SC solicitors asked for reduced sex offender penalty

By: SCNow Staff | SCNow
Published: November 27, 2008

In May, South Carolina solicitors asked state lawmakers to consider reducing the penalty for first-time convicted sex offenders who fail to register with their sheriff’s offices.

The reduced penalty means county magistrates would decide first-offense sex offender violation cases because of the 30 day maximum sentence.

In June, Gov. Mark Sanford signed the Brady Bill into law that prohibits convicted sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school, church, playground, or daycare.

The Brady Bill also reduces the first-offense penalty.

The 15th Circuit solicitor Greg Hembree, who prosecutes circuit court cases in Horry and Georgetown counties, said he and other solicitor’s in the state asked for the penalty to move violation cases out of the solicitor’s offices and into magistrates court in hopes those cases are disposed of quickly.

“They're being handled quickly, they're being addressed very early in the process and you can hopefully change the conduct of the defendant right away instead of something just lingering for a year or two, you can address it in 30 days or 45 days in sort of a short fashion,” Hembree told News13.

Hembree said although some would see the penalty as lawmakers getting soft on sex offenders, he said that’s not the case, “I don't think it weakens the law and I think for those chronic offenders, you still have a strong law in place. For the ones that kind of just messed up, you can treat them appropriately.”

South Carolina law requires a second offense failure to register conviction to be punished by a mandatory one year in the state department of corrections.

A third offense becomes a felony and punishable by a mandatory five years in prison, three of the five cannot be suspended or given probation.

“They're just slack. They're not taking care of their business; it's not a matter of them trying to beat the system, they're just lazy they don't get to it and then they get in trouble,” Hembree said of first-time violators.

Because of that, Hembree said a judge should be given a sentencing range with first-time offenders, which also allows solicitors to offer plea arrangements.

With the mandatory 90 day sentence, solicitors have nothing to offer in exchange for a plea, which means convicted offenders charged with registry violation cases ask for jury trials, which ties up court time in an already backlogged state circuit court system.