
 2                I would ask you if you have any brief
 3   opening statement that you wish to make?  It is
 4   purely optional.  The procedure will be, I will
 5   turn you over to counsel who will ask you a series
 6   of questions.  At the conclusion of that, any
 7   commissioner may follow up with questions, and then
 8   we'll wrap up the hearing.
 9                JUDGE KINON:  I just want to take a
10   moment to thank each and every one of you for
11   allowing me the honor and the privilege to present
12   myself to you here today, and to hopefully continue
13   my service for the state of South Carolina in the
14   capacity as a Family Court judge.
15                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.
16                Please answer the questions that
17   counsel's got for you.
18                MR. FIFFICK:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
19                Mr. Chairman and members of the
20   commission, I have a few procedural matters to take
21   care of with this candidate.
22   BY MR. FIFFICK:
23          Q.    Judge Kinon, you have before you the
24   personal data questionnaire that you submitted as
25   part of your application.
0074
 1                Is there any amendment that you would
 2   like to make at this time to your PDQ?
 3          A.    No, sir.
 4          Q.    You also have before you -- I'm sorry.
 5                MR. FIFFICK:  Mr. Chairman, at this
 6   point I would like to ask the Judge Kinon's
 7   personal data questionnaire be entered into the
 8   hearing record.
 9                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
10   ordered.
11                (EXH. 4 was entered into the record.)
12   BY MR. FIFFICK:
13          Q.    Judge Kinon, you now have before you
14   the sworn statement your provided with detailed
15   answers to over 30 questions regarding judicial
16   conduct, statutory qualifications, office
17   administration, and temperament.
18                Is there any amendment that you would
19   like to make at this time to your sworn statement?
20          A.    No, sir.
21                MR. FIFFICK:  At this time,
22   Mr. Chairman, I would ask that Judge Kinon's sworn
23   statement be entered as an exhibit into the hearing
24   record.
25                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
0075
 1   ordered.
 2   BY MR. FIFFICK:
 3          Q.    Judge Kinon, could you please state
 4   for the record the city and judicial circuit in
 5   which you reside.
 6          A.    I reside in the city of Conway in the
 7   15th Judicial Circuit.
 8                MR. FIFFICK:  With that I note for the
 9   record that based on the testimony contained in the
10   candidate's PDQ, which has been included in the
11   record with the candidate's consent, Judge Kinon
12   meets the statutory requirements for this position
13   regarding age, residence, and years of practice.
14   BY MR. FIFFICK:
15          Q.    Judge Kinon, why do you want to
16   continue to serve as a Family Court judge?
17          A.    I think it is probably, with no
18   offense to anyone in the room, the most important
19   job in state government.  I, on a daily basis, get
20   the opportunity to hopefully provide some answers
21   and some closure to families who are in crisis.
22   Either through a divorce action or a custody
23   action, or a Department of Social Service abuse and
24   neglect action, or Department of Juvenile Justice
25   action involving a young person who has come in
0076
 1   contact with the criminal justice system.
 2                I deal, on the daily basis, with
 3   individuals who are in the middle of emotional
 4   upheaval in their personal, private lives.  And
 5   have the opportunity to perhaps settle things down
 6   a little bit, reach out and help a child who has
 7   been abused or neglected, or reach out and turn
 8   around a child who's taken the wrong path in their
 9   life.
10                I won't tell you that there are not
11   days that it's not an extremely difficult job, but
12   the days that it is an extremely rewarding job far
13   outweighs them.  I was given an extreme compliment
14   from one of the commissioners during the citizen's
15   committee interview.  And at the conclusion of the
16   interview, he wanted to share with me a saying that
17   his grandfather often used.  You know you're in the
18   right job when you get your paycheck and you feel
19   guilty.  And he told me he felt certain that I felt
20   guilty.
21          Q.    Thank you, Judge.
22                Although you address this in your
23   sworn affidavit, could you please tell the members
24   of the commission what you feel the appropriate
25   demeanor is for a judge.
0077
 1          A.    The appropriate demeanor is being
 2   thoughtful, being courteous, being professional,
 3   being patient, listening to everything that each
 4   litigant and witness has to say, and at the same
 5   time maintaining the control and the dignity of the
 6   courtroom in which you are providing.  And there
 7   are certain ways to maintain that control without
 8   being rude or appearing to go impatient or
 9   appearing to be uncaring.
10          Q.    Thank you, Judge.
11                What is your philosophy on pro se
12   litigants?
13          A.    We have seen recently a great increase
14   in the number of pro se or self-represented
15   litigants, which is probably a direct result of the
16   economic difficulties facing our country at this
17   time.
18                I have seen pro se litigants come in
19   at this time who have used the South Carolina court
20   administration-approved forms for self-represented
21   litigants in Family Court.  And those forms work
22   wonderfully in my courtroom.
23                The litigants come in now.  They have
24   satisfied all the statutory requirements in their
25   pleadings, all of the jurisdictional requirements
0078
 1   are contained in those pleadings.  They know how to
 2   effect service and notice upon the other side under
 3   our rules.  So we're issuing many, many less
 4   continuances since those forms and that protocol
 5   has been developed.
 6                In addition, the court administration
 7   has developed a, for lack of a better term, script
 8   that they follow when they're in the courtroom for
 9   their testimony, as well as the testimony of the
10   corroborating witness when they're seeking a
11   divorce, and I don't have any problems with them at
12   this point.
13                The one little glitch sometimes that
14   will occur is they will forget their script when
15   they come to court or don't realize they need their
16   script.  And I've taken upon myself to make extra
17   copies of that script.  And when I ask them all of
18   the questions to make certain that the file, and
19   the filings, and the pleadings are in order, I'll
20   ask them do they have their script.  If they say,
21   no, my bailiff knows to go get that script, bring
22   it to them so that they won't be at a loss and may
23   have done everything they need to do and they don't
24   know how to testify.  And so they may have to come
25   back or they may have their case dismissed for
0079
 1   failure to carry their burden of proof.
 2                And I find since those forms and
 3   protocols have been in existence, pro se or
 4   self-represented litigant cases in an uncontested
 5   capacity don't take any longer than those cases
 6   that have lawyers on uncontested cases.
 7          Q.    Thank you, Judge.
 8                At this time I have a few more
 9   questions that we ask of every candidate.
10                Have you sought or received the pledge
11   of any legislator prior to this date?
12          A.    No, sir.
13          Q.    Have you sought or have you been
14   offered a conditional pledge of support of any
15   legislator pending the outcome of your screening?
16          A.    No, sir.
17          Q.    Have you asked any third parties to
18   contact members of the general assembly on your
19   behalf?
20          A.    No, sir.
21          Q.    Have you contacted any members of this
22   commission?
23          A.    No, sir.
24          Q.    Do you understand that you're
25   prohibited from seeking a pledge or commitment
0080
 1   until 48 hours after the formal release of the
 2   commission's report?
 3          A.    Yes, sir.
 4          Q.    Have you reviewed the commission's
 5   guidelines on pledging?
 6          A.    Yes, sir.
 7          Q.    As a follow-up, are you aware of the
 8   penalties for violating the pledging rules?  That
 9   is, it is a misdemeanor, and upon conviction, the
10   violator must be fined not more than $1,000 or in
11   prison not more than 90 days?
12          A.    I am aware.
13          Q.    Thank you, Judge.
14                MR. FIFFICK:  I would now note that
15   the Pee Dee Citizens Committee reported the
16   following regarding Judge Kinon:  Constitutional
17   qualifications, Judge Kinon meets the
18   constitutional qualifications for the judicial
19   position she seeks; ethical fitness, persons
20   interviewed by the committee indicated that Judge
21   Kinon is considered ethical; profession and
22   academic ability, the committee gave Judge Kinon an
23   exceptional rating in this area; character, the
24   committee reported that Judge Kinon's character is
25   unquestionable; reputation, Judge Kinon enjoys a
0081
 1   good reputation in the community and among her
 2   peers; physical and mental health, there is
 3   evidence that Judge Kinon's physically and mentally
 4   capable of performing the duties required of the
 5   Family Court; experience, the committee recognized
 6   Judge Kinon's good legal experience and judicial
 7   experience; judicial temperament, the committee
 8   gave Judge Kinon an excellent rating in this
 9   category.
10                JUDGE KINON:  Thank you.
11                MR. FIFFICK:  Finally, I would just
12   note for the record that any concerns raised during
13   the investigation regarding this candidate were
14   incorporated into the questioning of the candidate
15   today.
16                Mr. Chairman, I have no further
17   questions.
18                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.
19                Does any member of the commission have
20   a question?
21                Representative Clemmons.
22                REP. CLEMMONS:  Thank you,
23   Mr. Chairman.
24                While I have no question, I'd like to
25   compliment you, Judge Kinon, on your judicial
0082
 1   temperament in the courtroom.  I've had the
 2   opportunity to observe you in the courtroom.  I
 3   have had comments from constituents on your
 4   disposition and temperament in the courtroom.
 5                Temperament is so important to this
 6   body because we feel that it is a significant key
 7   to the proper delivery of justice, and we
 8   appreciate your fine example in that regard.
 9                JUDGE KINON:  I greatly appreciate
10   that Representative Clemmons.  Especially coming
11   from you.  Thank you so much, sir.
12                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Any other comments?
13                Judge Kinon, the citizens' committees
14   are our eyes and ears and they assist us in depth.
15   And what was read into the record is a real tribute
16   to you.
17                JUDGE KINON:  Thank you.
18                MR. CHAIRMAN:  To the job you have
19   done.  So we have -- you know, a lot of times you
20   hear bad stuff.  Here you heard good stuff, and it
21   is an opportunity for us as a panel to say thank
22   you for the job that you've done.
23                JUDGE KINON:  Thank you very much,
24   Senator.  That means a great deal to me and I
25   appreciate that.
0083
 1                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Well, you've earned it.
 2                This will conclude this portion of the
 3   screening process.  As you know, the record will
 4   remain open until the report is published and you
 5   may be called back at such time, if the need
 6   arises.  However, we know of no outstanding issues
 7   at this time.  I'll remind you of the 48-hour rule
 8   and ask you to be mindful of that.  So mindful that
 9   if anyone inquires with you about whether they may
10   or may not advocate for you in the event that we
11   were to screen you out, that you would remind them
12   of that 48-hour rule.
13                JUDGE KINON:  Certainly, sir.
14                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.
15                I'm sorry, I think we have one
16   technical correction before I let you go.
17                Counsel?
18                MR. FIFFICK:  Sorry, Judge Kinon.  I
19   believe we may of had a committee report from a
20   previous screening.  This is the current screening
21   that needs to be entered in the record.  It's still
22   good.
23                The Pee Dee Citizens Committee found
24   Judge Kinon well qualified for each of the nine
25   evaluative criteria:  Constitutional
0084
 1   qualifications, ethical fitness, professional and
 2   academic ability, character, reputation, physical,
 3   mental stability, experience, and judicial
 4   temperament.  They further noted that Judge Kinon
 5   impressed the committee with her enthusiasm for her
 6   job.  We believe she is well suited to continue as
 7   a Family Court judge.
 8                JUDGE KINON:  Thank you very much.
 9                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All of our comments
10   still hold.
11                JUDGE KINON:  Thank you, sir.
12                (Judge Kinon exited the room.)
13                (Off-the-record discussion.)
14                (Judge Guess entered the room.)
15                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Good morning, sir.  How
16   are you?
17                JUDGE GUESS:  I'm fine, thank you.
18                MR. CHAIRMAN:  We have before us the
19   Honorable Robert E. Guess, Family Court, 16th
20   Circuit, Seat Number 1.  If you would raise your
21   right hand, please, sir.
22                Do you swear to tell the truth, the
23   whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you
24   God?
25                JUDGE GUESS:  I do.
0085
 1                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.
 2                The Judicial Merit Selection
 3   Commission has thoroughly investigated your
 4   qualifications for the bench.  Our inquiries
 5   focused on our nine evaluated criteria and is
 6   included a survey of the bench and the bar, a
 7   thorough study of your application materials, a
 8   verification of your compliance with state ethics
 9   laws, a search of newspaper articles in which your
10   name appears, a study of previous screenings, and a
11   check for economic conflicts of interest.  We have
12   received no affidavits filed in opposition to your
13   election and no witnesses are present to testify.
14                You're welcome to make any open
15   statement you wish.  It's purely optional.  The
16   procedure will be that counsel will ask you a
17   series of questions.  At the conclusion of those
18   questions, any commissioner may have any follow-up
19   questions.  And then we'll wrap up the hearing.
20                JUDGE GUESS:  Well, I'll just open by
21   saying, to start with, it's been my great honor and
22   privilege to serve as a Family Court judge in this
23   state for the last nine years.  And I hope that I
24   will be allowed to continue to do that.
25                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you, sir.
0086
 1                With that, I'll turn you over to
 2   counsel for a few questions.
 3                MS. GOLDSMITH:  Mr. Chairman and
 4   members of the commission, I have a few procedural
 5   matters to take care of with Judge Guess first.
