The Criminal Justice System

July 10, 2007: Our Rotary Club was lucky enough to have a chance to hear Trey Gowdy, an elected Solicitor for South Carolina, speak on the status of our criminal justice system. If you are not a victim of crime or in an industry that exposes you to crime, it’s probably not something you think about every day. But, it should be important to all of us because it affects our safety, the safety of our community, and our tax dollars.

Gowdy was elected 7th Circuit Solicitor in November of 2000. Prior to that, Gowdy was a successful federal prosecutor handling all types of crimes within the federal system. After hearing him speak, you realized that his experience is very valuable to all of us as the federal system appears to be much more efficient than the state system currently is.

First, what is a Solicitor? A Solicitor is an elected official responsible for overseeing the prosecution of all General Sessions and Family Court criminal cases. There are 16 Judicial Circuits in South Carolina, all of which vary in size. Gowdy didn’t mince words, the system is not as efficient as it could be.

According to Gowdy, “the criminal justice system is too important to not have confidence in it”. So, he posed three questions. Is the state system fair? He gave an example of a drug offense and how the penalties would differ when run through the state vs. the federal system. The same offense that would get 25 years in the state system would get less than 5 years in the federal system.

Second question was: is the state system effective? Is it trusted, do citizens feel safe, are we reacting to crime or being proactive? The third question was: is the state system efficient? Our system is so back logged that some trials don’t happen until several years after the incident, many times with the accused sitting in prison waiting. Now the question is, how do we get better?

Gowdy had many suggestions on how to get started. Some examples are: Get a better system for selecting Magistrate Judges and have the qualifications raised so the cases are handled more efficiently thus allowing for more trials. Change the warrant system to allow a prosecutor to weigh in on a warrant before it goes out. Right now anyone can get an arrest warrant by going to a Magistrate Judge and bypassing the police altogether. Obviously this increases case loads with lots of cases not worth trying due to lack of evidence etc. Allow for equal funding for all prosecution offices regardless of their size.

Gowdy had many more ideas, but as a fellow Rotarian, he was very conscientious of his time. His subject matter was way too large to be covered in a small amount of time. He closed by stating that his most important job was Public Safety. Following closely was having citizens of our state respect their judicial system by knowing it’s fair, effective, and efficient. Hopefully, with time, we’ll get closer to achieving that goal.

Submitted by Darby Hand, Keyway Committee