An all-male SC Supreme Court receives another woman on the bench
A woman will join the previously all-male South Carolina Supreme Court.
By a vote of 152-0, Letitia Verdin was elected Wednesday by the South Carolina General Assembly to fill a seat that will soon by vacated by Justice John Kittredge, who earlier this year was selected to replace Chief Justice Don Beatty. Beatty, the only Black justice on the court, will retire this summer after reaching the state’s mandatory retirement age of 72.
The five-member Supreme Court had been all male since Kaye Hearn retired last year.
“I’m so honored for the trust the General Assembly has placed in me and very honored by the bipartisan support that I received,” Verdin said immediately following her election.
Racial and gender diversity on the state’s high court has been a political and social issue in South Carolina.
Verdin says she takes her responsibility as the Supreme Court’s only woman “very seriously.”
“It’s not the only time I’ve been the only woman on the court, I was the only woman in Greenville,” Verdin said. “And as I said, I just look forward to serving all of South Carolina.”
Verdin was elected by legislators to the family court as a resident judge in the 13th Judicial Circuit in 2008. In 2011, she was elected to the circuit court and then to the Court of Appeals in 2023. Prior to that she worked as an assistant solicitor.
She is well regarded among the legal community, and was praised by the Judicial Merit Selection Commission for her polite judicial temperament.
The all-male Supreme Court had been criticized ahead of its decision to uphold the state’s 2023 fetal heartbeat law, which bans abortions after a heartbeat can be detected. That’s usually around the sixth week of pregnancy, when a woman might not know she’s pregnant.
Hearn wrote the majority decision striking down the state’s 2021 fetal heartbeat law as unconstitutional.
Hearn was replaced by Justice Gary Hill.
Jean Toal was the first woman to serve on the state Supreme Court. She was on the court from 1988 to 2015, the last 15 years as chief justice.
This story was originally published June 5, 2024 at 2:33 PM.