 6   BY MS. GOLDSMITH:
 7          Q.    Judge Guess, you have before you the
 8   personal data questionnaire that you submitted as
 9   part of your application.
10                Are there any other amendments that
11   you would like to make at this time to your PDQ?
12          A.    No.
13                MS. GOLDSMITH:  Mr. Chairman, I would
14   like to ask that Judge Guess' personal data
15   questionnaire be entered as an exhibit into the
16   hearing record.
17                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
18   order.
19                (EXH. 5 was entered into the record.)
20   BY MS. GOLDSMITH:
21          Q.    Judge Guess, you now have before you
22   the sworn statement you provided with detailed
23   answers to over 30 questions regarding judicial
24   conduct, statutory qualifications, office
25   administration, and temperament.
0087
 1                Are there any amendments that you
 2   would like to make to your sworn statement?
 3          A.    No.
 4                MS. GOLDSMITH:  At this time,
 5   Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask that Judge Guess'
 6   sworn statement be entered as an exhibit into the
 7   hearing record.
 8                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
 9   ordered.
10                MS. GOLDSMITH:  One final procedural
11   matter, I note for the record that based on the
12   testimony contained in Judge Guess' personal data
13   questionnaire, which has been included in the
14   record with this consent, Judge Robert Guess meets
15   the statutory requirements for this position
16   recording age, residence, and years of practice.
17   BY MS. GOLDSMITH:
18          Q.    Judge Guess, can you please state for
19   the record the city and judicial circuit in which
20   you reside.
21          A.    I live in Union, Union County, and
22   that's the 16th Judicial Circuit.
23          Q.    Thank you.
24                Judge Guess, why do you want to
25   continue serving as a Family Court judge?
0088
 1          A.    Well, my ambition as a lawyer was to
 2   be a Family Court judge.  Most of my career I
 3   looked forward to it.  And when I got elected as a
 4   judge, I have enjoyed it.  I think that my
 5   temperament and my work ethic fit the position.  I
 6   think I'm making a contribution to the system.  I
 7   would like to continue for that reason.
 8          Q.    Thank you.
 9                Although you addressed this in your
10   sworn affidavit, would you please explain to the
11   members of the commission what you think is the
12   appropriate demeanor for a judge.
13          A.    Well, calm and -- you're talking about
14   in the courtroom?
15          Q.    Yes.
16          A.    Fair, impartial.  I think the judge
17   has to have -- to be clear from the outset of the
18   hearing that the judge is in charge of the
19   proceeding.  That requires some firmness I guess,
20   but impartiality and fairness and calm which
21   sometimes -- it's hard to do sometimes.  I think
22   those are the important aspects of a judge's
23   demeanor.
24          Q.    Thank you.
25                Could you explain your general
0089
 1   philosophy for dealing with pro se litigants who
 2   come before you in the Family Court?
 3          A.    Well, that's -- I would have to say,
 4   as the system has evolved, my procedures for
 5   dealing with these litigants is evolving as well.
 6   We see many more of them now than we did at the
 7   beginning of my tenure as a judge.
 8                I have -- the court administration has
 9   undertaken to furnish us with some guidelines.  And
10   I found them very helpful.  And I try to be
11   involved or engaged with the pro se litigants as
12   closely as I can without getting too involved in
13   handling their case for them.
14                But I think that me and other judges
15   some time ago might of had some hostility towards
16   self-represented litigants because they tend to
17   clog up the system a little bit.  But I have
18   changed my -- I don't think I was ever that
19   hostile, but I'm more helpful.  I'm careful not to
20   become an advocate.  And I don't deal with legal
21   issues with them.  I help them a little bit on
22   procedure.
23                But as I said, my attitude and my
24   procedure policy is evolving as is the system.  We
25   see so many more than we used to that we're having
0090
 1   to handle them a little bit differently.
 2          Q.    Thank you, Judge Guess.
 3                Have you sought or received the pledge
 4   of any legislator prior to today?
 5          A.    I have not.
 6          Q.    Have you sought or have you been
 7   offered a conditional pledge of support of any
 8   legislator pending the outcome of your screening?
 9          A.    I have not.
10          Q.    Have you asked any third parties to
11   contact members of the general assembly on your
12   behalf?
13          A.    I have not.
14          Q.    Have you contacted any members of this
15   commission?
16          A.    I have not.
17          Q.    Do you understand that you are
18   prohibited from seeking a pledge or a commitment
19   until 48 hours after the formal release of the
20   commission's report?
21          A.    Yes.
22          Q.    Have you reviewed the commission's
23   guidelines on pledging?
24          A.    Yes.
25          Q.    As a follow-up, are you aware that the
0091
 1   penalties for violating a pledging rule is that it
 2   is a misdemeanor, and upon conviction, the violator
 3   must be fined not more than $1,000 or in prison not
 4   more than 90 days?
 5          A.    Yes.
 6          Q.    I would note that the Piedmont
 7   Citizens Committee found Judge Robert Guess well
 8   qualified for the nine evaluative criteria which
 9   are constitutional qualifications, character,
10   reputation, experience, judicial temperament,
11   ethical fitness, professional and academic ability,
12   physical health, and mental stability.
13                I would also note for the record that
14   any concerns raised during the investigation
15   regarding Judge Guess were incorporated into the
16   questioning of him today.
17                Mr. Chairman, I have no further
18   questions.
19                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.  Let's see
20   if any member of the commission has a question.  It
21   appears that all the questions have been answered.
22                Judge Guess, obviously, you're aware
23   that these advisory committees, we have the
24   citizens' advisory committees, they serve as our
25   eyes and ears to help give us the in-depth look at
0092
 1   the candidates.
 2                When you come back with things like
 3   being rated well qualified and not just qualified,
 4   that certainly is a tribute to the job you're
 5   doing.  You should be complimented on that.  I know
 6   y'all so many times hear complaints.  When we see a
 7   record like this, this is impressive.  I just want
 8   to take that on behalf of us, the citizens
 9   committee, great people, that they properly
10   notified about it.
11                Thank you for the job you're doing.
12                JUDGE GUESS:  I would say, in closing,
13   that -- without being patronizing -- that the
14   process that we go through to be reelected has
15   evolved to the point where -- I think that it gives
16   the judges an opportunity or forces the judge into
17   some self-examination that they might not do
18   otherwise.  I believe that I have benefited from
19   this process and the ones that I've been through
20   before.  So I want to thank all of you for your
21   service of forcing us to do this.  We might want
22   to, but I recognize the benefit of it.
23                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you so much.
24                This will conclude this portion of our
25   screening process.  As you know, the record will
0093
 1   remain open until the report is published and you
 2   could be called back at such time as the need
 3   arises.  I know of nothing outstanding.  I will
 4   remind you of the 48-hour rule and ask you to be
 5   mindful of that.  So mindful that, in fact, if
 6   anyone inquires with you about whether they may or
 7   may not advocate on your behalf, that you would
 8   remind them of the 48-hour rule in the event that
 9   we screens you out.
10                With that, we thank you for offering,
11   and we, again, thank you for your service to the
12   people of South Carolina.
13                Have a good day.
14                JUDGE GUESS:  Thank you.  Same to you.
15                (Judge Guess exits the room.)
16                MR. CHAIRMAN:  That concludes all of
17   the Family Court.  We'll be moving next into
18   Master-in-Equity.  We'll take a five-minute break.
19   Senate time or house time?  We'll do it on both
20   times that way we've got plenty of leeway either
21   way without objection.
22                (A recess was taken from 11:20 a.m. to
23   11:40 a.m.)
24                (Judge Drew entered the room.)
25                JUDGE DREW:  Good morning.
0094
 1                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Good morning.
 2                JUDGE DREW:  Or good afternoon.  I'm
 3   Ellis Drew.  I'm from Anderson.  I serve as
 4   Master-in-Equity in the 10th Circuit, which is
 5   Anderson and Oconee Counties.  I appreciate the
 6   invitation.  I have no further statement.  And in
 7   the interest of time, I'm sure you ladies and
 8   gentlemen will have some questions, I will waive
 9   any further statement.
10                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.  Since
11   you've already introduced himself on the record, if
12   you would raise your right hand please, sir.
13                Do you swear to tell the truth, the
14   whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you
15   God?
16                JUDGE DREW:  I do.
17                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.
18                The Judicial Merit Selection
19   Commission has thoroughly investigate your
20   qualifications for the bench.  Our inquiries
21   focused on our nine evaluative criteria and it has
22   included a survey of the bench and the bar, a
23   thorough study of your application materials, a
24   verification of your compliance with state ethics
25   laws, a search of newspaper articles in which your
0095
 1   name appears, a study of previous screenings, and a
 2   check for economic conflicts of interest.  We have
 3   received no affidavit filed in opposition to your
 4   election.  No witnesses are present to testify.
 5                You do have an optional opening
 6   statement, if you wish.  But since you waived that,
 7   I'm going to turn you right over to counsel.
 8   Counsel will have some questions for you.  And as
 9   soon as she finishes, then I'll see if any
10   commissioners do and we'll wrap up the hearing.
11                JUDGE DREW:  Thank you.
12                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you, sir.
13                MS. WELLS:  Mr. Chairman, thank you.
14   I have a few procedural matters to take care of.
15   BY MS. WELLS:
16          Q.    Judge Drew, you have before you the
17   personal data questionnaire and amendment you
18   submitted as part of your application.
19                Are there any additional amendments
20   that you would like to make at this time to your
21   personal data questionnaire?
22          A.    No, ma'am.
23                MS. WELLS:  Mr. Chairman, I would ask
24   that Judge Drew's personal data questionnaire and
25   amendment be entered as an exhibit into the hearing
0096
 1   record at this time.
 2                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
 3   ordered.
 4                (EXH. 6 was entered into the record.)
 5   BY MS. WELLS:
 6          Q.    Judge Drew, you also have before you
 7   the sworn statement you provided with detailed
 8   answers to over 30 questions regarding judicial
 9   conduct, statutory qualifications, office
10   administration, and temperament.
11                Are there any other additional
12   amendments you would like to make at this time to
13   your sworn statement?
14          A.    No, ma'am.
15                MS. WELLS:  Mr. Chairman, I would ask
16   that Judge Drew's sworn statement be entered as an
17   exhibit into the hearing record.
18                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
19   ordered.
20                MS. WELLS:  I also note for the record
21   that based in the testimony contained in Judge
22   Drew's PDQ, which has been included in the record
23   with his consent, Judge Drew meets the statutory
24   requirements for this position regarding age,
25   residence, and years of practice.
0097
 1   BY MS. WELLS:
 2          Q.    Judge Drew, although you have served
 3   as a Master-in-Equity since 1981, would you explain
 4   to the commission members why you want to continue
 5   serving as a Master-in-Equity in Anderson and
 6   Oconee Counties.
 7          A.    Obviously, I enjoyed my work on the
 8   bench.  I take it very seriously.  I feel, of
 9   course, that I'm a better judge now than I was
10   certainly when I started.  I trust I'm a better
11   judge than I was five years ago.  I continue to try
12   to improve my skills on the bench as well as the
13   legal knowledge of the cases that we hear.
14          Q.    Although you addressed this in your
15   sworn affidavit, Judge Drew, would you explain to
16   the members of the commission what you think is the
17   appropriate demeanor of a Master-in-Equity judge.
18          A.    With any judge, I think that patience
19   and ability to listen to both sides and to decide a
20   case impartially and courteousness would rank, I
21   think, right up there with patience.
22                A very simple, sort of, rule that I've
23   always tried to go by, the golden rule, where I try
24   to treat others as I would like to be treated.  I
25   apply that not only to the lawyers, the pro se
0098
 1   litigants, to witnesses, to persons who come in and
 2   appear even though they're in default.  I'm always
 3   willing to give them an opportunity to discuss the
 4   case after there's been testimony concerning it.  I
 5   treat them -- some of them I treat with quite a bit
 6   of compassion.  Especially in foreclosure cases
 7   that we hear -- there's good people getting in bad
 8   circumstances.
 9                Anyway, that's always been my basic
10   outlook on conducting court cases.  And I try to do
11   them promptly, with integrity.
12          Q.    Thank you, Judge Drew.
13                You did not meet the expectations on
14   your practice and procedures test.  Would you
15   explain to the commission why this should not
16   hinder you from continuing as a Master-in-Equity.
17          A.    I had a post-test interview with
18   Ms. Shuler who was very capable, and y'all are
19   fortunate to have her and the staff that you have.
20                At that time I felt very uncomfortable
21   about how I had performed.  I have no excuse for
22   it.  I just had a bad test day.  And I have no
23   excuse for that and you make no excuse.  I did not
24   perform up to what I consider my standards should
25   be.
0099
 1                Having said that, I would request the
 2   commission to review my record on the bench along
 3   with ratings on -- from the bar association.  The
 4   last, I think, was in 2008.  And I assume you
 5   gentlemen -- ladies and gentlemen have a copy of
 6   that.  I urge the commission to consider my past
 7   experience and my performance.
