JUSTIVE SERVED WITH JIMMY RICHARDSON (15th Circuit Solicitor) 6/22/26

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Here he is.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Good morning.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Bringing those bad boys to justice. Justice Service 15th Circuit Solicitor Jimmy Richardson. Hey, I have to ask you a question before we get into this. You know, we have an election tomorrow. I'm not going to ask you about who you're voting for and all that, but what's important to you as a solicitor to have the qualities in an attorney general? How closely do you work with that person?

SPEAKER_02 0:33

We've we work very closely with the AG's office. And um and I'm glad you asked because most people don't even know what those guys do. Um the attorney general, um, first of all, the easiest um way to see it is if we've got a conflict case. In other words, if if my brother got arrested, I would have to send that out to somebody else. So it may be going to another solicitor's office, but it all goes through the attorney general's office, and most of them go to the attorney general's office. So they've got a division that just does conflict cases. That um I won't go too deep into it, but that's got to be the worst job in America because somebody from Columbia has got to go to um Edgefield and they've got to go to Fairfax and they've got to go to Orie, and they're never in charge of a trial roster. So uh easy fix to that is um there's 46 counties, everybody give the AG one week of of your trial rosters so that they can move some of these cases. But they're always playing on somebody, you know, like Clemson's always going to Columbia to play the ball game. They're never at home. So um that's one thing that they do is the those cases that um are conflict cases. Another thing that they do is and way more important to us, is once we convict somebody, that person gets to prison and starts writing appeals. I mean, as soon as they get there, they get a pen and a pad of paper and they start writing out their appeals. Well, the judge screwed up, the prosecutor screwed up, and that's you know, these appeals are lasting for eight and ten years. A lot of them are pro-ce up. They need something to do while they're in jail. Yeah, I'd be doing the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

And pro se means they're doing it themselves.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

Right. So um the attorney general handles all of our appeals to the Court of Appeals, to the um South Carolina Supreme Court, and even to when it goes habeas to the federal court of appeals. So they are constantly doing um appellate work. And they're really y'all um, if we're not the best state in America when it comes to the appellate part, we're at least in the top five. Um Allen and um uh Charlie Condon and all of those, there's a guy there named Don Zelenka. Don Zelenka has been at the AG's office for over 50 years. Wow. He is the Mac Daddy of all things appeals. And um he I call him all the time because I'm like, what do I do with this? Well, you can probably get into that, but it's gonna come back. I mean, he's just a dictionary or an encyclopedia. And they they've got several of them up there like that that have been there, so they're great at appeals. They also do our post-conviction relief, which is a second set of appeals. Um after the defendant writes all of these, how the judge screwed up and the prosecutor screwed up, everybody but he screwed up, and they say, No, you got a fair trial. Then that second set of appeals is okay, okay, the solicitor's okay, the judge is okay. But um my attorney screwed up. And then that set of appeals goes on. So Allen um or the attorney general's office does all of that for us too. And that's just the criminal side. They go and sue the federal government, um, not so much now with President Trump there, but when um President Biden was there, it was constantly things that the state is that aren't good for the state of South Carolina that are being forced on you by the federal mandates. So they sue and represent us in court there, and that is that's important. So it I mean, it's really widespread. He's brought billions of dollars in suing um, you know Allen? Yeah, Alan, um, suing um, you know, companies like Big Pharma, those sort of things.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Yeah, we had the opioid, right? Right.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

All of that came from the AG's office. So they do an awful lot that people don't think about.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

And um they they do a really good job and they have.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Let's talk about another department that uh we recently heard that Ori County Police is getting some kind of third party audit or Yeah, I heard about that. Uh how does that impact your cases? Because like it kind of shakes the integrity, your confidence in their investigatory uh abilities if you feel that, hey, why are they doing a review that makes you calls everything else into question that they do?

