South Carolina Lawyers Weekly

Once the family court entered a final equitable distribution order—without reserving continuing jurisdiction—and in the absence of extraordinary circumstances, the family court did not have jurisdiction to make substantive modifications to the equitable distribution of the marital estate. We reverse ...

Given the conflicting evidence as to the sequence of events leading up to and including defendant’s fatal shooting of the victim (1) within defendant’s live testimony, (2) between defendant’s testimony and his recorded statement, (3) between defendant’s testimony and witness ...

Although the 10-year-old witness did not see defendant shoot his mother, he did see them fighting earlier, hear the gunshot, find his mother in a pool of blood and discover that defendant had left the house. When the witness immediately ...

Standing accused of murder, defendant presented evidence of his good character and unsuccessfully sought a jury instruction that “good character evidence alone may create a reasonable doubt as to the commission of the crime charged.” On direct appeal, defendant’s appellate ...

The parties’ auto insurance policy provides for $5,000 in no-fault personal injury protection (PIP). Although all of the injured plaintiff’s medical bills were paid by workers’ compensation benefits, and despite a “Coordination” policy provision saying PIP coverage is excess over ...

In this murder case, defense counsel had several opportunities to object to the admission into evidence of defendant’s statement to police that there was a lynching charge pending against him. Given the circumstantial nature of the other evidence against defendant, ...

In accordance with a federal court injunction, at least one metric ton of plutonium has been removed from the Savannah River Site, the U.S. Department of Energy said. The state of South Carolina obtained the injunction from U.S. District Court ...

Where a court declined to review whether a defendant’s sentence on a firearm charge was improperly enhanced under the Armed Career Criminal Act, or ACCA,because the defendant’s concurrent sentence of a drug-trafficking charge was valid, remand for evaluation was warranted. ...

An alien with a long history of criminal convictions and illegal entries and attempted entries into the U.S. who was indicted for attempted entry after removal based on a prior expedited removal order was entitled to challenge the underlying removal ...

An officer who arrested a woman for obstruction when she attempted to shield her father-in-law’s dog from the officer who had pointed a gun, was not entitled to qualified immunity on the woman’s claims of false arrest, excessive force and ...