 8          Q.    Thank you.
 9                Judge Drew, when you leave the bench,
10   what you would you like your legacy to be as a
11   Master-in-Equity?
12          A.    I haven't thought about a legacy yet.
13   I was elected as a -- the first Master-in-Equity
14   Court and the equity court I've established in
15   Anderson County.  Shortly thereafter, Oconee County
16   joined in as they can do.
17                So I suppose my legacy would be the
18   first and, I trust, one of the best.  I do not have
19   a legacy at this time as I'm still active.
20          Q.    Thank you, Judge Drew.
21                I have some housekeeping issues that
22   we ask each of the candidates.
23                Have you sought or received the pledge
24   of any legislator prior to this date?
25          A.    No, I have not.
0100
 1          Q.    Have you sought or have you been
 2   offered a conditional pledge of support of any
 3   legislator pending the outcome of your screening?
 4          A.    No.  I have made no contact.  I'm very
 5   familiar with your "no contact" rule.  I have not
 6   requested or contacted or -- in any way any of the
 7   members of our general assembly in Anderson or
 8   Oconee County or anywhere else.  Nor have I asked
 9   anyone on my behalf to contact members of the
10   delegation.
11          Q.    Have you contacted any members of this
12   commission?
13          A.    No, ma'am.
14          Q.    Do you understand, then, that you are
15   prohibited from seeking a pledge or commitment
16   until 48 hours after the final release of the
17   commission's report?
18          A.    Yes.
19          Q.    You are, then, familiar with the
20   commission's guidelines on pledging and are aware
21   that the penalty for violating the pledging rules
22   is a misdemeanor, and upon conviction, the violator
23   would be fined not more than $1,000 or in prison
24   not more than 90 days?
25          A.    Yes.  I'll be very careful.
0101
 1                MS. WELLS:  Mr. Chairman and members
 2   of the commission, I would note that the Upstate
 3   Citizens Committee found that Judge Drew is well
 4   qualified for each of the nine evaluative criteria:
 5   Constitutional qualifications, ethical fitness,
 6   professional and academic ability, character,
 7   reputation, physical health, mental stability,
 8   experience, and judicial temperament.
 9                I would also note for the record that
10   any concerns raised during the investigation
11   regarding Judge Drew were incorporated into my
12   questioning of him today.  I have no further
13   questions.
14                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.
15                Does any member of the commission have
16   a question?
17                Judge, the one thing that I would tell
18   you is, you said something about us looking at the
19   bar review notes on this.  And staff informs me
20   that we did look at any comments from the bar.
21   But, additionally, she has just read to you, we
22   have an Upstate Citizens Committee.  We use
23   citizens' committees as our eyes and ears to look
24   at each candidate and to look very carefully at
25   them.  And we place a great deal of respect on
0102
 1   their findings.  And their findings for you were
 2   not just qualified, but well qualified in every
 3   category, and so that speaks volumes to us.
 4                JUDGE DREW:  Thank you.  I met with
 5   that committee in Greenville several weeks or
 6   months ago.  Very nice committee.
 7                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.  Well, if
 8   there are no further questions, this will conclude
 9   this portion of the screening process.  As you
10   know, the record remains open until we make a
11   formal and public report.  She has told you about
12   the 48-hour rule.  Our one time -- because we do
13   this to everybody, is to remind them of the 48-hour
14   rule.  And ask them to be so mindful that, in fact,
15   if anyone inquires whether they may or may not
16   advocate for you in the event that you're screened
17   out, you would also remind them about the 48-hour
18   rule.
19                With that, we thank you for offering.
20   We thank you for your past service to the people of
21   South Carolina.  Have a great day, sir.
22                JUDGE DREW:  Thank you, Senator.
23   Thank you ladies and gentlemen.  Congratulations on
24   your board.  You've had a lot of good help.  Thank
25   you all very much.
0103
 1                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you, sir.
 2                (Judge Drew exited the room.)
 3                (Off-the-record discussion.)
 4                (Judge Sanders entered the room.)
 5                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.  We'll go
 6   back on the record at this time.  We have before us
 7   the Honorable Walter H. Sanders, Jr.,
 8   Master-in-Equity for Allendale County.
 9                Good to have you with us, sir.
10                JUDGE SANDERS:  Thank you.
11                MR. CHAIRMAN:  If you would raise your
12   right hand.
13                Do you swear to tell the truth, the
14   whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you
15   God?
16                JUDGE SANDERS:  I do.
17                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.
18                The Judicial Merit Selection
19   Commission has thoroughly investigated your
20   qualifications for the bench.  Our inquiries
21   focused on the nine evaluative criteria and has
22   included a survey of the bench and the bar, a
23   thorough study of your application materials, a
24   verification of your compliance with state ethics
25   laws, a search of newspaper articles in which your
0104
 1   name appears, a study of previous screenings, and a
 2   check for economic conflicts of interests.  We
 3   received no affidavit filed in opposition to your
 4   election.  No witnesses are present to testify.
 5                You're welcome to make an opening
 6   statement, if you wish.  That is purely optional.
 7   The procedure is, we'll turn you over to staff, to
 8   counsel.  They'll ask you a series of questions.
 9   At the conclusion of that, if there's any questions
10   commissioners have got will be followed up with and
11   that will conclude the hearing.
12                JUDGE SANDERS:  I'll waive the
13   opening.
14                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.  With that,
15   if you'd answer counsel's questions.
16                MS. SHULER:  Afternoon, Judge Sanders.
17                JUDGE SANDERS:  Good afternoon.
18   BY MS. SHULER:
19          Q.    You have before you the personal data
20   questionnaire you submitted as part of your
21   application.
22                Are there any amendments that you
23   would like to make at this time?
24          A.    There are not.
25                MS. SHULER:  Mr. Chairman, I would
0105
 1   offer that Judge Sanders' personal data
 2   questionnaire be entered as the next exhibit into
 3   the record.
 4                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
 5   ordered.
 6                (EXH. 7 was entered into the record.)
 7   BY MS. SHULER:
 8          Q.    Judge Sanders, you also have before
 9   you the sworn statement you provided with detailed
10   answers to over 30 questions regarding judicial
11   conduct, statutory qualifications, office
12   administration, and temperament.
13                Are there any amendments that you
14   would like to offer at this time to your sworn
15   statement?
16          A.    No, there are not.
17                MS. SHULER:  At this time,
18   Mr. Chairman, I would ask that Judge Sanders sworn
19   statement be entered as an exhibit into the hearing
20   record.
21                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
22   ordered.
23                MS. SHULER:  One final procedural
24   matter, I note for the record, based on the
25   testimony contained in the candidate's PDQ, Judge
0106
 1   Sanders meets the statutory requirements in this
 2   position regarding age, residence, and years of
 3   practice.
 4   BY MS. SHULER:
 5          Q.    Judge Sanders, why do you want to
 6   continue serving as a Master-in-Equity for
 7   Allendale County?
 8          A.    I have been the Master since, I think,
 9   1992 and I've enjoyed it.  Of course, Allendale
10   being a small county, I'm just a part-time
11   Master-in-Equity and I also practice law.  But I
12   enjoy being a judge and handling the matters that
13   come before the Master.
14                Most of the matters that come before
15   us now are foreclosure matters really, and I find
16   it interesting.  And I like to try to help the
17   public too, you know, through the hard times.
18   Being from Allendale County, you know, Allendale
19   County has been having hard times for a long time.
20   I just enjoy it.
21          Q.    Thank you, Judge Sanders.
22                What would you -- if you could
23   describe to the commission what is the appropriate
24   demeanor for a judge.
25          A.    In my opinion, you know -- the
0107
 1   demeanor of a judge is one of the ways that I judge
 2   judges, because I'm also a practicing lawyer.  But
 3   I think the judge should be courteous.  He should
 4   be in control, but he should courteous and
 5   respectful of the parties and the lawyers that
 6   appear before him.
 7          Q.    Thank you, Judge Sanders.
 8                When you leave the bench as a
 9   Master-in-Equity, what would you like your legacy
10   to be known for on the bench?
11          A.    That I was fair.  Fair and listened
12   to, you know, both sides and made a decision based
13   on the evidence that was before me.
14          Q.    Thank you, Judge Sanders.
15                Some housekeeping issues to cover with
16   you.
17                Have you sought or received the pledge
18   of any legislator prior to this date?
19          A.    I have not.
20          Q.    Have you sought or have you been
21   offered a conditional pledge of support of any
22   legislator pending the outcome of your screening?
23          A.    I have not.
24          Q.    Have you asked any third parties to
25   contact members of the general assembly on your
0108
 1   behalf?
 2          A.    I have not.
 3          Q.    Have you contacted any members of the
 4   commission?
 5          A.    I have not.
 6          Q.    Do you understand that you're
 7   prohibited from seeking a pledge or commitment
 8   until 48 hours after the formal release of the
 9   commission's report?
10          A.    I do.
11          Q.    Have you reviewed the commission's
12   guidelines on pledging?
13          A.    Yes.
14          Q.    Are you aware that the penalty for
15   violating those pledging rules are that it's a
16   misdemeanor, and upon conviction, a violator must
17   be fined not more than a $1,000 or in prison not
18   more than 90 days?
19          A.    I am.
20                MS. SHULER:  I would note that the
21   Lowcountry Citizens Committee reported that Judge
22   Sanders is qualified for each of the nine
23   evaluative criteria:  Constitutional
24   qualifications, ethical fitness, professional and
25   academic ability, character, reputation, physical
0109
 1   health, mental stability, experience, and judicial
 2   temperament.
 3                I would just note for the record that
 4   any concerns raised during the investigation
 5   regarding this candidate were incorporated into the
 6   candidate today.
 7                Mr. Chairman, I have no further
 8   questions for Judge Sanders.
 9                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.  Does any
10   member of the commission have a question?  It
11   appears that every thing has been answered.
12                Judge, I want to thank you for the job
13   you've been doing.  And this will complete this
14   portion of our screening process.  As you know, the
15   report will remain open until the report is
16   published and you could be called back if the need
17   should arise.  I know of nothing outstanding at
18   this time.  I would remind you of the 48-hour rule
19   and ask you to be mindful of it.  So mindful that,
20   in fact, if someone should approach you with
21   inquiries about whether they may or may not
22   advocate for you in the event that this committee
23   screens you out, that you remind them of the
24   48-hour rule.
25                With that, we thank you for offering.
0110
 1   Thank you for your service to the people of South
 2   Carolina, and wish you a good day.
 3                JUDGE SANDERS:  Thank you.
 4                MR. CHAIRMAN:  We'll go off the record
 5   momentarily until we get the next candidate.
 6                (Judge Sanders exited the room.)
 7                (Off-the-record discussion.)
 8                (Judge Scarborough entered the room.)
 9                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.  We'll go
10   back on the record at this time.  We have before us
11   the Honorable Michael R. Scarborough,
12   Master-in-Equity for Charleston County.  If you
13   would raise your right hand, please, sir.
14                Do you swear to tell the truth, the
15   whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you
16   God?
17                JUDGE SCARBOROUGH:  I do.
18                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.
19                The Judicial Merit Selection
20   Commission has thoroughly investigated your
21   qualifications for the bench.  Our inquiries
22   focused on our nine evaluative criteria, and has
23   included a survey of the bench and the bar, a
24   thorough study of your application materials, a
25   verification of your compliance with state ethics
0111
 1   laws, a search of newspaper articles in which your
 2   name appears, a study of previous screenings, and a
 3   check for economic conflicts of interest.  We have
 4   received no affidavits filed in opposition to your
 5   election.  No witnesses are present to testify.
 6                I'd ask you if you have any brief
 7   opening statement that you may wish to make to this
 8   panel.  That is purely optional.  The procedure is
 9   we will turn you over to our staff counsel who will
10   have some questions for you.  At the conclusion of
11   that, any commissioner may do any follow-up
12   questions they have.
13                JUDGE SCARBOROUGH:  Senator, I just am
14   glad to be here today and would be happy to answer
15   any questions that the commission may have.
16                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.  Please
17   answer questions from my counsel.
18                MR. GENTRY:  Mr. Chairman and members
19   of the commission, I have a few procedural matters
20   to take care of with regard to Judge Scarborough.
21   BY MR. GENTRY:
22          Q.    Judge Scarborough, you have before you
23   your personal data questionnaire that you submitted
24   as part of your application.
25                Are any amendments that you would like
0112
 1   to make at this time to PDQ?
 2          A.    No.
 3                MR. GENTRY:  Mr. Chairman, I would
 4   like to ask that Judge Scarborough's personal data
 5   questionnaire be entered as an exhibit into the
 6   hearing record.
 7                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
 8   ordered.
 9                (EXH. 8 was entered into the record.)
10   BY MR. GENTRY:
11          Q.    Judge Scarborough, you also have
12   before you the sworn statement you provided with
13   detailed answers to over 30 questions regarding
14   judicial conduct, statutory qualifications, office
15   administration, and temperament.