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Well, it does, and um I think they're going to get this so there's all sort of associations out there, and one of them is police chiefs association, and one of them sheriffs' associations. And I think what they're asking for the heads of the police chiefs associations to come in and really tighten the ship um a little bit and you know make sure that we're not leaking here or there, an outside agency. Now, from our standpoint, we've got such a burden as prosecutors, and it's very easy for um people to think, well, y'all are you know somehow representing the police. We don't. I mean, if if you want to hear um But you rely on what they're doing, we do we rely on what they the best way is our standard is so much higher. The police can go out and arrest Glenn for no more than probable cause, 51 to 49 on a seesaw. I've got to go beyond a reasonable doubt. So um when I go in front of a jury, it's not 5149 anymore, it's eighty-five to fifteen. It's a blowout. So what we do, and especially in times like this, is I would put the police officer up and I would say, ask him what he did, then I would plan for another witness to come in behind them and show that what they're telling is the truth. Now, this has happened all across the nation. It has been more spotlighted than Orie County, but all across the nation there's been an attack on police officers, um, not physical, but that's happened too, but but under the integrity part of it, and there's just been over and over and over these um attacks, and because of that, and people that are listening to the radio or watching TV or or whatever podcasters, you have to put up behind them uh someone to say, um, all right, what did you do? Well, I went out to the scene. Then you might put up the 911 operator. Um, tell me what did you do? Well, I got a call on April 15th at 5 o'clock saying send police to the scene. Okay, there you go. The police went to the scene because of a 911 call. You just can't shortcut very much, especially if there's always this heightened scrutiny on the police.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

So, and I think too so it makes it more like you have to do more steps. What you're saying is to connect the dots closer together.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

Yeah. And uh it's what you would do with um any witness that may have uh may have a problem. And even though this is all with um Ory County, um, you know, if it's City of Conway, Pauli's Island, anywhere else, there is this um this push out there that the police are the um the bad guys and the criminals the good guy.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

Um and you know, I think we go through phases with that. Um where you don't want to get that mixed up is when your house gets burglarized, don't call the criminal. Call the call the police. Um we run all of those. When we run all of those guys off, um we're gonna really suffer in the streets.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Absolutely. What do you think about um I don't know if you have an opinion, public opinion, about combining the Ori County Police Department with the Sheriff's Department? Did you have an opinion on that?

SPEAKER_02 9:35

You know, I think um a professional I think there's forty-five other counties that have, you know, uh a sheriff, and there's a lot of advantages to that. Georgetown has a sheriff that you answer to.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

So how does that how does that um you know, because you work with both counties, so what's the difference there for you?

SPEAKER_02 9:59

So right now, if you are mad that you called the police and it took them 45 minutes to get there, in Georgetown you called a sheriff and um and say, look, that's an elected position. If you don't get this um time frame down, uh we're gonna unelect you and get somebody that can get them here uh quicker than 45 minutes. There's nobody to really call if you are um yeah, I guess I guess you could call your county councilman, but they're supposed to stay out of the day-to-day operations.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

So as a citizen, that's uh an issue, but as a prosecutor in both counties, what do you see as a benefit or detriment?

SPEAKER_02 10:43

Uh I you know, we we work well with both of them. I I think um I'm the same way. If I'm if I'm MAB would I can I could call the chief at um Orie County and uh say, look, your people um need to do a better job here there yonder. Um I don't know that the individual citizen can. Um but they can call the sheriff.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

And um and that and you know who who hires the Orie County police chief?

SPEAKER_02 11:16

County council. Right. Ultimately it's county council.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Yeah, and so we elect the sheriff in Ory County, so but um that's not over our day-to-day operation.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

But you see, um, I mean, there's no perfect thing. What we as citizens have got to get past is if we let people now if it's rotten to the core, you've got to get rid of it. But what what we can never do is let this standard get to perfection. And you wouldn't accept that with preachers, you wouldn't accept that with UPS drivers, you wouldn't accept that with postal service. If you got 350, 400 employees, one of them screwing up. But you want accountability, you you sure do, you know, and that's why, you know, Liz, I I talk on and on here till I'm blue in the face, and I'm sure people but this whole thing of uh being transparent and letting every case go through, that ain't a braggart type thing. I put it up.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

I've been saying that since day one, since you were running.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

