Charleston Shooting Prosecutor Hit With Ethics Violations? FOIA Request Seeks Answers.

Amid reports that the prosecutor in charge of the Charleston shooting case earned disciplinary action, a FOIA request seeks all prior complaints and actions against her.

There’s a bright light on Charleston these days. The city was already sitting atop yet another instance of a white ex-police officer, Michael Slager, killing an unarmed black man — shooting him in the back and then, seemingly, planting a Taser on the body afterward if a bystander’s video is to be believed — when the city bore witness to Dylann Roof’s horrific mass slaying of 9 worshippers at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Both cases turned the spotlight on Scarlett Wilson (not, as it turns out, the Bollywood actress of the same name), the 9th Circuit Solicitor since 2007, and the woman charged with actually doing something about these killings. Something beyond cashing in the “what if we take down the Confederate Battle Flag” chit and waiting on the slathering mainstream media to follow the debate America should have resolved in the 19th Century… not the 21st.

There are advantages for a prosecutor in earning a media spotlight this bright. Most top prosecutors aspire to higher office and take their “tough on crime” persona to the voters the next time there’s a vacancy for the next job up the ladder. Like Rep. Dan Donovan of New York’s 11th Congressional District, who bolted for higher office moments after he successfully guided the Eric Garner case to a no bill after we watched the man get choked to death for selling cigarettes — which would have made an effective Truth.com guerrilla ad if it weren’t so tragic.

To her credit, Wilson actually got an indictment in the Slager case, potentially helping the Republican win over some very wary minority voters. Or perhaps not:

“She’s not in good standing with the black community,” Pastor Thomas Dixon, the leader of a local group, the Coalition: People United To Take Back Our Community, told BuzzFeed News. “She goes in on black folks and Hispanic folks,” he said. “It’s like one rule book was made for them, but when it comes to the white population there’s a whole different set of rules.”

Well… it’s something at least.

But there’s a double edged sword to a local “crime fighter.” The funny thing about shining lights is they sometimes catch a glimpse of the underbelly of prosecutorial conduct, the stuff that isn’t infused with airs of crusading for justice. Sometimes the spotlight catches all the procedural shenanigans and misconduct that prosecutorial offices around the country pull from time to time. It looks like Scarlett Wilson may have strayed into that unkind spotlight.

South Carolina Lawyers Weekly filed a FOIA request seeking records pertaining to any disciplinary complaints or actions against Wilson after sources reported to SCLW that the Commission on Lawyer Conduct, which investigates complaints of attorney misconduct in South Carolina, had issued a private action against Wilson.

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But the allegations that underlie the grievance against Scott appear to be connected to cases that have garnered little, if any, attention.

Sources close to the situation say the commission took action against Wilson after an assistant public defender complained that prosecutors had been meeting with inmates at the Charleston County jail without getting permission from their public defenders.

If true, this is the same mentality that led to public defender Jami Tillotson getting hauled off in chains earlier this year when a cop tried to harass her client on “another matter” over her objections. If anyone wrote that off as a rogue cop, it’s worth remembering the opening to Law & Order: there are two separate, yet equally important groups that define how criminal defendants get treated by the system. And there’s a lot of hand washing when either goes over the line. Not that every prosecutor or every cop is evil — but systems with a lot of potential for abuse deserve the most scrutiny.

Bringing us to the $64,000 question in this Wilson matter: what will she say to this request?

The Commission on Lawyer Conduct can issue two types of private actions against attorneys: letters of caution and confidential admonitions.

The letter is similar to a warning and is the least serious action aside from dismissal. A confidential admonition is a sanction, unlike the letter, and is imposed “in cases of minor misconduct, when there is little or no injury to the public, legal system, or the profession,” according to the disciplinary rules.

In most instances, the disciplinary rules prevent the commission from disclosing admonitions or even the existence of a complaint, but the complainant and the attorney who received the sanction are free to make the information public.

But Wilson is a public official. Assuming that SCLW’s sources are right and assuming that she only received a confidential admonition, what stance will she take on what she’s obligated to disclose?

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That’s the problem with spotlights that only work if you’re in a position to go to the litigation mat.

FOIA request seeks Scarlett Wilson’s disciplinary records [South Carolina Lawyers Weekly]

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