16                Are there any additional amendments
17   that you'd like to make at this time to your sworn
18   statement?
19          A.    No, sir.
20                MR. GENTRY:  Mr. Chairman, I would
21   like to ask that Judge Scarborough's sworn
22   statement be entered as an exhibit into the hearing
23   record.
24                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
25   ordered.
0113
 1                MR. GENTRY:  One final procedural
 2   matter, I note for the record that based on the
 3   testimony contained in the candidate's PDQ, which
 4   has been included in the record with the
 5   candidate's consent, Judge Scarborough meets the
 6   statutory requirements for this position regarding
 7   age, residence, and years of practice.
 8   BY MR. GENTRY:
 9          Q.    Judge Scarborough, why do you want to
10   continue to serve as a Master-in-Equity?
11          A.    Well, I'll start with, I love my job.
12   I find it extremely interesting.  I find that I can
13   help people in the community, which is one of the
14   reasons that I ran for this job.  I've enjoyed
15   doing it for the last six-odd years and look
16   forward to doing this some more.
17          Q.    Although you addressed this in your
18   sworn affidavit, could you please explain to the
19   members of the commission what you think is the
20   appropriate demeanor for a judge.
21          A.    Well, I think a judge should be, first
22   of all, fair or appear to be fair.  Balanced,
23   should be favor to one side or the other.  Should
24   be diligent with both attention to the case before
25   them and diligent to the law that's applicable to
0114
 1   the case.  Do the research that's necessary to
 2   apply the law to the facts in the case.  And within
 3   a relatively short period of time issue a ruling on
 4   that case.
 5                I found more and more that the longer
 6   that I've been on the bench, if I'm comfortable
 7   with the decision and the facts of the law of the
 8   case, I'll render a decision right from the bench
 9   at the end of the trial.  I find that the lawyers
10   seem to really appreciate that, although the losing
11   lawyers don't.  To get a decision in the case at
12   the end of the case really brings a lot of closure
13   to the matter for a lot of people.  It may get
14   appealed, it may not get appealed.  Just paying
15   attention, studying the case before you get there,
16   paying attention during the trial.  I just focus
17   totally on what I'm doing at the time that I'm
18   doing it.
19          Q.    Please explain to the commission your
20   policies and procedures when a self-represented
21   litigant comes before you.
22          A.    Well, self-represented litigants
23   present a bit of a problem because they're so
24   vested in the outcome of the case that it's hard --
25   I find that it's difficult to convey to them that
0115
 1   I'm not ruling against them individually or
 2   personally but against them on the merits of their
 3   case.
 4                So what I've typically done is to try
 5   and address them -- first off, advise them that
 6   they should get a lawyer.  They're not required to
 7   get a lawyer, but they should get a lawyer.  That
 8   would be in their best interest.  If they may
 9   proceed pro se, I generally am flexible with the
10   requirements of all the objections and with some of
11   the rules of procedure.  I'll allow them -- what I
12   want them to be able to do is to feel like they've
13   had their day in court.
14                Once again, if someone's had their day
15   in court and you rule against them, I think, you
16   know, hopefully that will resolve the matter with
17   the self-represented litigants.  I treat them
18   with -- how I do that is just to try to be as fair
19   and straightforward with them as I can.
20          Q.    What suggestions, if any, would you
21   offer for improving the backlog of cases in the
22   Master-in-Equity court?
23          A.    Well, I'm constantly working on that.
24   One of the things that I've implemented is sort of
25   a rolling schedule of both, status conferences, to
0116
 1   look at the cases, to get them ready for trial, and
 2   also now I've gone to, for the first time, I've
 3   gone to sort of multiple weeks of cases.
 4                What I did is, I didn't print this for
 5   everybody, but I've got a graph here, and it's in
 6   black and white.  These are basically my cases that
 7   I've heard.  And 2007 is in the gray and you're
 8   probably having a hard time seeing.  But you'll see
 9   in 2008, my cases have gone up anywhere from 30 to
10   50 percent.  And in 2009 they're up easily
11   100 percent over 2007.  And the fourth quarter is
12   here on the end.  And that's only for the month of
13   October.
14                So I've got as many cases in the
15   fourth quarter of 2000 -- or heard as many cases or
16   been assigned as many cases in October of 2009 as I
17   personally heard in all of 2007.  What that is is
18   reflective of what's really gone on in the
19   foreclosure world.  That's what I'm dealing with
20   right now.  How to get these cases and get them
21   moved to my office.
22                My most recent problem is the banks --
23   the Chief Justice put her order in effect in May
24   requiring a review of homeowner affordable
25   modification program, and that has slowed down a
0117
 1   number of cases.  There's a lot of them sitting
 2   there waiting to see if they qualify for
 3   modification.  I don't know what motivates these
 4   banks to modify or not modify.  I haven't been able
 5   to figure that one out yet.
 6                But what I am finding right now is I'm
 7   not able to move the cases that I've already
 8   disposed of.  I'm having a process whereby I've got
 9   almost 600 case files in my office that I'm showing
10   to be ended case, but that aren't being sold
11   because the bank keeps pulling them back from the
12   sale.  They don't want them sold.  They don't want
13   them in their own REO inventory.
14                And so I have just this week
15   implemented a new procedure whereby if a case has
16   been sitting in my sales draw for six months and
17   has not sold, I'm just going to dismiss it.  And
18   they'll have to bring that case again.
19                But the banks are not just dealing
20   with these people in any -- in any fashion that
21   seems to me to be consistent.  I think consistency
22   is part of the problem.  But they're just
23   inundated.
24                Yes, sir, Mr. Freeman.
25                PROF. FREEMAN:  Judge, you said that
0118
 1   banks didn't want them in their REO inventory.
 2   Will you explain that?  I don't understand that.
 3                JUDGE SCARBOROUGH:  Okay.  When the
 4   property is sold -- when I first came on the bench,
 5   people were going to the courthouse and buying real
 6   estate because they could get it cheap.  In about
 7   2007 the market has driven it up so high that they
 8   weren't buying anything cheap anymore.  They were
 9   paying a premium for it.
10                About 2008, 2009, what I've noticed is
11   that people are going to the sales and there's not
12   a whole lot of bidding going on down there now.
13   People are waiting to say what the bank will bid on
14   the property and then they're calling the bank
15   saying, Hey, I saw what you offered $200,000 for a
16   $300,000 debt, I'll pay you $150.  And it's going
17   to go into -- "REO" stands for real estate owned.
18   It's bank-owned property.
19                If there is no third-party purchaser,
20   it goes back into the real estate owned inventory
21   of the bank.  So all of a sudden the bank's sitting
22   there holding -- they've got a non-performing loan.
23   They've got a real estate that they're now
24   obligated to take care of.  They've got to cut the
25   grass because the municipal association is going to
0119
 1   make them cut the grass, the homeowners'
 2   association's going to assess them fees.
 3                We've got a real problem on our hands
 4   with our real estate market.
 5                PROF. FREEMAN:  I got you.
 6   BY MR. GENTRY:
 7          Q.    Judge, what you would like for your
 8   legacy to be as a Master-in-Equity?
 9          A.    You know, I put some thought into
10   this.  When I first came on the bench, most of the
11   Master that had been in Charleston had been there
12   for 20 years.  And so they had a chance to sort of
13   make an impact on the community.
14                During the time that I've been there,
15   I've seen -- I was talking to my fellow judges that
16   just testified in front of me.  I have seen the
17   strange market come along.  And most of what I've
18   seen happening is, is the case law that I find and
19   answers questions for me takes me back to the late
20   '20s and early '30s.  The last time we were in this
21   sort of financial battle.  And so I think back on
22   when I used to search titles and I used to see the
23   Master-in-Equity's name on all these foreclosed
24   cases.
25                So what my legacy that I hope for is
0120
 1   that he was a fair judge and he paid attention to
 2   his cases, and he left this community in a better
 3   position than he was when he got there.
 4          Q.    Thank you, Judge.
 5                I have a few housekeeping questions
 6   for you.
 7                Have you sought or received the pledge
 8   of any legislator prior to this date?
 9          A.    No, sir.
10          Q.    Have you sought or have you been
11   offered a conditional pledge of support of any
12   legislator pending the outcome of your screening?
13          A.    No, sir.
14          Q.    Have you asked any third parties to
15   contact members of the general assembly on your
16   behalf?
17          A.    No, sir.
18          Q.    Have you contacted any members of the
19   commission?
20          A.    No, sir.
21          Q.    Do you understand that you're
22   prohibited from seeking a pledge or commitment
23   until 48 hours after the formal release of the
24   commission's report?
25          A.    Yes, sir.
0121
 1          Q.    Have you reviewed the commission's
 2   guidelines on pledging?
 3          A.    I have.
 4          Q.    As a follow up, are you aware of the
 5   penalties for violating the pledging rules, that
 6   is, it's a misdemeanor and upon a conviction the
 7   violator must be fined not more than $1,000 or in
 8   prison not more than 90 days?
 9          A.    Yes, sir.
10                MR. GENTRY:  I would note that the
11   Lowcountry Citizens Committee found Judge
12   Scarborough well qualified for each of the nine
13   evaluative criteria.
14                Mr. Chairman, I have no further
15   questions.
16                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.  Does any
17   member of the commission have any questions at this
18   point?
19                Mr. Harrill.
20                MR. HARRILL:  Judge Scarborough, I
21   just wanted to make a comment.  I have appeared in
22   front of you.  I've sat in your courtroom while
23   you've conducted your court.  We have a great
24   judiciary in Charleston.  You exemplify that.  You
25   are calm in your demeanor.  I have -- you come
0122
 1   prepared to court.  You have an excellent knowledge
 2   of the law.  You're always available to help
 3   attorneys, the local bar.  And I'm just glad that
 4   you are a part of that.  I wanted to make that part
 5   of the record and say that out loud to you.
 6                JUDGE SCARBOROUGH:  Thank you,
 7   Mr. Harrill.
 8                Mr. Chairman, if I could, one of the
 9   things that I will tell you, since I've been a
10   judge, I've had a chance to go to a number of
11   judicial conferences around the country.  And I
12   just want to point out to you that what y'all do
13   here, this Judicial Merit Selection Commission, I
14   think helps to make some of the best judiciary in
15   the country.
16                I have met a number of judges -- I'm
17   not a fan of the popular election of judges.  And
18   I'm even more less of a fan after I've met some of
19   those people at some of these conferences.
20                If I'm going to go to a conference, I
21   go because I want to learn something.  I don't go
22   because it's some junk that I need to go hang out
23   at.  I'm going for a stated purpose, a specific
24   purpose.  I want to learn something that's going to
25   help me improve, you know, what it is that I do on
0123
 1   the bench.
 2                So I think the process that we have in
 3   place is just excellent and that's why I'm happy to
 4   be here today.
 5                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Well, thank you, sir.
 6   I want to acknowledge to you that you appeared
 7   before the Lowcountry Citizens Committee.  As you
 8   know, those committees are part of our eyes and
 9   ears of trying to gather the information and to
10   look at candidates and at judges that are on the
11   bench.
12                They didn't rate you just qualified.
13   They rated you well qualified in every category.
14   And that speaks volume to this panel.  And it's a
15   great record to have, and I hope you keep that up
16   in the years ahead.
17                JUDGE SCARBOROUGH:  Thank you, sir.
18                MR. CHAIRMAN:  With that, that
19   concludes this stage of the screening process.
20   Just a couple of points I want to make.  The record
21   will remain open until the report is published.
22   And you could be called back at any time if the
23   need should arise.  I'll remind you of the 48-hour
24   rule and ask you to be mindful of that.  So mindful
25   that if anyone inquires with you about whether or
0124
 1   not they may or may not advocate for you in the
 2   event that you're reported out by this committee,
 3   that you will remind them of the 48-hour rule for
 4   us.
 5                With that, we thank you for offering.
 6   We thank you for your service to the people of
 7   South Carolina.  Have a good day.
 8                JUDGE SCARBOROUGH:  Thank you, sir.
 9                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.  We'll go
10   off the record.
11                (Off-the-record discussion.)
12                (Judge Scarborough exited the room.)
13                (A lunch recess was taken from
14   12:11 p.m. to 12:59 p.m.)
15                (Judge Coffey entered the room.)
16                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.  We're going
17   to go back on the record at this point, and we're
18   reconvening.  We have before us the Honorable
19   William C. Coffey for Clarendon County.  If you
20   would raise your right hand, please, sir.
21                Do you swear to tell the truth, the
22   whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you
23   God?
24                JUDGE COFFEY:  I do, sir.
25                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.
0125
 1                The Judicial Merit Selection
 2   Commission has thorough investigated your
 3   qualifications for the bench.  Our inquiry is
 4   focused on nine evaluative criteria and has
 5   included a survey of the bench and bar, a thorough
 6   study of your application materials, a verification
 7   of compliance with state ethics laws, a search of
 8   newspaper articles in which your name appears, a
 9   study of previous screenings, and a check for
10   economic conflicts of interest.  We have received
11   no affidavits filed in opposition to your election.
