Former SC Supreme Court Chief Justice Ernest Finney goes missing, is found safe

Former S.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Ernest A. Finney Jr., who suffers from dementia, went missing Friday afternoon for about 90 minutes from his Richland County home, but was located safely two counties away, Sheriff Leon Lott said Friday evening.

Finney was found just outside Bishopville, about 45 miles east of his northeast Columbia home, where he had apparently driven himself, Lott said.

The 85-year-old former chief justice was in apparent good physical condition but was checked by medics as a precautionary measure, Lott said.

Immediately after Finney was reported missing around 4:30 pm by his family, Lott put out a bulletin to all law enforcement in the state and notified news media to be on the lookout for him and his 2007 gray Toyota Highlander. He also notified all area news media, which immediately began broadcasting the news and publishing alerts and stories on their websites.

“A Lee County deputy saw him at Exit 108 on the I-20 and recognized the car as the one we were looking for and stopped him,” Lott said.

“The deputy knew we were looking for him, so he was watching the interstate and saw him driving by about 6 pm,” Lott said. “Then we got in touch with the family, and the family picked him up.”

Finney’s son, 3rd Circuit Solicitor Ernest A. “Chip” Finney III of Sumter, expressed thanks to everyone Friday after his father was found.

“We appreciate all our friends and law enforcement who helped in getting our dad back so quickly,” Finney said. “We thank everybody who said a prayer or gave us a call”

Finney’s daughter, Nikky Finney, a poet and professor, said her father suffers from dementia and no longer drives. She told The State newspaper earlier the family was extremely worried.

“It is important that we find him before it gets dark,” she said at the time.

Finney as an attorney defended thousands of civil rights activists during the 1960s, and he was South Carolina’s first black Supreme Court justice and chief justice since Reconstruction. He retired from the court in 2000.

He is regarded as a genuine American success story, having been denied entry to the then-segregated University of South Carolina Law School in the 1950s and forced to attend a small, blacks-only law school in Orangeburg.

Lott said his department has a program, called Project Lifesavers, that provides electronic monitoring bracelets to people with memory problems or other medical issues. In the event that person goes missing, Lott said, the department can activate a transmitter and locate that person quickly.

“We probably have about 30 people in Richland County with dementia who have that bracelet on them,” Lott said. “We can track them where they’re at.”

This story was originally published May 20, 2016 at 5:29 PM with the headline "Former SC Supreme Court Chief Justice Ernest Finney goes missing, is found safe."