Columbia lawyer Coble wins race to replace retiring veteran SC Judge Casey Manning

Columbia lawyer Daniel McLeod Coble was elected Wednesday to succeed longtime South Carolina Judge Casey Manning.

Coble, 35, will assume the 5th Circuit seat now occupied by Manning after a 145-2 vote by the General Assembly. Manning’s term runs until the end of this year. The circuit covers Richland and Kershaw counties.

“I’m thankful to all the members of the General Assembly, and I’m proud to have the opportunity to serve the state,” Coble told The State after the vote.

Manning, a judge since 1994, has been a high-profile figure in South Carolina public life for more than 50 years.

A native of Dillon County, he was the first African American to play on the University of South Carolina men’s basketball team, and for more than 25 years worked as the Gamecock radio men’s basketball color analyst.

“While Daniel Coble is filling that seat, I don’t know that anyone can fill his (Manning’s) shoes,” said House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, who sits on the legislative panel that screens judicial candidates. “Casey Manning is someone that the entire Bar thought so much of. ... Everybody came to Casey Manning because (of) his knowledge of the law and his ability to mete out issues was unparalleled, and it truly was unparalleled.”

Coble, Rutherford said, is “what we think will be a long-term asset for the judiciary.”

Coble was elected to a six-year term, and the post pays approximately $200,000 a year. Once a judge is elected, they rarely have opposition.

There are 46 state judges who handle civil and criminal cases, including death penalty trials. They also handle appeals of administrative or regulatory decisions by the Administrative Law Division.

Seven candidates for Manning’s seat originally filed for the position last year. Six dropped out along the way, including two — Richland County Probate Judge Amy McCulloch and longtime defense attorney Boyd Young — last week when it became apparent Coble would be the likely winner.

In South Carolina, the 170 members of the General Assembly elect judges by majority vote in a joint session.

Before the vote is cast in a contested race, judicial candidates and their supporters quietly lobby the 170 lawmakers, seeking to get a majority that will convince the other candidates to withdraw. That is what happened in Coble’s race, when it became apparent last week that he had enough votes to win.

Coble, who will be one of the youngest state judges, is a 2009 Clemson University graduate and 2012 University of South Carolina Law School graduate. His father is longtime former Columbia Mayor Bob Coble, and his grandfather was the late state Attorney General, Daniel McLeod.

His credentials include work as an assistant solicitor with the 5th Circuit Solicitor’s office from 2012-2017, and he was a Richland County magistrate judge from 2017 to 2022. He’s now in private practice and has written on a variety of legal topics.

“I want to be the most prepared, the most ready, the hardest working judge,” Coble told the 10-member Judicial Merit Screening Commission when he met with them in November.

In another judicial race Wednesday, the General Assembly re-elected Supreme Court Associate Justice Kaye Hearn to another six-year term.

(Staffer Maayan Schechter contributed to this story.)

This story was originally published February 2, 2022 at 1:17 PM.