12   No witnesses are present to testify.
13                So I would ask you if you have any
14   brief opening statement you wish to make to the
15   commission before I turn you over to counsel.  Our
16   procedure is this -- and let me tell you that the
17   opening statement is purely optional.  Counsel will
18   ask you a series of questions.  After that any
19   commissioner who may have a question may follow up,
20   and we'll wrap up the hearing.
21                JUDGE COFFEY:  Thank you, Senator.
22                Yes.  I am a part-time
23   Master-in-Equity which means that I also practice
24   law.  I'm honored to serve the people of Clarendon
25   County although a lot of it involves foreclosures
0126
 1   in mortgages which we don't like, but so it is
 2   these days.  In essence, I have served one full
 3   term and filled out the unexpired term of Mr. Ralph
 4   Cothran who died in office before.
 5                That's all I have to say to you at
 6   this point.
 7                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Well, thank you, sir.
 8                Please answer counsel's questions.
 9                MR. DEASON:  Mr. Chairman and members
10   of the commission, there's just a few procedural
11   matters to take care of with this candidate.
12   BY MR. DEASON:
13          Q.    Judge Coffey, you have -- you should
14   have before you the personal data questionnaire and
15   the amendment that you submitted as part of your
16   application.
17                Are there any other amendments that
18   you'd like to make to the PDQ?
19          A.    No.
20                MR. DEASON:  Well, then, Mr. Chairman,
21   I would ask that Judge Coffey's PDQ and amendment
22   be entered as an exhibit into the hearing record.
23                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
24   ordered.
25                (EXH. 9 was entered into the record.)
0127
 1   BY MR. DEASON:
 2          Q.    You should also have the sworn
 3   statement before you and the amendments that you
 4   provided for that, which all of them together have
 5   detailed answers to over 30 questions regarding
 6   judicial conduct, statutory qualifications, office
 7   administration, and temperament.
 8                Are there any other amendments that
 9   you'd like to make to those?
10          A.    No.
11                MR. DEASON:  Mr. Chairman, I'd ask
12   that Judge Coffey's sworn statement and amendments
13   be entered into the record as an exhibit.
14                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
15   ordered.
16                MR. DEASON:  I will note for the
17   commission that the testimony contained in his PDQ
18   which is now included in the record, Judge Coffey
19   meets the statutory requirements for this position
20   regarding his age, residence, and years of
21   practice.
22   BY MR. DEASON:
23          Q.    Judge Coffey, could you please tell
24   the commission why you want to continue serving as
25   a Master-in-Equity.
0128
 1          A.    Well, I'm just honored to serve the
 2   people of my county.  We don't have a large bar in
 3   Clarendon County.  It's usually dominated Senator
 4   Land, as you know, but other than that a few of us
 5   try to make a living at it.  He's a great friend of
 6   mine.  He really is.  We were high school
 7   classmates, and I won't tell you about that.
 8                Anyway, no, I'm very honored to serve
 9   my people and I intend to fill this term fully.
10          Q.    Although you addressed this in your
11   sworn affidavit, will you please tell the members
12   of the commission what you think is the appropriate
13   demeanor for a judge.
14          A.    I think you should always maintain a
15   proper decorum, Number 1, in your court.  I've
16   always tried to do that.  You should always be
17   above reproach in your personal life, and I've
18   tried to do that.  And I think that you should be
19   independent from affiliations with non-appropriate
20   organizations, and I've tried to do that.  Not
21   aloof at any time.  Because in my type of court,
22   it's unfortunate situations that come before me.
23   And I try as best I can to work those things out
24   for people.
25          Q.    Could you please tell me how you would
0129
 1   handle a pro se litigant.
 2          A.    A lot of my litigants are pro se.  And
 3   I allow them to tell me fully without going through
 4   all the rules of evidence that normally apply in
 5   the court where you've got lawyers on both sides,
 6   because they're unfamiliar with the rules of court.
 7   My goal is to provide equity not to provide rules.
 8          Q.    Just a few -- these next questions are
 9   just related to your candidacy this time.
10                Have you sought or received the pledge
11   of any legislator prior to this date?
12          A.    No, sir.
13          Q.    Have you sought or have you been
14   offered a conditional pledge of support of any
15   legislator pending the outcome of your screening?
16          A.    No, sir.
17          Q.    Have you asked any third parties to
18   contact members of the general assembly on your
19   behalf?
20          A.    No, sir.
21          Q.    Have you contacted any members of the
22   this commission?
23          A.    No, sir.
24          Q.    Do you understand that you're
25   prohibited from seeking a pledge or a commitment
0130
 1   until 48 hours after the formal release of the
 2   commission's report?
 3          A.    I do.
 4          Q.    Have you reviewed the commission's
 5   guidelines on pledging?
 6          A.    Yes, I have.
 7          Q.    All right.  As a follow-up, are you
 8   aware of the penalties for violating the pledging
 9   rules, that is, that it's a misdemeanor, and upon
10   conviction, a violator must be fined not more than
11   a $1,000 or in prison not more than 90 days?
12          A.    I'm aware of that.
13                MR. DEASON:  I'd like to add that the
14   citizens committee reported that Judge Coffey is
15   well liked and respected.  They also found him to
16   be well qualified in all nine of the criteria they
17   evaluate.  And also for the record, any concerns
18   raised during his investigation were incorporated
19   into my questions here today.
20                I don't have any further questions,
21   Mr. Chairman.
22                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.  Thank you,
23   sir.
24                Does any member of the commission have
25   a question?
0131
 1                I would just tell you that we have the
 2   citizens committees and they're our eyes and ears
 3   to help us get an in-depth look at the candidates.
 4   And when they come back and -- they didn't find you
 5   just qualified.  They found you well qualified.
 6   That's really a nice salute to you.
 7                JUDGE COFFEY:  Thank you.  Thank you.
 8                MR. CHAIRMAN:  And they also -- I
 9   think as you said, well liked and respected.  We
10   love to see comments like that.
11                With that, that concludes this stage
12   of the screening process.  As you know, the record
13   will remain open until the report is published.
14   And you could be called back if the need arises.
15   We know of nothing that's outstanding.  I'll remind
16   you of the 48-hour rule and ask you to be mindful
17   of that.  So mindful that if anyone inquires with
18   you about whether they may or may not advocate for
19   you if you're screened out, remind them of the
20   48-hour rule.
21                With that, we also thank you for
22   offering.  Thank you for your service to the people
23   of this state.
24                Have a great day.
25                JUDGE COFFEY:  Thank you.
0132
 1                (Judge Coffey exited the room.)
 2                (Off-the-record discussion.)
 3                (Judge Booth entered the room.)
 4                MS. SHULER:  I would note that the
 5   staff just handed out on the last candidate and
 6   also information provided the other day regarding a
 7   lawsuit involving Judge Booth.
 8                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.  We'll go on
 9   the record.  We have before us the Honorable
10   Richard Lauren Booth who's Master-in-Equity for
11   Sumter County.
12                JUDGE BOOTH:  Yes, sir.
13                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Good afternoon, sir.
14                JUDGE BOOTH:  Good afternoon to
15   everyone.
16                MR. CHAIRMAN:  If you would be kind
17   enough to raise your right hand.
18                Do you swear to tell the truth, the
19   whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you
20   God?
21                JUDGE BOOTH:  I do.
22                MR. CHAIRMAN:  The Judicial Merit
23   Selection Commission has thoroughly investigated
24   your qualifications for the bench.  Our inquires
25   focused on the nine evaluative criteria and has
0133
 1   included a survey of the bench and bar, a thorough
 2   study of your application materials, a verification
 3   of your compliance with state ethics laws, a search
 4   of newspaper articles in which your name appears, a
 5   study of previous screenings, and a check for
 6   economic conflicts of interest.  We've received no
 7   affidavits filed in opposition to your election.
 8   No witnesses are present to testify.
 9                I would ask you if you have any
10   opening statement you wish to make.  It's purely
11   optional.  The procedure we follow is, we'll have
12   counsel ask you a few questions, see if any members
13   of the commission have any outstanding questions,
14   if they don't, we'll wrap up the hearing.
15                JUDGE BOOTH:  Thank you, sir.
16                I only wish to thank you all for this
17   opportunity to appear before you today and take
18   part in this process and will be happy to answer
19   any questions that any of you have for me.
20                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right, sir.
21                Counsel.
22   BY MS. BENSON:
23          Q.    Judge, you have before you your
24   personal data questionnaire.  And I believe that we
25   received some information that's been handed out to
0134
 1   the commission the other day which amends your
 2   personal data questionnaire concerning a lawsuit
 3   that you were listed as being involved in.  Perhaps
 4   you'd like to tell the commission about that
 5   lawsuit, because as I understand, your name is no
 6   longer on that lawsuit.
 7          A.    That's what I understand also.
 8                The suit was brought as part of a
 9   foreclosure action on a piece of property that had
10   been previously owned by my grandfather's
11   irrevocable land trust in which my father and my
12   uncle and Wachovia Bank were trustees.  My father
13   died in 2004 and this particular transaction
14   followed shortly thereafter.
15                When the deed was prepared, my
16   secretary apparently did a -- just a search and
17   replace and put my name in place, because part of
18   the trust had evolved to me free of trust and I
19   became the party in interest and corrected the
20   signature element so that it was signed correctly,
21   but in the granting clause, merely substituted my
22   name for his as trustee so there was a scrivener's
23   error.
24                And when the lot which was sold and
25   mortgaged eventually went into foreclosure, I'm
0135
 1   assuming that plaintiff's attorneys title
 2   abstractor found that scriveners error.  And rather
 3   than just call me to straighten it out, they
 4   decided to just do a quite title action regarding
 5   it.
 6                So I called them and told them that,
 7   you know, there was no problem.  Executed a Quit
 8   Claim Deed for any interest to clear up the
 9   scriveners error and contemporaneous with that it
10   was dismissed.  But I understand, during the
11   investigation, that the caption of the lawsuit was
12   not changed and it was picked up during the search
13   of public records.
14                My involvement in it was purely -- I
15   thought unnecessary since it was a scriveners error
16   and the deed, I thought, was effective to begin
17   with, but it was their prerogative to deal with it
18   as they so choose and therefore was dismissed from
19   the suit early on.  And now I understand that they
20   have actually procured an order which has deleted
21   my name as a party defendant.
22          Q.    Thank you, Judge Booth.
23                Are there any other amendments that
24   you would make to your personal data questionnaire
25   at this time.
0136
 1          A.    I know of none.
 2          Q.    Thank you.
 3                MS. BENSON:  Mr. Chairman, I'd like to
 4   ask that Judge Booth's personal data questionnaire
 5   be entered into the record at this time?
 6                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
 7   ordered.
 8                (EXH. 10 was entered into the record.)
 9   BY MS. BENSON:
10          Q.    Judge Booth, you also have before you
11   a sworn statement that provided detailed answers to
12   over 30 questions regarding judicial conduct,
13   statutory qualification, office administration, and
14   temperament.
15                Is there any amendment that you would
16   have to this statement?
17          A.    I'm not aware of any that I need to
18   make at this time.
19          Q.    Thank you, Judge Booth.
20                MS. BENSON:  Mr. Chairman, I'd ask
21   that this statement be entered into the record at
22   this time.
23                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
24   ordered.
25                MS. BENSON:  One final procedural
0137
 1   matter, I would note for the record that based on
 2   the testimony contained in the personal data
 3   questionnaire that's been included in the record,
 4   that Judge Booth meets the statutory requirements
 5   for this position regarding age, residence, and
 6   years of practice.
 7   BY MS. BENSON:
 8          Q.    Judge Booth, why do you wish to
 9   continue serving as a Master-in-Equity?
10          A.    Well, I feel like over my 32 years of
11   practice now, that I've acquired a body of
12   knowledge that lends itself well to this position.
13   Having practiced in real estate business and other
14   areas that come before a Master-in-Equity, and I've
15   enjoyed very much using that body of knowledge to
16   try to help people who are involved in litigation
17   over those type of areas.  And I feel like I have a
18   lot to add in that regard and I feel like I've done
19   a pretty good job at it, though I'm still learning.
20          Q.    Judge Booth, you have a practice and
21   also you have some real estate holdings in the
22   area.  Have you had to deal with many conflicts of
23   interests?  And if so, how do you deal with
24   conflicts of interest?
25          A.    I have a good many conflicts of
0138
 1   interests that arise in part because of my family's
 2   farming holdings in the county that I'm now a part
 3   owner of.  But also because I've practiced in a
 4   community where my family's been for 170 years.
 5   And at one time or another they've probably
 6   represented a good many people who at one point
 7   might come before a Court of Common Pleas.
 8                I try to go by the judicial canons.
 9   And if I have personal knowledge or if I feel like
10   I have a bias, then I just recuse myself.  On the
11   other hand, I also understand that from the canon
12   this job is to take priority over my other affairs,
13   jobs, or whatever.  And so I feel like that in some
14   cases while there may be a past representation or
15   some other connection, that they are so remote as
16   to not cause me to have any prejudice or bias or
17   any other affect on my ability to render an
18   impartial judicial decision.
