South Carolina Lawyers Weekly

We find no error in the district court’s determination that probable cause existed to support the search of the residence at 604 Hammond Drive. Given the totality of the circumstances, which included a confidential informant’s controlled purchase of narcotics at ...

Tagged with: Criminal Practice

Defendant has failed to show plain error in the district court’s classification of South Carolina second-degree domestic violence as “a crime of violence” under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Defendant makes no argument that the explicit language of South Carolina’s domestic ...

Tagged with: Criminal Practice

At defendant’s trial for sexually abusing his elder stepdaughter, he failed to preserve for appellate review the issue of whether the trial court erred in allowing his younger stepdaughter to testify that he abused her, too. We reverse the Court ...

Tagged with: Criminal Practice

Although defendant was not read his Miranda rights until half an hour into his questioning at a police station, since he was not under arrest and went to the station and agreed to answer questions voluntarily, he was not in ...

Tagged with: Criminal Practice

Defendants were caught up in an investigation of the Smith brothers for drug trafficking, and defendants sought to suppress evidence obtained from wiretaps of the Smiths’ phones. In support of their argument that the wiretap application was based on stale ...

Tagged with: Criminal Practice

Where, as here, the state concedes that the trial court imposed an illegal sentence, an appellate court may correct that sentence on direct appeal or remand the issue to the trial court even if the defendant did not object to ...

Tagged with: Criminal Practice

In this cold case involving a 1980 rape and murder, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting evidence of the 1983 rape of a different victim, given the multiple similarities between the assaults: (1) both victims were ...

Tagged with: Criminal Practice

Over the course of 13 hours, defendant drove the Victim – his ex-girlfriend – from Marion County into Dillon and Marlboro Counties and back to Marion County. Defendant beat and stabbed Victim in Dillon County and then tried to snap ...

Tagged with: Criminal Practice

When sentencing defendant for possession of a firearm by a felon, the district court applied an enhancement based on defendant’s prior South Carolina cocaine distribution convictions under S.C. Code Ann. § 44-53-375(B). Because the word “deliver” in § 44-53-375(B) includes ...

Tagged with: Criminal Practice

At sentencing, the district court ordered defendant to “comply with the mandatory and standard conditions of supervision outlined at [18 U.S.C. § 3583(d)].” Although § 3585(d) does not list standard conditions, since there were no other standard conditions of supervision ...

Tagged with: Criminal Practice