Pleicones elected S.C. Supreme Court chief justice (+ video)

Costa Pleicones of Columbia was unanimously elected chief justice of the five-member S.C. Supreme Court by the General Assembly shortly after noon Wednesday.

Pleicones, 71, who will take the $148,350 post early next year, succeeds current Chief Justice Jean Toal, also 71. Pleicones had no opposition.

“I’m happy this day has arrived,” said Pleicones, who started off in the legal system’s trenches as a public defender in 1973, then held posts as municipal judge, county attorney and a lawyer in private practice before being elected to the circuit court in 1991. He became an associate justice in 2000.

It was all part of a festive legal day, where Pleicones achieved a long-awaited dream, then presided in the Supreme Court courtroom over a ceremony in which Toal – surrounded by family, friends, colleagues on the state and federal bench courtroom – had her official portrait unveiled. The near-life-sized oil portrait, more than 4 feet by 38 inches, drew rave reviews.

As celebratory as the day was, the politics of who would be the next chief justice after Pleicones were already being talked about in the General Assembly, whose 170 members elect judges and justices.

Pleicones, because of his age, will only serve through December 2016. He will have one of the shorter terms on record as chief justice. Associate and chief justices traditionally step down at the end of the year they turn 72. That happens to Toal this year and Pleicones next year.

Ordinarily, the next senior associate justice then runs unopposed and succeeds the retiring chief justice. Ordinarily, that would mean Associate Justice Don Beatty, 63, would be elected the next chief justice sometime next year. But some lawmakers say that times are changing and Beatty might have challengers next year.

State Senate Judiciary Chairman Larry Martin, R-Pickens, said no one should assume Beatty will run unopposed. “It’s not preordained,” Martin said. “A candidate might run who is not even serving on the Supreme Court.”

Beatty, 63, would serve eight years if elected chief justice. He declined comment Wednesday.

Rep. Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, said that while anyone can run for the chief justice post, “I hope the seniority process is respected, as it has been, and we continue to elect the most senior justice to have an orderly transition.”

Rep. Tommy Pope, R-York, said it is too early to tell. “Each race stands on its own, and it’s a difficult dance. We simply have to see how it unfolds.”

Rep. James Smith, D-Richland, said, “There can always be (other) candidates, but I’ve always believed in and stood for orderly succession. It’s a tradition that has served the people of the state and the court well.”

Rep. Jimmy Bales, D-Richland, said he hopes the chief justice race won’t be contested. “It was tough to chose between Jean and Costa.”

Bales was referring to last year’s contest between Pleicones and Toal – a bruising battle for the chief justice post. Toal wanted to be elected to another 10-year term so she could serve until she retired at the end of this year. Pleicones thought Toal wouldn’t run again. Toal beat Pleicones, 95-74.

It was the first time in memory a sitting chief justice faced opposition.

Rep. Kirkman Finlay, R-Richland, said that race makes possible future chief justice contests. “The Toal-Pleicones race a year ago set the precedent.”

Beatty, from Spartanburg, was a city council member there, a former state representative, a state circuit court judge, and a court of appeals judge before becoming a Supreme Court associate justice in 2007. Beatty is also said to be a candidate for one of several open federal district court judgeships in South Carolina.

However, in 2013, Beatty's judicial temperament was publicly called into question when remarks he made at a gathering of state prosecutors criticizing them for being overzealous were publicized. A majority of state prosecutors at that time were said to not want Beatty to sit as an associate justice on criminal cases.

These days, Pleicones said, he and Toal have been cooperating in getting ready for Jan. 1, when he becomes chief justice. “Notwithstanding what happened last year, she and I have been friends for more than half a century,” Pleicones said.

No one could have imagined, Toal told the crowd, that when she and Pleicones were sworn in as lawyers after graduating in the 1968 class of the University of South Carolina School of Law, “that the baton of leadership would pass from one classmate to another.”

Minutes later, Pleicones drew laughs when he said everyone back in 1968 could have imagined that Toal would have been passing the baton, but they never would have guessed who would have received it.

Toal is the longest-serving chief justice in memory. She has been chief justice for 15 years. The chief justice presides over a judicial empire of hundreds of state and local judges, oversees budgets and disciplinary actions, and is the figurehead and spokesperson for the court system.

Pleicones said he wasn’t planning any radical changes in the judiciary, except perhaps to work to reduce the number of days that law graduates take on Bar exams to two from three. “I intend to run a collaborative chief justiceship, given the relatively short period of time I have.”

Asked when he would start sitting for his oil painting, Pleicones said he didn’t know. “My understanding is it’s a requirement – you have to have an oil painting. I’m a pretty simple guy. An 8-by-10 blow-up of a selfie would do for me.”

This story was originally published May 27, 2015 at 12:10 PM with the headline "Pleicones elected S.C. Supreme Court chief justice (+ video)."