19                And in those cases, I tried to -- or I
20   always scrupulously really follow the canon to
21   disclose any potential conflict on the record to
22   the parties and their attornies and leave the room.
23   And the practice that I've adopted is that if
24   anybody is uncomfortable with it or anyone wants me
25   to recuse myself, I will grant that recusal request
0139
 1   without any question or compulsions.
 2          Q.    Thank you, Judge Booth.
 3                Will you please tell the commission
 4   what you perceive to be the proper demeanor and
 5   temperament of a judge.
 6          A.    Well, to me and what I try to do is be
 7   pleasant and dignified and respectful of the
 8   litigants that come before me.  I try to make sure,
 9   in all cases, that they have been able to avail
10   themself a full due process.  That they're proper
11   before the Court.  That they have been made subject
12   to the jurisdiction of the court and that they are
13   treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.
14                And so scrupulously try to avoid anger
15   at someone or if a litigant is testy, I will
16   sometimes recess until I am no longer irritated
17   with them and go forward.  But that's pretty rare.
18   We try to keep a business-like and pleasant
19   demeanor in my courtroom.
20          Q.    What would you like to have known as
21   your legacy for serving in this position?
22          A.    Well, I think I would just like to be
23   remembered as having done my best to be fair and
24   carry out the laws in a fair and equitable manner
25   for those who are before me in court.
0140
 1          Q.    Thank you, Judge Booth.
 2                I have a few housekeeping issues that
 3   I'd like to ask at this time.
 4                Have you sought or received the pledge
 5   of any legislator prior to this date?
 6          A.    No, ma'am.
 7          Q.    Have you sought or been offered a
 8   conditional pledge of support of any legislator
 9   pending the outcome of your screening?
10          A.    No.
11          Q.    Have you asked any third parties to
12   contact members of the general assembly on your
13   behalf?
14          A.    No.
15          Q.    Have you contacted any members of the
16   commission?
17          A.    No.
18          Q.    Do you understand that you're
19   prohibited from seeking a pledge or commitment
20   until 48 hours until after the release of the
21   commission's report?
22          A.    Yes.
23          Q.    Have you reviewed the commission's
24   guidelines on pledging?
25          A.    Yes.
0141
 1          Q.    As a follow-up, are you aware that the
 2   penalties for violating the pledging rules are that
 3   if convicted it would be a misdemeanor and could be
 4   fined not more than $1,000 and in prison not more
 5   than 90 days?
 6          A.    Yes.
 7                MS. BENSON:  Mr. Chairman, I would
 8   note that the Pee Dee Citizens Committee reported
 9   that Judge Booth is well qualified for each of the
10   nine evaluative criteria.  In summary, the
11   committee reported that Judge Booth is well
12   qualified for his job and all persons involved in
13   the screening of Judge Booth were highly
14   complimentary of the manner in which he operates
15   the Master's office.
16                Mr. Chairman, I would note for the
17   record that any concerns raised during the
18   investigation have been incorporated in my
19   questions.  I would have not further questions at
20   this time.
21                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Before I turn you over
22   for some questions, if there are any, I just want
23   to say that the citizens committee is one of the
24   means that we use to try to get an in-depth look at
25   the candidates and those that are on the bench and
0142
 1   how they're performing.  And when they come back
 2   and make statements like "All persons involved in
 3   the screening of you are highly complimentary of
 4   the manner in which you operate your office,"
 5   that's just a high compliment.  We thank you for
 6   operating at that level.
 7                JUDGE BOOTH:  Well, thank you very
 8   much.
 9                MR. CHAIRMAN:  With that, I'll see if
10   there are any questions that any member has.  If
11   not, that concludes this stage of the screening
12   process.  As you know, the record will remain open
13   until the report is published and you could be
14   called back at such time if there were any open
15   questions.  I know of none that are left.  I'll
16   remind you of the 48-hour rule and ask you to be
17   very mindful of that.  In fact, so mindful that if
18   anyone inquires with you about whether they may or
19   may not advocate on your behalf in the event that
20   you're screened out, please remind them of the
21   48-hour rule.
22                With that, we thank you for offering,
23   and thank you for your past service to the people
24   of this state.
25                JUDGE BOOTH:  Thank you.  Thank you
0143
 1   all very much.
 2                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you, sir.
 3                We'll go off the record until the next
 4   candidate arrives.
 5                (Judge Booth exited the room.)
 6                (Off-the-record discussion.)
 7                (Judge Matthews entered the room.)
 8                MR. CHAIRMAN:  We'll go back on the
 9   record at this point.  We have before us the
10   Honorable Carolyn C. Matthews, Administrative Law
11   Court, Seat Number 3.
12                Before I begin the hearing, I'll put a
13   statement on that Representative Greg Delleney has
14   recused himself from this race because he tried a
15   case in the judge's court and I believe an order is
16   pending.
17                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  They're getting order
18   to -- submitting proposed orders in the case.  He
19   is one of the litigants before me.
20                MR. CHAIRMAN:  He has recused himself,
21   and I wanted to put that on the record.
22                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  Thank you, sir.
23                MR. CHAIRMAN:  With that, if you would
24   raise your right hand, please.
25                Do you swear to tell the truth, the
0144
 1   whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you
 2   God?
 3                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  I do.
 4                MR. CHAIRMAN:  The Judicial Merit
 5   Selection Commission has thoroughly investigated
 6   your qualifications for the bench.  Our inquiries
 7   has focused on our nine evaluative criteria.  It
 8   has included a survey of the bench and bar, a
 9   thorough study of your application materials, a
10   verification of your compliance with state ethics
11   laws, a search of newspaper articles in which your
12   name appears, a study of previous screenings, a
13   check for economic conflicts of interests.  We have
14   no -- we have received no affidavits filed in
15   opposition to your election, and we have no
16   witnesses present to testify.
17                I would ask you if there's any opening
18   statement you wish to give.  That's purely optional
19   with you.  After that our procedure is as follows:
20   Counsel will ask you some questions.  Once counsel
21   completes the questions, we'll see if any of the
22   commissioners have questions, and then we'll wrap
23   up the hearing.
24                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  All right.  Well, I'm
25   running for my third term as Administrative Law
0145
 1   judge, and I'll waive opening.
 2                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.  Please
 3   answer counsel's questions.
 4                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  Certainly.
 5                MR. GENTRY:  Mr. Chairman and members
 6   of the commission, I have a few procedural matters
 7   to take care of with regard to Judge Matthews.
 8   BY MR. GENTRY:
 9          Q.    Judge Matthews, you have before you
10   the personal data questionnaire that you submitted
11   as part of your application.
12                Are there any additional amendments
13   that you'd like to make at this time to your PDQ?
14          A.    No.
15                MR. GENTRY:  Mr. Chairman, I'd like to
16   ask that Judge Matthews personal data questionnaire
17   be entered as an exhibit into the hearing record.
18                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
19   ordered.
20                (EXH. 11 was entered into the record.)
21   BY MR. GENTRY:
22          Q.    Judge Matthews, you also have before
23   you the sworn statement that you provided with
24   detailed answers to over 30 questions regarding
25   judicial conduct, statutory qualification, office
0146
 1   administration, and temperament.
 2                Are there any additional amendments
 3   that you would like to make at this time to your
 4   sworn statement?
 5          A.    No.
 6                MR. GENTRY:  Mr. Chairman, I would
 7   like to ask that Judge Matthews' sworn statement be
 8   entered as an exhibit into the hearing record.
 9                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Without objection, so
10   ordered.
11                MR. GENTRY:  One final procedural
12   matter, I would note for the record that based on
13   the testimony contained in the candidate's PDQ,
14   which has been included in the record with the
15   candidate's consent, Judge Matthews meets the
16   statutory requirements for this position regarding
17   age, residence, and years of practice.
18   
19   BY MR. GENTRY:
20          Q.    Judge Matthews, why do you want to
21   continue to serve as an Administrative Law Court
22   judge?
23          A.    Frankly, because I love the job and I
24   think I'm good at it.  I've been doing it now for
25   ten years.  And as you know, we hear everything
0147
 1   from contested cases from many state agencies which
 2   are basically bench trials without a jury.  We hear
 3   appeals from the 49 licensing boards of LLR and
 4   many other groups including charter schools.  So we
 5   have the trial work and the appellate work, and we
 6   also here injunctions and orders to cease and
 7   desist, motions for stay.  I love the variety and I
 8   love the fact that we really get good lawyers in
 9   front of us in a lot of novel procedural and
10   substantive issues and I'd like to do it for
11   another term.
12          Q.    Although you address this in your
13   sworn affidavit, could you please explain to the
14   members of the commission what you think is the
15   appropriate demeanor for a judge.
16          A.    A judge is supposed to be patient,
17   courteous, and dignified.  And a judge is supposed
18   to treat everyone with respect and listen to them
19   fully, and that includes not just the lawyers but
20   the litigant and the witnesses.  That includes the
21   demeanor that's supposed to carry over 24 hours a
22   day, seven days a week in your dealings with
23   everyone.
24          Q.    What is your policy and procedure as
25   it pertains to recusing yourself in cases that have
0148
 1   been assigned to you?
 2          A.    My policy is that which is contained
 3   in Canon 3 in the code of judicial conduct, and
 4   that is if there's any possibility that anyone can
 5   perceive any impropriety, then I recuse myself.
 6                We have a procedure within our office
 7   where if we tell the chief judge who assigns the
 8   cases that we have a conflict, it's reassigned and
 9   we just issue an order of recusal.  I have dealt
10   with this many times in ten years.  I have a
11   brother-in-law who's a lawyer.  I have a daughter
12   who's a lawyer in Charleston County.  Can't hear
13   their cases, obviously.  My husband has some
14   business associations, so I can't hear those cases.
15   And there are various other clients that I did so
16   much legal work for when I was in private practice
17   including Sandy Cook, for example, when they had
18   their coal fire plant application.  I obviously was
19   recused from that one.  But it's kind of a routine
20   matter at our courts.
21          Q.    What suggestions, if any, would you
22   offer for improving the backlog of cases in the
23   Administrative Law Court?
24          A.    Well, I have looked at the case
25   numbers and I've got the statistics here, if you
0149
 1   want them, for the last year.  With the office of
 2   motor vehicles and the Administrative Law Court
 3   combined, we issued 6,410 final decisions in the
 4   last fiscal year.
 5                Our court, just the court, only five
 6   judges for a couple years now as you know, and
 7   we've issued an average of 110 opinions per year
 8   each.  And we've issued approximately 270
 9   Department of Correction and Ali Shabaz cases.  So
10   an average of 377 cases per year.
11                I'm very happy to say that I'm
12   compulsive about moving my docket.  I have
13   something I call the 30-day rule.  I tell all
14   lawyers that I'll either get them an order within
15   30 days after the hearing is over, or if the
16   proposal's need to be submitted, I will get them an
17   order within 30 days after the proposal is
18   submitted.  And if I don't, my law clerk contacts
19   them and let's them know.  And I think that shows
20   all the numbers.  I brought in the numbers of the
21   various judges, and mine are by far the lowest of
22   any judge that's been there a year or longer.
23          Q.    Judge, what is your typical caseload
24   like?
25          A.    Well, that's what I was just
0150
 1   explaining.  I probably get out an average of about
 2   eight to ten orders a month, but some of those are
 3   final orders in cases.  Then there are many other
 4   cases which is dismissed via routine motion.
 5   Motion to dismiss, motion because it's not ripe.
 6   Then there many other motions that we hear, motion
 7   on discovery, motion to compel, motion to exclude,
 8   motion to consolidate, motion for summary judgment.
 9   So the -- I would say the last eight months have
10   been possibly the busiest I have had in ten years
11   on the court, because we have so much new
12   jurisdiction that the legislature has given.
13          Q.    To your knowledge, how does your
14   caseload compare to the other Administrative Law
15   Court judges?
16          A.    Well, I have the numbers here if you
17   want them.  And it's really difficult to compare
18   because we have two judges who were just elected
19   this year, Judge Shirley Robinson and Judge Deb
20   Durden.
21                And from what I can tell, you only get
22   a full distribution of the variety of cases and the
23   number of cases when you've been there about two
24   years.  So only three of us, Judge McLeod, Judge
25   Anderson and I have been there three years.  But I
0151
 1   have several times multiplied the lowest caseload
 2   because I do process them so fast.
 3                And because I have a marvelous system
 4   for dealing with the Department of Correction's
 5   cases.  In fact, I counted in the draw in my file
 6   cabinet before I left, there are 18 Department of
 7   Correction cases, because I'm good getting rid of
 8   them.  And I don't like work sitting around.  I
 9   don't like lawyers being kept waiting.  I practiced
10   law for 21 years before I became a judge, and I
11   don't think lawyers ought out to have to wait more
12   than 30 days for an order.
13          Q.    What would you like for your legacy to
14   be as an Administrative Law Court judge?
