SC judge excoriates Richland jail for ‘shocking and severe’ restrictions on legal counsel
A South Carolina judge said Richland County’s jail needed to fix “shocking and severe” barriers for attorneys to speak with detained clients.
In a stern reprimand, Judge Jean Toal told the interim director of the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center and a lawyer for Richland County that the jail needs “ a complete relook” at how it provides basic access to attorneys for detainees.
Wednesday, Richland County Administrator Leonardo Brown the county has approved all of the detention center’s facility improvement requests.
“We continue to explore additional steps we can take to support our employees and promote the health and safety of everyone at Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center,” Brown said.
Toal’s conclusion is the latest in a series of problems to confront the jail and the county.
Those problems include a detainee’s death — later ruled a homicide — from dehydration, escalating violence inside the jail as well as pending and expected lawsuits.
One of the main problems the jail faces is a critical staffing shortage, which has been posed as the root of the other problems.
The acting director said at the hearing that the jail had 74 staff member. The jail would have about 250 employees if fully staffed, according to the testimony. About 675 detainees are held in the jail.
Toal’s conclusion came at the end of an April 27 hearing. The hearing stemmed from an unusual step by Richland County’s public defender, Fielding Pringle.
Pringle asked the court to require that the jail provide better access to 40 of her office’s clients in the jail or to reduce their bonds so that they can be let out and have better access to their attorneys.
Typically, attorneys do not have to ask the courts to be granted access to their clients. But Pringle in the hearing put witnesses on the stand and submitted affidavits to demonstrate that the jail had created significant barriers for the public defender’s office and private attorneys to speak with their clients.
Toal agreed with the Pringle’s arguments.
“There are shocking and severe restraints on the ability” of attorneys and their clients in the jail to have “meaningful” interactions, Toal said.
In a nearly 15-minute conclusion, Toal called out the jail for not fixing the issues of access to lawyers despite knowing about the problems.
The issues include lawyers having to wait prolonged periods to see clients, if they get to see them at all, the jail not using private rooms for attorney-client meetings and having outdated, inadequate video call booths and visitation systems that she said are “inconceivable” 2022.
Toal said the jail’s methods for accessing counsel “would not have been considered adequate 50 years ago.”
The judge also told the jail and a lawyer for Richland County that if the issues weren’t fixed “in a very, very speedy way” that the county could face “tremendous public expense” and blowback by the public if she is forced to release detainees on bond because they can’t access their lawyers.
Toal went as far as to “suggest and beg” that the county’s attorney bring the issue to county leadership.
During the hearing, Pringle called two public and one private attorney to the stand. They testified to the problems of detainees not getting sound legal counsel at the jail.
She also called former jail director Ronaldo Myers and current interim jail Director Washava Moye to the stand.
Toal did not issue a written order at the end of the hearing but implored the public defender’s office, the solicitor’s office, the jail and the county to solve the issue of access to legal counsel at the jail.
She gave them 30 days to come up with a solution and ended her comments with a warning “borne out of 55 years of experience as an attorney in this state and over 30 as a judge.”
“If you don’t accept this interim opportunity to do what’s right about this, what’s fair about this,” the county will spend hundreds of thousands of dollar to “simply defend what cannot be defended,” Toal said.
County responds
County Administrator Brown, who ultimately oversees the administration of the jail, gave a statement Wednesday on the jail.
“The County has taken steps to increase officer retention and attract new officers to the detention center by raising detention officer salaries; adopting a new pay scale; implementing a pay plan that includes a $5000 sign-on bonus for new hires, a $5,000 retention bonus for current officers, a $1,000 referral bonus program, and temporary additional pay for exempt officers who work a certain number of extended hours; in addition to approving all (detention center) facility improvement requests. We continue to explore additional steps we can take to support our employees and promote the health and safety of everyone at Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center.”
This story was originally published May 4, 2022 at 12:51 PM.