The South Carolina Supreme Court issued a long-awaited decision this week in connection with ProbeGate, a major corruption investigation in the SC State Chamber that began with a tremendous promise, but ended up failing just over two years ago.
Unfortunately, the court’s decision was as anticlimactic as the investigation itself … especially with regard to corporate defendants at the heart of the alleged misconduct.
To recap: the immediate issue facing the court was the status of an October 2018 culprit verdict rendered against the former president of the judiciary and commissioner of the SC code Jim Harrison – one of the five Republican Party leaders caught up in the pay-to-play scandal that is at the center of this investigation. Harrison was found guilty of perjury and misconduct during the trial and sentenced to a year and a half in prison – the only ProbeGate defendant to gain time in prison.
The former legislator, however, remained free on bail on appeal.
The judges were, as they themselves admitted, “deeply divided” in this case – which revolved around the extent of the prosecutor’s authority granted to prosecutor ProbeGate David Pascoe by the Attorney General of SC Alan Wilson.
Pascoe said he had unlimited procedural authority due to a referral from Wilson’s office, while Wilson maintained that Pascoe limited himself to investigating specific allegations contained in a report prepared by the SC State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) at the beginning of the investigation.
In light of these divisions, the judges upheld one of the convictions against Harrison – the perjury charge – but reversed his conviction for impropriety in the post and sent it back to the lower court.
Why did they do that? Because, according to his decision (.pdf), Pascoe “had the authority to sue (Harrison) for perjury, but he had no authority to sue (him) for misconduct in office”.
“Prosecutor Pascoe’s authority was limited by Attorney General Wilson,” concluded the court, and a limited refusal by the latter did not mean that he was withdrawing completely from the case, as Pascoe had stated.
In fact, the assistant attorney general John McIntosh “He specifically refused to refuse the attorney general’s office” to investigate other allegations that may have emerged from the SLED report.
This appears to validate the legal argument put forward by Wilson’s office from the beginning, that he was refusing two specific cases, but reserved the right to prosecute – or to appoint another attorney to prosecute – other allegations.
Justice Kaye Hearn praised Wilson in his decision.
“I have nothing but the highest personal respect and consideration for our attorney general and I believe he conducted himself with honor throughout this investigation,” wrote Hearn.
Ultimately, however, the practical effect of the prosecutor’s struggle is debatable. Harrison “must serve the maximum eighteen-month sentence imposed by the circuit court.”
*****
*****
“We are satisfied with today’s broad recognition by the Supreme Court of the Attorney General’s constitutional powers in criminal matters,” a statement by Wilson’s spokesman Robert Kittle noticed. “This decision is broader than a specific case and firmly establishes the role of the Attorney General in future cases. Today’s decision is consistent with the position this Office has always taken in relation to criminal cases. “
“We also appreciate Judge Hearn’s recognition in her dissent that Attorney General Wilson and his office have acted with honor throughout this investigation,” added Kittle.
Left to be determined, though? How the court’s treatment of the ongoing battle between Pascoe and Wilson will impact the ProbeGate cases that remain on the agenda – most notably the perjury and obstruction of the legal charges brought against the veteran “Republican” strategist Richard Quinn.
According to Pascoe, Quinn lied to a grand state jury on several occasions during his empire investigation.
But when? And on what subjects?
Suddenly, these are incredibly important issues, given the court’s decision to effectively restrict the reach of the Pascoe prosecutor. Quinn’s lawyer – David Aylor Charleston, SC – told us that he was reviewing the 36-page decision and that he would respond on behalf of his client as soon as he completed his review.
Quinn was originally accused of conspiracy in relation to the case, but that charge was dropped as part of a controversial settlement that prosecutors believed would result in a prison sentence for his son, a former SC majority leader. Rick quinn.
(Click to view)
(Via: FITSNews.com)
The youngest Quinn was one of four former lawmakers who pleaded guilty to misconduct on office charges and resigned in connection with ProbeGate. All of these legislators were sentenced to probation.
The biggest unresolved issue, however, remains the question of Pascoe’s authority to enter into ethically dubious “corporate integrity deals” with several defendants who we believe should – and would – be indicted by the grand jury he founded.
In fact, the Grand Jury ProbeGate report made it very clear that the grand jury found a likely cause to indict these corporate defendants.
“Corporate entities hired Richard Quinn to gain access and influence over public officials and, by failing to report on Quinn’s services, influenced the outcome of legislative issues without responsibility or disclosure to the public,” the grand judges who investigated Quinn and his colleagues comparsas wrote in a report released in October 2018.
Why were these corporate defendants not indicted and prosecuted?
Because they agreed to pay $ 350,000 in monetary fines … money that was sent directly to Pascoe’s office.
As noted earlier, these agreements concern us. In fact, the entire ProbeGate investigation “left a lot of bone in the bone, as far as we are concerned – particularly with regard to corporate customers involved in this pay-to-play scandal,” we noted in December 2018.
(Click to view)
(Via: FITSNews.com)
More recently, we wrote that “allowing corporate entities to basically buy their way out of criminal charges is not ‘integrity’; in fact, some would argue that it is no better than the type of behavior Pascoe was prosecuting in the first place.”
Even worse …
Justice John Few attacked those deals, accusing Pascoe of accepting “hundreds of thousands of dollars from large South Carolina corporations with a promise not to prosecute them for conduct that the state grand jury found likely cause to believe he was a criminal.”
Surprisingly, though, Few and his colleagues refused to decide on the legality of the deals – even after asking Wilson for an opinion on the same matter.
“As the issue of corporate integrity agreements is not technically before the court, we refuse to decide on the matter”, footnote in court John Kittredgethe majority opinion observed.
The judges, however, instructed the presiding judge of the state jury to “demand an accounting of the funds” obtained by Pascoe and “order the funds to be transferred to the appropriate account, as provided by law”.
Again, this medium has never questioned Pascoe’s authority to conduct these processes. In fact, for several years we Lawyer aggressively on behalf of his authority to do so – criticize Wilson for what we perceive to be a politically motivated meddling. In addition, we point out how this investigation was successful in uncovering “indisputable evidence of systemic corruption within the state government – for which five Republican lawmakers were partially responsible for their resignations from public trust positions”.
But the job was not done … not even in half.
Unless, of course, your conception of justice includes “giving slaps on the wrist to corrupt puppets – while allowing puppet masters to buy their way out of criminal consequences”.
What our definition certainly does not …
“If citizens want real responsibility when their money is stolen, when their rights are violated, when their trust is abused and when their faith in the institutions they trust for equal justice is betrayed, so they have to insist on that … and it starts with getting your elected leaders to insist on that”, We wrote last January. “In the absence of such deterrence, corruption will continue to run rampant in South Carolina.”
Some may believe that the high court adopted such a deterrent in upholding Harrison’s conviction, but the truth is that the judges criticized the heart of the matter – again allowing those responsible for corruption in Palmetto State to get away with it.
Our hope? Wilson’s office uses this decision to aggressively pursue ProbeGate’s unfinished business – while, at the same time, begging lawmakers to expand their ability to pursue public corruption cases across the state of Palmetto.
It is past time for our leaders to stop dancing around this issue and begin to hold those responsible for these crimes accountable.
-FITSNews
*****
WANT TO TURN OFF THE SOUND?
Is there anything you would like to say in response to one of our stories? We have an open mic policy! Send your own letter to the editor (or guest column) by email HERE. Do you have a tip for a story? CLICK HERE. Have a technical question or failure to report? CLICK HERE.
*****