15          A.    I would like the people to say that I
16   was a fair judge, that I was very cognizant of the
17   law, that I applied the facts of their case to that
18   law, and that I was familiar with the rules of
19   evidence, and that I listened courteously to them
20   and their witnesses.  That I wrote reasons,
21   rational opinions that were upheld on appeal within
22   the shortest time of any judge in the state.
23          Q.    Thank you, Judge Matthews.
24                I have a few housekeeping questions to
25   ask.
0152
 1                Have you sought or received the pledge
 2   of any legislator prior to this date?
 3          A.    No.
 4          Q.    Have you sought or have you been
 5   offered a conditional pledge of support of any
 6   legislator pending the outcome of your screening?
 7          A.    No.
 8          Q.    Have you ask any third parties to
 9   contact members of the general assembly on your
10   behalf?
11          A.    No.
12          Q.    Have you contacted any members of the
13   commission?
14          A.    No.
15          Q.    Do you understand that you're
16   prohibited from seeking a pledge or a commitment
17   until 48 hours after the formal release of the
18   commission's report?
19          A.    Yes, I do.
20          Q.    Have you reviewed the commission's
21   guidelines on pledging?
22          A.    Yes, I have.
23          Q.    As a follow-up, are you aware of the
24   penalties for violating the pledging rules, that
25   is, it's a misdemeanor, and upon conviction, the
0153
 1   violator must be fined not more than $1,000 or in
 2   prison not more than 90 days?
 3          A.    Yes.
 4                MR. GENTRY:  I would note that the
 5   Midlands Citizens Committee found Judge Matthews
 6   well qualified for each of the nine evaluative
 7   criteria.  The committee stated, "Judge Matthews is
 8   an asset to our state judiciary and we believe she
 9   has honorably served our state in the most
10   outstanding manner.  We believe she is most
11   eminently qualified to continue her service on the
12   Administrative Law Court."
13                Mr. Chairman, I have no further
14   questions.
15                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.
16                We'll see if any member of the
17   commission has any questions.  Anybody?
18                Senator from Lexington.
19                SEN. KNOTTS:  Judge Matthews, last
20   time you were screened, there were some questions
21   about your work ethic over there.
22                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  Yes, sir.
23                SEN. KNOTTS:  How has that changed?
24   How many hours of the day or week and all do you
25   work?
0154
 1                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  Well, Senator, I
 2   think if you'd ask any judge in my court for the
 3   past six months at least, I have been, I believe,
 4   the hardest working judge there.
 5                I had one case that went for four
 6   weeks.  And when the lawyers wanted to go to
 7   seven o'clock at night, I stayed there.  There was
 8   no other current personnel there except my law
 9   clerk, but I stayed.  And the case where
10   Mr. Delleney was in, they wanted to go late and
11   finish because it was an expert witness, and I
12   stayed there.
13                And I can tell you from these numbers
14   that are comparable to other judges, I think they
15   speak for themselves as to who is getting the cases
16   done by all magnitudes.
17                SEN. KNOTTS:  How many days a week?
18                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  I'm there every day.
19   Every day and I take work home with me.  And some
20   of those motions for summary judgment that are
21   going to be argued on Monday, there was this much
22   stuff.  So I probably spend -- well, I spend at
23   least a couple hours every weekend on some motion
24   or other, or reviewing some order.  But I'm trying
25   to give it my best effort, Senator.
0155
 1                PROF. FREEMAN:  Judge, a question has
 2   arisen concerning you deciding a case where
 3   Mr. Thomas Lavender was a lawyer for a party at the
 4   same time, evidently, he was representing your
 5   husband's company or a company in which your
 6   husband had an interest in other litigation.
 7                What is your policy concerning this
 8   possible conflict?  What happened then, and what is
 9   your policy today?
10                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  Well, that was a
11   peculiar situation, because I only found out very
12   recently, about a month ago, that Mr. Lavender had
13   done some legal work for a partnership in which my
14   husband has a one-fifth interest.  And it was a
15   very casual conversation.  John has said, We've met
16   in Lavender's office.  I said, Well, what's Tommy
17   Lavender doing for you?  He goes, Oh, just looking
18   over some contracts.  He's never done any
19   litigation.  And I said, Well, Johnny, I mean, I
20   had, you know, a case with Tommy Lavender not long
21   ago and I may have some now.
22                So I went immediately to my file.
23   And, in fact, a case that I opened a few days later
24   not only had Tommy Lavender as one of the lawyers
25   but it also had a permit for their client to
0156
 1   filling 1900 linear feet of stream.  And the
 2   partnership that my husband and his brothers and
 3   sisters started is to create a stream mitigation
 4   bank for the state of South Carolina over there in
 5   McCormick County.
 6                And all I knew that they had done --
 7   and I recognize the obligation of the code.  To
 8   keep reasonably informed of the economic interests
 9   of your spouse and any other people in your
10   household.  So here's what I do know.  I knew they
11   inherited some money a couple of years ago and they
12   took all the money, the five of them, and put it in
13   a bank account at Meridian Bank.  My
14   brother-in-law, Chad Watson, is a lawyer.  He
15   opened that account for them.  He's on the board.
16                Then I kept up with the fact that they
17   were investigating various economic environmental
18   assessment firms.  And they talked with the three
19   of them, looked at the contracts, and decided to
20   hire one.  They have had visits by the Army Corp of
21   Engineers.  There's something called the mitigation
22   review team of the state.  And y'all have
23   information -- and you may have legislature on this
24   at some point.  But there is not a stream
25   mitigation bank in the state.
0157
 1                What that is is a developer has to
 2   filling a bunch of streams.  They've got to
 3   mitigate.  If they can't mitigate on site, they've
 4   got to buy credit somewhere else.  Now, you can't
 5   set up one of these mitigation banks unless you
 6   have an endangered species, unless you donate it to
 7   a conservation easement, and unless you agree not
 8   to develop around it.
 9                Well, they're just in the process now.
10   They have not finalized it, but I've never heard
11   anything about any lawyer.  There's been no permits
12   applied for.  There's been no litigation.  No legal
13   bills have ever come to my house.  So I was
14   surprised that he had just apparently given him
15   some advise.  When I looked further, I found that
16   they were actually an LLC and that Tommy had
17   incorporated them or the LLC then or whatever you
18   call it a couple of years before that.
19                So what I did -- when I saw this file,
20   I said, Well, I need to recuse myself on this.  And
21   then I said, Well, is there anything else out
22   there?  And there was a case that had been appealed
23   to the Court of Appeals that I had tried and it was
24   already at the Court of Appeals.  So in addition to
25   the order of recusal, I wrote all the parties, all
0158
 1   the lawyers, and said that I became aware of the
 2   case that was tried.  That Tommy Lavender's done
 3   some legal work for an LLC called The Five
 4   McAllisters in which my husband has a one-fifth
 5   interest.
 6                I don't have any bias or prejudice.
 7   However, out of an abundance of counsel, I'm
 8   notifying all counsel so that you and your clients
 9   can decide my impartiality.  Since this case has
10   been appealed to the Court of Appeals, this court
11   has no jurisdiction.  You and your client would
12   have to file any motions to the Court of Appeals.
13   If you move to remand the case to court, I would
14   not retry it.
15                And I went through every file I have
16   assigned to me.  I found one other in which Tommy
17   Lavender was a counsel of record and recused myself
18   in that.  So it's kind of by the book, and I've got
19   copies of those.
20                PROF. FREEMAN:  Okay.  Thank you.
21                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  That was probably a
22   longer answer than you wanted, huh?
23                PROF. FREEMAN:  Well, it was a good
24   answer.
25                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  Well, fine.
0159
 1                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Mr. Harrill.
 2                MR. HARRILL:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
 3                Judge, in your PDQ, I guess,
 4   question 17, along the same lines as the
 5   professor's question.  Question 17 says, "Would you
 6   hear a case where you or a family -- you or a
 7   member of your family held a de minimus financial
 8   interest in a party involved.  And I think your
 9   answer is, "because a de minimus interest is so
10   insignificant that it could not be used to
11   reasonably question my impartiality, I could hear
12   such a case."
13                Could you --
14                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  Well --
15                MR. HARRILL:  Just if you don't
16   mind -- could you please reconcile that with trying
17   to avoid the appearance of impropriety.
18                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  Absolutely, and what
19   I was thinking about -- and I believe the notes or
20   the code of judicial conduct talk about a de
21   minimus interest like, for example, if somebody
22   owned 200 shares in GE or something, I could still
23   hear a case involving GE if a family member owned,
24   you know, such a de  minimus interest that General
25   Electric is never going to be affected by something
0160
 1   that my husband happens to hold 200 shares of and I
 2   think I could hear that.
 3                MR. HARRILL:  Yes, ma'am.  The
 4   question, I guess, was more along the lines of
 5   would you hear it and you answered you could.
 6                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  If any party had any
 7   objection to it -- and I would disclose that on the
 8   record, because the code requires that if there's
 9   any possibility or if any of those specific
10   instances exist that you disclose it on the record.
11   You tell the lawyers, you walk out, and you let
12   them discuss it, and you come back in.  And if they
13   say it's okay, then you put that on the record.
14                My answer was probably too broad
15   there.  Because my husband in this instance did
16   have in a sense a de  minimus financial interest in
17   it because, first of all, they haven't gotten the
18   bank finalize.  And secondly, I don't know if they
19   would purchase from them.  But, you know, I at
20   least researched it to make sure.
21                There's a judicial boundary opinion
22   that makes it clear that a judge may not hear a
23   case in which the husband's business -- or the
24   judge's spouse's business has an attorney.  And
25   that was a general attorney.  My husband's business
0161
 1   is John McAllister Realty Consultant.
 2                MR. HARRILL:  Thank you, Judge.
 3                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  Thank you, sir.  Any
 4   other questions.
 5                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Let me follow up, if
 6   you raised an issue on the record and allow the
 7   attorneys and the clients to go out and talk about,
 8   and they come in and one of them says, We feel
 9   uncomfortable with going forward.
10                What is your policy?
11                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  Absolute recusal.
12   Absolute recusal.
13                MR. CHAIRMAN:  If you found out in the
14   middle of the case that there was a problem that
15   you didn't know, and you brought it to the
16   attention of the parties and one of them objected.
17                What would be your policy?
18                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  I'll stop and ask
19   another judge to take over.
20                MR. CHAIRMAN:  And if you had heard
21   the case and just found out but had not issued a
22   final order and brought it to the attention of the
23   parties, and one of them objected and felt you were
24   bias.
25                What would be your policy?
0162
 1                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  I would absolutely
 2   recuse myself, and I think that one would have to
 3   be retried.
 4                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.
 5                SEN. KNOTTS:  Mr. Chairman?
 6                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Yes.
 7                SEN. KNOTTS:  Judge, if you had looked
 8   at a situation and decided that you needed to
 9   recuse yourself and went out into the courtroom and
10   stated to both parties, I am going to recuse
11   myself, is there anything that you know of -- any
12   situation that you know of that would, after you
13   made that statement and that decision, if one party
14   talked to you and the other party didn't, would you
15   go back and say, I'm not going to recuse myself or
16   would you stay recused?
17                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  If one party wanted
18   me to hear and the other didn't?
19                SEN. KNOTTS:  No.
20                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  I'm sorry, I didn't
21   understand.
22                SEN. KNOTTS:  If a party came -- if
23   you came out to the courtroom and told both parties
24   in the courtroom that you were going to recuse
25   yourself, and there was some situations that had
0163
 1   occurred and that you felt like you needed to
 2   recuse yourself and you were going to recuse
 3   yourself.  And in some situation one of the
 4   opposing attorneys decided to talk to you and
 5   explain why you shouldn't.
 6                Would you -- how would you handle
 7   that?
 8                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  Well, I wouldn't talk
 9   to one of the attorneys without all of them being
10   there because that would be ex parte communication.
11   And all attorneys always have to be present with
12   anything having to do with procedural matters or
13   substantive matters.
14                But once I had decided, I think that's
15   a decision that the judge has to make.  I think
16   there are certain things that you can disclose to
17   the parties and they can waive.  For example, if
18   you went to college with one of 20 years ago and,
19   you know, that sort of thing.  They can waive that.
20   Say, Judge, that ain't going to make any
21   difference.
22                But if they have just -- if the judge
23   had made the decision to recuse herself, I think
24   that's absolute.
25                SEN. KNOTTS:  Would you hold a hearing
0164
 1   with both -- if you changed your mind, would you
 2   hold a hearing with them both and call them back in
 3   or would you just send them a memorandum that you
 4   didn't not to recuse yourself and you're going to
 5   hear the case?
 6                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  Well, if they agreed
 7   on the record that I could hear the case and I felt
 8   like there was no problem and that happened in the
 9   middle of a trial, then I would go ahead.  I would
10   put it on the record, and that's what the code
11   requires.
12                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Any further questions?
13                All right.  This concludes this
14   portion of the screening process.  As you know, the
15   record will remain open until the report is
16   published and you may be called back at such time,
17   if the need arises.  I need to remind you of the
18   48-hour rule, and ask you to be very mindful of it.
