Ex-SC Rep. Harrison wants Supreme Court to throw out conviction, prison sentence

Former S.C. Rep. Jim Harrison, R-Richland, wants a fast decision on whether he goes to prison or not.

Harrison, who was convicted by a Richland County jury in 2018 of misconduct in office and perjury, has been keeping an 18-month prison sentence at bay.

After Harrison’s conviction, state Judge Carmen Mullen allowed Harrison, 68, to stay free while his case is on appeal. It is before the S.C. Court of Appeals but no hearing has been set.

But now Harrison wants to skip the Court of Appeals — a process that might take a year or two for the case to be heard — and have the S.C. Supreme Court take up his case directly.

“This case involves issues of significant public interest,” says a motion filed last month with the Supreme Court by Harrison’s attorneys.

Those issues include an allegation against special prosecutor David Pascoe, who Harrison’s attorneys argue “exceeded his authority to pursue matters beyond those initially referred to him,” according to Harrison’s brief. His lawyers are Elizabeth Van Doren Gray, Robert “Bobby” Stepp and Vordman Traywick III.

Pascoe’s mission as special prosecutor, an appointment given him by State Attorney General Alan Wilson, was limited to investigating allegations only against two other lawmakers, Harrison’s motion contended.

Those two lawmakers, former Rep. Rick Quinn, R-Lexington, and former Rep. Jim Merrill, R-Berkeley, had been named in a confidential section of a State Law Enforcement Division report. They were both investigated by Pascoe, the State Law Enforcement Division and the state grand jury. Both pleaded guilty to misconduct in office, resigned office and were sentenced to probation.

“At the heart of this appeal is a question surrounding the Solicitor’s (Pascoe’s) authority to use the state grand jury to prosecute individuals and crimes beyond the scope of the ... legislators’ matter the Attorney General’s office referred to him,” Harrison’s motion said.

In a reply to Harrison’s motion, Pascoe asserted he did have authority to investigate Harrison because investigators learned about Harrison’s questionable conduct while investigating financial records for Richard Quinn & Associates, a political consulting firm, for information related to then-Rep. Rick Quinn.

Those records not only contained information concerning payments to Rick Quinn but also illegal payments to Harrison and other lawmakers, Pascoe wrote.

Rick Quinn is the son of Richard Quinn, a legendary State House Republican consultant whose firm, Richard Quinn & Associates, has in the past worked for top Republicans including Gov. Henry McMaster, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-Seneca, U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-Springdale, and State Attorney General Wilson. Richard Quinn has been indicted by Pascoe’s state grand jury on various perjury and obstruction of justice charges but no trial date has been set.

“Investigators were not looking for criminal activity by (Harrison) — they simply stumbled upon obvious violations in the course of the underlying investigation and presented them to the grand jury,” wrote Pascoe.

Harrison’s indictments “flowed directly from the investigation of Rick Quinn when investigators saw obvious evidence of misconduct,” wrote Pascoe, who charged that Harrison’s attorneys are trying to portray him as a “rogue prosecutor.”

During Harrison’s 2018 trial, Pascoe presented evidence showing Harrison, while chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, had accepted some $900,000 over 13 years from Richard Quinn’s consulting firm. The Judiciary Committee controls some 40% of all bills going through the House, and Harrison to a large extent could say which bills would make it through.

In a closing argument to the jury, Pascoe that Harrison had sold his influence as then-chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to help Quinn’s corporate clients get bills passed in the Legislature.

Pascoe, who wrote his reply with assistant prosecutor Baker Allen, said he had no objections to the Supreme Court’s allowing Harrison to skip over the Court of Appeals and agreeing to take Harrison’s case directly.

One of Harrison’s lawyers, Bobby Stepp, declined comment, saying he would let the legal papers “speak for themselves.”

Harrison’s gamble may not go his way, according to John Crangle, a longtime General Assembly watcher and author of a book on a 1990s legislative ethics scandal called Lost Trust. Crangle predicted that if the Supreme Court takes up Harrison’s case, Harrison would lose.

The Supreme Court, in an earlier hearing, has already ruled that Pascoe had jurisdiction to go after other lawmakers if he came across evidence of their possible wrongdoing while on his original investigation, Crangle said.

“If the Supreme Court refuses to take it (the case), it will revert to the Court of Appeals,” said Crangle, a lawyer and lobbyist for the S.C. Progressive Network, a citizens’ reform group.

Harrison, a popular outgoing lawmaker, served in the House of Representatives from 1989 to 2012 when he retired.

His trial drew widespread attention because he was a well-known powerful legislator during his 23 years in office. At trial, Pascoe told the jury that Harrison helped Richard Quinn “make millions” from corporate clients because whenever Harrison took positions on bills, he was so respected that other lawmakers were influenced by him.

Another respected former lawmaker that Pascoe discovered was secretly taking money from Richard Quinn was former Sen. John Courson, R-Richland.

Several months before Harrison’s trial, in June 2018, Courson pleaded guilty to misconduct in office. Pascoe said evidence in his case showed that Richard Quinn & Associates had secretly paid Courson $159,000 “through multiple transactions” whereby the senator would get a check for less than $10,000 from Quinn, then cash it at Bank of America.

By getting checks from the Quinn firm for just under $10,000, Courson avoided a law that requires banks to report all transactions of more than $10,000 to federal law enforcement authorities, Pascoe said before Courson’s guilty plea.

Another former lawmaker, Rep. Tracy Edge, R-Horry, was charged by Pascoe with perjury in connection with allegedly accepting some $300,000 from Quinn’s firm while in the Legislature from 2004 to 2014, when he left office. Edge has not yet been to trial.

This story was originally published February 4, 2020 at 5:00 AM.