Hail to the Chief.

Yesterday afternoon I went to the swearing-in of my boss's boss, the new Circuit Public Defender. A few judges, a few attorneys, and the S.C. senator who got the bill through the General Assembly were there. All in all, it wasn't too bad. Still, a couple of mentions at the very end of Senator Milloy's speach sent shivers down my spine, "We couldn't have gotten this passed without Justice Toal's strong support" (or something to that effect), and the phrase "Case Management System". Jean Toal is the Chief Justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court. She's the first woman to hold that position. She is also very powerful and she has done a lot to consolidate that power and increase the ability of Columbia to keep an eye on the Judges, Magistrates and lawyers in the State.

The Case Management System (or CMS) is one of the ways that information at the County and City level (Magistrate and Municipal Court) has been made more immediately accessible to Court Administration. I was briefly a Magistrate, so I know a little about CMS. A unified system for case-tracking is not a bad idea. It would be nice, for example, if a Magistrate setting a bond in Beaufort could know that an inmate has a pending case (and bond) in Greenville, or to have information on inmates who are already in the system in other counties. Sadly, the information in CMS goes one way: to Columbia. As unhelpful as CMS was to Magistrates "on the ground", it at least makes sense for Court Administration to be able to keep up with its Judges. The prosecutors are also required to be on CMS. Okay, I guess Court Administration ought to be able to keep up with the prosecutors. I guess. I've got some very serious questions as to why Court Administration should have any business in our files, though. We represent individuals, not "The State". Individuals have privacy rights. Individuals have attorney/client privilege. "Well", you might say, "You don't have to key in the stuff they told you". No, perhaps not all of it; however, we will have to key in basic information, like their addresses and phone numbers. Consider this irony: South Carolina refuses to enter the national "Real I.D." system because of our concern for individuals' right to privacy, but it may well be that when an individual in South Carolina is charged with a crime, the prosecutors and judges can find them using their attorney's database. The system is also very poorly designed, but that's another nightmare.