COLOMBIA – The Supreme Court of SC ruled that a special prosecutor in the Statehouse investigation overcame his authority and overturned a corruption conviction against a former congressman.
The decision was a blow to the seven-year investigation that resulted in charges by six former lawmakers and the state’s top Republican political agent. SC Attorney General Alan Wilson declined some of the cases because he was a client of operative Richard Quinn.
One of Wilson’s deputies handed over the investigation to the 1st circuit attorney David Pascoe. The scope of Pascoe’s accusation was at the heart of the dispute.
Wilson’s office said Pascoe should focus on lawmakers and others mentioned in an investigation report by the State Law Enforcement Division. Pascoe pursued accusations in addition to those cited in the report.
“Contrary to prosecutor Pascoe’s position, this Court did not grant him unlimited authority to conduct a broad corruption investigation in state chambers, nor could we have done so without coming into conflict with the state constitution,” wrote Judge John Kittredge in the opinion.
State Supreme Court justices voted 3-2 that Pascoe should not pursue charges of corruption against former state deputy Jim Harrison, a Columbia Republican not listed in the report. The opinion resubmitted the case to the state court and gave Wilson the choice of whether to prosecute the case.
“We did not take our decision lightly, as we recognize the critical importance of society to zealously prosecute public corruption. However, as judges, our loyalty should be to the rule of law, not a particular outcome,” wrote Kittredge. “The law was designed to find the truth within rules that serve to guarantee the certainty of a fair trial. The law provides that the two objectives – ascertaining the truth and certainty of a fair trial – may collide and, when they do, the certainty of a fair trial must prevail. In short, in law, the ends do not justify the means ”.
However, Harrison’s sentence for perjury for lying to the state grand jury has been withheld and he still faces up to 18 months in prison.
Harrison was convicted in 2018 of secretly profiting from the work he did for the influential consulting firm Richard Quinn & Associates, which pleaded guilty to illegal lobbying. The company was the most powerful in the entire Statehouse, but its brand was tainted by claims that the Quinns made millions by illegally influencing legislation to benefit corporate and political customers.
Harrison earned nearly $ 1 million while working for Quinn for more than a decade while in office. He said he worked on campaigns, but the investigation found that Harrison received cuts from withholdings paid to the company by corporate clients that he did not report in financial disclosure reports. His job at the Quinn firm ended when he left office in 2012 to become the head of the Statehouse office that helps draft legislation for lawmakers.
This story is developing and will be updated.