19   So much so that if anyone inquires with you about
20   whether they may or may not advocate for you in the
21   event that you're screened out, please remind them
22   of the 48-hour rule for us please.
23                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  I will do so.
24                MR. CHAIRMAN:  And with that, thank
25   you for offering and thank you for your past
0165
 1   service to the people of South Carolina.
 2                Have a good day.
 3                JUDGE MATTHEWS:  Thank you.  You-all
 4   do the same.  And I did want to tell you that my
 5   baby daughter wanted to come up today, but she's
 6   working with some of the Boeing folks and they're
 7   very excited about it.
 8                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.  We'll go
 9   off the record for a moment.
10                (Off-the-record discussion.)
11                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.  My
12   understanding is that we need to go into executive
13   session and take personal comments.
14                (The members went into executive
15   session from 1:43 p.m. to 3:57 p.m.)
16                MR. CHAIRMAN:  We'll stand in public
17   recess.
18                (A recess was taken from 3:57 p.m. to
19   4:25 p.m.)
20                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Do you have a motion
21   that we go back into executive session?  We've been
22   in public recess.  All in favor, please raise your
23   right hand.
24                (All members raise their right hand.)
25                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.
0166
 1                Let the record show that it's
 2   unanimous.  The vote of every commissioner --
 3   they're all here -- to go into executive session.
 4                Sergeant, please seal the chambers.
 5                (The members went into executive
 6   session from 4:25 p.m. to 4:47 p.m.)
 7                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Please open the door
 8   and announce that we're in public session.
 9                (Off-the-record discussion.)
10                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.  We'll
11   reconvene in public session now the meeting of the
12   Judicial Screening Committee.
13                Do I hear a motion regarding any of
14   the proposed candidates for qualification and
15   nomination?
16                PROF. FREEMAN:  Mr. Chairman, I have a
17   motion.
18                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Please state your
19   motion.
20                PROF. FREEMAN:  My motion is that all
21   of the uncontested candidates except Judge
22   Segars-Andrews be found qualified and nominated.
23                MR. CHAIRMAN:  And that would include
24   the retired judges too, also?
25                PROF. FREEMAN:  Yes, it would.
0167
 1   Everyone who we were screening who hasn't
 2   previously been voted on except Judge
 3   Segars-Andrews.
 4                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.  I'm
 5   advised -- do I hear a second?
 6                SEN. KNOTTS:  Second.
 7                MS. McLESTER:  Second.
 8                MR. CHAIRMAN:  It's now been moved and
 9   seconded.
10                I will call out to you what the
11   Professor's motion is, it's for the following
12   proposed candidates for qualification and
13   nomination in the Circuit Court, would be Judge
14   Diane Goldstein and Judge Steven John.
15                In the Family Court will be Judge
16   Roger Henderson, Judge Peter Fuge, Judge William
17   Wylie, Jr., Judge Nancy McLin, Judge George
18   McFadden, Judge Dorothy Jones, Judge John Rucker,
19   Judge Judy McMahon, Judge Jack Landis, Judge
20   Timothy Cain, Judge Kellum Allen, Judge Lisa Kinon,
21   Judge Robert Guess, Judge Alvin Johnson, and Judge
22   Jerry Vinson, Jr.
23                In the Administrative Court it would
24   be Judge Carolyn Matthews.
25                And in the Master-in-Equity it would
0168
 1   be Judge Ellis Drew, Jr., Judge Walter Sanders,
 2   Jr., Judge Michael Scarborough, Judge William
 3   Coffey, and Judge Richard Booth.
 4                In retired judges it would be Judge
 5   Jane Fender -- Dowling Fender.
 6                All of the other candidates have
 7   previously been -- the ones we would still have
 8   left to do would be Judge Segars-Andrews.
 9                Does everybody understand the motion?
10                Is there any further discussion?
11                If not, we'll go into a vote.
12                All in favor please raise your right
13   hand.
14                (All members raise their right hand.)
15                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.
16                I will not call for the opposed.
17                Let the record show that every single
18   commissioner voted in the affirmative for the
19   motion, and those candidates are now found
20   qualified and nominated.
21                We have the outstanding matter of
22   Judge Segars-Andrews.  In order to -- how do y'all
23   wish to proceed?
24                SEN. KNOTTS:  Motion.
25                MR. CHAIRMAN:  We will need a motion.
0169
 1                SEN. KNOTTS:  I have a motion.
 2                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Senator from Lexington.
 3                SEN. KNOTTS:  I'll make a motion that
 4   Judge -- the Honorable Francis P. "Charlie"
 5   Segars-Andrews be voted not qualified.
 6                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Do I hear a second?
 7                MR. HARRILL:  Second.
 8                MR. CHAIRMAN:  It's been moved and
 9   seconded.
10                The floor is open for any discussion.
11                There being no discussion, we will
12   move to a vote.
13                Understand the vote, the way the
14   motion is phrased a "yes" vote will be to find
15   unqualified.  A "nay" vote will be to find
16   qualified.
17                Does everybody agree that that is --
18                PROF. FREEMAN:  Qualified and nominate
19   I think --
20                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Qualified and
21   nominated, I'm sorry.  So a "nay" vote would be to
22   find her qualified and nominated.  A "yes" vote
23   would be to find her unqualified.
24                With that, all in favor of the motion,
25   please raise your right hand.
0170
 1                Would you read them into the court.
 2                MS. SHULER:  Senator Nicholson,
 3   Mr. Harrill, Representative Clemmons, Ms. McLester,
 4   Representative Delleney, Senator McConnell, Senator
 5   Knotts, Representative Mack and Mr. Sellers.
 6                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.
 7                Opposed to the motion, please raise
 8   your hand.
 9                MS. SHULER:  Professor Freeman.
10                MR. CHAIRMAN:  There will be no
11   extension of proxies.  That is the complete
12   membership of the body.  So by a vote of nine to
13   one, she is found unqualified.
14                It would be -- my understanding is
15   that each member is free to state the basis for
16   their vote for or against the motion in the report.
17   It is customary that we write a general statement
18   of the reasons and staff will circulate that
19   amongst any of you that -- for comment, and you are
20   welcome to submit any comments you have.
21                The same with you, Professor Freeman,
22   having voted on the other side of the motion, and
23   state it and that will be published in the report.
24                PROF. FREEMAN:  Mr. Chairman, can I
25   ask what the deadline would be for getting comments
0171
 1   in?
 2                MS. SHULER:  Well, we have a little
 3   bit more time this fall.  I'd say, would three
 4   weeks be reasonable?
 5                PROF. FREEMAN:  Oh, that's more than
 6   enough.
 7                MS. SHULER:  Let's say three weeks
 8   from today, Professor Freeman?
 9                PROF. FREEMAN:  That would be fine.
10                SEN. KNOTTS:  Would it be possible,
11   instead of all of us writing a statement that we
12   join in on your statement?
13                MR. CHAIRMAN:  If you wish, yes.  I'd
14   be happy to have anybody who wants to get in on my
15   statement.  I can have copies made and give it to
16   you and make changes you want to or additions you
17   want to it.
18                All right.  I'm advised by staff in
19   order to be sure -- does everybody understand
20   everything on that?  We still have a little bit of
21   housekeeping business to do.
22                MR. SELLERS:  I'd like to ask a
23   question.
24                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Yes, sir.
25                MR. SELLERS:  The procedure is going
0172
 1   to be that a proposed statement is going to be
 2   circulated among the members and we can either
 3   adopt, add to, or submit our own statement if we
 4   choose to do so?
 5                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Yes, sir.  Each of us
 6   may have a little bit of a different statement or
 7   whatever.  You can put your findings and reasons
 8   for how you voted into the record.
 9                MR. SELLERS:  And your statement will
10   be attached to the record?
11                MR. CHAIRMAN:  My statement that I'm
12   working on will be my statement or -- and if y'all
13   have a statement, I may decide to sign your
14   statement.
15                MR. SELLERS:  I understand.  I'd just
16   like to see it.
17                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Yes, sir.  I'll give
18   you copy of what I've drafted so far.  This is just
19   a work product.  And I think some others have some
20   statements too.
21                MR. SELLERS:  I mean, I can wait until
22   the three weeks are up or whatever it is.  I just
23   want to make sure that we have an opportunity to
24   look at it.
25                MS. SHULER:  And staff will write a
0173
 1   general statement regarding the testimony and the
 2   facts and everything, and you may want to make some
 3   comments regarding that or in your own individual
 4   statement if you --
 5                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Right.  I think if
 6   staff would write for us based on the record and
 7   the questions that we have, would write a general
 8   finding for us, we may be comfortable with that and
 9   not have to put in.  On the other hand, we may wish
10   to add individual or concurrent statements.
11                Would that be too much to ask of
12   y'all?
13                MS. SHULER:  That's fine.
14                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Does everybody
15   understand what we will proceed on that?
16                Staff further informs me that we need
17   to -- on the candidates that we have waived
18   hearings on, I'm going to go through and read them
19   and see if a motion would be forthcoming.
20                On the circuit judges, Judge Ralph
21   Cothran, Jr., Judge Paul Burch, Judge Brooks
22   Goldsmith, Judge David Hill, Judge John Haynes the
23   III, Judge Lee Alford, Judge Doyet Early the III,
24   and Judge George Welmaker in circuit.
25                In retired judges, Justice E.C.
0174
 1   Burnett the III, Judge Ralph Anderson, Judge Thomas
 2   Cooper, Jr., Judge Thomas Hughston, Judge Howard
 3   King, Judge James William, Jr., Judge Timothy
 4   Brown, Judge Peter Nuessle, and Judge Donna Strom.
 5                It is my understanding that we need a
 6   motion that we have waived and that we find them to
 7   meet qualification and nomination for the
 8   compliance with the statute.
 9                SEN. KNOTTS:  Mr. Chairman, I move a
10   motion that we have waived their appearance and
11   that we find them qualified and nominated.
12                REP. CLEMMONS:  Second.
13                MR. CHAIRMAN:  It's now been moved and
14   seconded.
15                Is there any discussion?
16                If not, all in favor of the motion,
17   please raise your right hand.
18                (All members raised their right hand.)
19                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.
20                There's no need to take a "nay" vote.
21   All of the commissioners voted in the affirmative
22   for the motion.
23                MS. SHULER:  May I clarify one thing.
24   I actually asked that the deadline be set on
25   Thanksgiving Day.
0175
 1                Can I move it to the Monday before?
 2                SEN. KNOTTS:  Monday before is fine.
 3                PROF. FREEMAN:  Fine.
 4                MR. CHAIRMAN:  All right.  Is there
 5   anything further to come before this panel today?
 6   All right.
 7                MR. SELLERS:  Move to adjourn.
 8                SEN. KNOTTS:  Move to adjourn.
 9                MR. CHAIRMAN:  Motion is to adjourn?
10   Is there an objection?  There being none, let the
11   record show an unanimous vote to adjourn.
12                (Whereupon the proceedings concluded
13   at 4:57 p.m.)
14   
15   
16   
17   
18   
19   
20   
21   
22   
23   
24   
25   
0176
 1   
 2                 CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER
 3   
 4        I, Sonia I. Mendez, Court Reporter and Notary
     Public for the State of South Carolina at Large, do
 5   hereby certify:
 6        That the foregoing proceedings were taken
     before me on the date and at the time mentioned on
 7   page 1 and the proceedings were recorded
     stenographically by me and were thereafter
 8   transcribed under my direction; that the foregoing
     transcript as typed is a true, accurate and
 9   complete record of the proceedings to the best of
     my ability.
10   
          I further certify that I am neither related to
11   nor counsel for any party to the cause pending or
     interested in the events thereof.
12   
          Witness my hand, I have hereunto affixed my
13   official seal this 17th day of November 2009, at
     Columbia, Richland County, South Carolina.
14   
15   
16   
17                ____________________________________
                  Sonia I. Mendez,
18                Court Reporter, Notary Public
                  State of South Carolina
19                at Large.
                  My Commission expires
20                March 23, 2017.
21   
22   
23   
24   
25   
0177
 1   
 2                        I N D E X
 3   
     HONORABLE TIMOTHY MARTIN CAIN                 9
 4   
 5   HONORABLE KELLUM WRIGHT ALLEN                 23
 6   
     HONORABLE JERRY DEESE VINSON, JR.             57
 7   
 8   HONORABLE LISA ALLEN KINON                    72
 9   
     HONORABLE ROBERT E. GUESS                     84
10   
11   HONORABLE ELLIS B. DREW, JR.                  94
12   
     HONORABLE WALTER H. SANDERS, JR.              103
13   
14   HONORABLE MIKELL ROSS SCARBOROUGH             110
15   
     HONORABLE WILLIAM C. COFFEY                   124
16   
17   HONORABLE RICHARD LAUREN BOOTH                132
18   
     HONORABLE CAROLYN CASON MATTHEWS              142
19   
20   
21   
22   
23   
24   
25