But it keeps me accountable, and then I ain't got to worry about well, it ain't nobody watching, I can do whatever. Yeah, I expect somebody watching all the time. In fact, you ain't even gotta watch. Here it goes. So much so that now um a lot of the media companies don't even come to court. Um I'm still pushing that stuff out the good, the bad, the ugly. And you get it, I I'm I get it on these comments. I hope you don't think that's a great sentence. Two things. First of all, I didn't sentence them. That's the judge. Um second, I'm not saying it's a good thing. I might disagree with it too.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

I'm just telling them how it's what the truth is. This is what happened.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

So like it, dislike it, yeah, you know, do whatever.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

A lot of people um a lot of people were talking about during this this race for governor because we had an the attorney general in it, about pedophiles going free. Like if you listen to any of the social media, it sounds like we are just ninety-two percent of pedophile cases have been pled out of court. Um is that like a a true thing, or have they been dismissed because they had it, they were actually a federal case because it involved internet or whatever? Like different reasons why cases get dismissed doesn't mean they're dismissed forever.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

No, I'm gonna tell you, and uh this is just again, this is just facts. If you've got one image of um child pornography on your computer, you've got a thousand, right? Nobody looks at one picture.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Right.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

Um, or downloads one picture. So they may have 20, 30, 40, whatever the police choose to charge them with charges. To the judge, um I'm I don't want to fill out 40 sentencing sheets, and I'm gonna give you the same amount of time either way. So if you plead to three counts, you might have had a thousand counts on your computer. But you're not going to sit up there and plead to a thousand counts. So when it comes down and you plead to one charge and you get ten years or five years or whatever you get, the judge knows about those other nine hundred and ninety-nine charges. All right, because we tell them about it. However, when it comes out on a scorecard, you can say, well, you dismissed 999 and you only played one. And in politics and in this silly season of campaign, yeah, it ain't straight up lies, you know, but it is very stretching the truth on a lot of those things. Now maybe they should have gotten more time.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Maybe they should have gotten more time, but a lot of times the sentencing is not up to the prosecutor, like you said.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

It's up to the judge. And I've seen um Henry McMaster used to be the um attorney general, and Henry Mack, he had a policy where no plea agreements. Well, they didn't move no cases. Yeah, they didn't move none. You had to try everything.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Yeah. And I mean it's good in idea that you don't want to water down people's charges because then their sentences are watered down. I get the concept of it.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

Yeah. Well, I'll give you a the reality of it. I'll give you a perfect example. And the guy's name is Charles White. And he broke into eight or ten houses at Grand Dunes a few years ago. And they charged him with those ten burglaries. They charged him with um receiving stolen goods because, you know, you steal the TV set. They charged him with failure to stop for a blue light. They charged him with damage in the door. When it was all said and done, there was 50 charges. Wow. 50 charges. I pled him at the eve of trial. Um he got 25 years. Um no parole. 25 years. And I pled him to um, this is this is why it's a burr up my behind. I pled him to 25 years. He got 25, he's still sitting in prison today. He will be there 20 years from now. Um I get hit up. You dismiss 23 out of 20, you lied on crime. Well, go ask Charles White if I'm light on crime. Charles think I'm hard on crime.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

People don't understand.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

They don't understand, they're mad, and they're fueled on outrage. But Charles is sitting in prison for 23 more years.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:59

Stay cool, man. You are in God's uh this is this is the place that everybody's moving to for a reason. This is a good place. You've got a good life, you're not starving, you're not um, you know, kicked out on your ear. You walk down to the beach, put on your shades. There's a lot of good stuff going on.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Amen to that. I say I I am a transplant myself. Well, um, 15th Circuit Solicitor Jimmy Richardson, thank you so much for joining us. Uh, we just have a second here. Anything that you needed to say?

SPEAKER_02 17:32

Otherwise, no, I think we talked about everything that was on my mind.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

I didn't get to your mind. But all right, very good. All right, well, we'll see you in a couple of weeks, and uh, we'll be back with Andy Hazel of Every Jones in just a moment.