While South Carolina breaks the record of coronavirus cases and the courts limit internal hearings, Charleston County criminal justice leaders are beginning the new year with an analysis of how the local justice system has dealt with the pandemic.
The Charleston County Criminal Justice Coordination Council will bring experts together for a one-hour virtual forum on Tuesday, where they will discuss how the virus has forced local leaders to innovate in healthcare, law enforcement and court proceedings.
The panel will include Sheriff Kristin Graziano, Sheriff Major Dorothy Harris, 9th Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson, Charleston Police Captain Jason Bruder and Latasha Foggie, Wellpath’s Director of Nursing.
The forum, which compiled some of the most detailed data on criminal justice and community perceptions in the county, pledged to research the pandemic’s impacts on the justice system.
Leaders fear that delays in the COVID-19 hearing and the closing of courts will exacerbate the county’s collection of pending cases, which in March was already higher than the State Court Administration standard of less than 20% of pending cases for more than one year. The council’s case processing working group, as part of the 2020 strategic plan, hoped to investigate how the justice system handles the pandemic, along with reviewing the prison population and pre-trial communication.
It is the first event of the year for the forum, with seven new community representatives: Michael Bowman, the chairman of the board of directors for Father to Father; Adrian Cain, senior vice president of leadership at Charleston Metro Chamber; Marcus McDonald, director of Charleston Black Lives Matter; Keith Smalls, the founder and CEO of My Community Keeper Mentor Group; Adrian Swinton, project planner for the Strategic Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Plan at Medical University of South Carolina; Rev. David Truluck, executive director of SHIELD Ministries; and Lauren Williams, a lawyer for Williams & Walsh.
The forum, which runs from 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm on Tuesday, is free and open to the public. Apply online at http://bit.ly/01122021cjf.
Talk to Sara Coello at 843-937-5705 and follow her on Twitter @smlcoello.