Article 1, Section 14 of the South Carolina Constitution states, “The right of trial by jury shall be preserved inviolate. Any person charged with an offense shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury.”
In South Carolina, we have 84,000 regulations that unelected agencies and bureaucrats can use at their discretion to charge and convict a citizen. There is no presumption of innocence. They can charge you with a civil or criminal offense, assess fines, and even impose jail time at their discretion—and you must go through a process of proving your innocence according to their methods. More than 80 percent of citizens and small businesses cannot afford to go through this process, as these unelected agencies use in-house lawyers at a fraction of the cost it would take a citizen to hire outside counsel.
Let’s assume you are part of the 20 percent who can afford to hire expensive outside counsel. First, your counsel will have to spend a significant amount of your money to appear in front of an agency board or commission and present your case. Since the agency has already pronounced you guilty, this appearance is merely the first step toward draining your legal resources. With almost 100 percent certainty, the agency will uphold its own conviction. You will have exhausted several thousand dollars in legal fees and several months of time—and this is only the beginning.
If you decide you have had enough after spending a substantial amount of money, you may cave to these bureaucrats. Otherwise, you must appeal to an administrative judge (without a jury). This is where citizens and small businesses are crushed by legal fees, as this is not merely a hearing but a full-scale trial with full discovery. Here is where the agencies truly stick it to you: they will dump thousands of pages of discovery material from their in-house team on you, and your lawyers must review it all—on your dime. Count on 18 to 24 months and $200,000 to $400,000 in expenses.
Remember Article 1 at the beginning of this article. You can forget that constitutional requirement for a speedy trial in front of a jury.
Assuming you are not bankrupt or haven’t thrown in the towel, you will finally appear before one of their judges—appointed by the legislature, which also controls the agency. These judges, contrary to current federal law, still follow Chevron-plus deference, meaning that rather than interpreting the law as written and determining if the law is constitutional or properly applied, they side with the agency’s interpretation over 80 percent of the time.
Assuming the citizen or small business loses here—which is almost guaranteed—only then can you appeal to a real court and have a jury trial. As for the “speedy” part? Once you appeal the administrative court’s decision, consider yourself lucky to get a trial date in the appellate court within three years. During this time, the agencies will continue to drain your legal funds through a myriad of requests and motions. Cost to get through appeals: another $200,000 to $400,000.
How am I an expert on this?
As many of you know, I have been berated for building an “illegal” seawall that was originally a retaining wall inside my fenced yard and about 25 feet landward of the setback line. This “illegal” label is widely used even though, by statute (48-39-290), seawalls in South Carolina are only banned seaward of the legislature-approved setback line.
I was accused in January 2024, convicted and fined by my accusers a few months later, and have spent several hundred thousand dollars fending off agency processes designed to bleed my legal resources while I wait to get in front of one of their judges—again, without a jury. This is likely to happen in May, and I will almost surely lose, as the judge will defer to the agency. Then I will have to appeal and spend several more years in appellate court before I can finally face a jury.
I say this not to play the “poor me” card but to show why so many people in this state—who call or email me—are unable to stand up to a process that is unconstitutional and stacked against the citizen.
David Lucas, who fought a property rights battle in the 1990s all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and won, eloquently commented last week that he endorses the nascent DOGESC (dogesc.com) movement and this new property rights fight. David said, “This is not about the wealthy protecting their own. It is about those with means who can help protect everyone else. Property rights are the tip of the iceberg. Every aspect of South Carolina citizens’ lives is impacted by government overreach. This is not freedom but a slow drift into total tyranny.”
I could not have said it better myself, David.
Reddy or Not represents the opinion of Lucky Dog Publishing owner Rom Reddy but not necessarily the opinion of the newspaper. In keeping with our philosophy of publishing all opinions, we welcome responses, which must be limited to 400 words and will be published on a space-available basis.