valuable discussions about their impressions and additional information needed to understand the situations that led to what we saw in the data. Because there were key individuals not able to attend, we held additional meetings to gain their perspective. These collective perspectives are shared in multiple places below interspersed with our court monitoring data.
Total Number of Cases Monitored
We have now monitored 4,113 total cases in these counties, of which 2,678 cases have had a final determination and 1,435 cases remain open. These open cases will continue to be monitored, and the outcome of those cases will be included in the next annual report if they have a final disposition by the time of that report. The primary reasons for a case still being open are either 1) the case is recent and has not been addressed by the courts yet, 2) COVID-19 delays, or 3) the defendant requested a jury trial set for a future date. The table below shows how many closed cases we have for each county. The data shown later in the report is based off of these closed cases only.
# OF CASES CLOSED
# OF CASES OPEN
% OF CASES CLOSED
COUNTY
Berkeley
215
91
70%
Charleston
414
213
66%
Greenville
777
98
89%
Horry
388
204
66%
Lexington
263
174
60%
Richland
399
453
47%
Spartanburg
213
202
51%
Type of Prosecutors and Defense Representation
Some cases we monitored were prosecuted by an attorney from a Solicitor’s office or a municipality. Some were prosecuted by the arresting officer. The latter is an unusual practice from a national perspective. A report, written by Clemson University and commissioned by the South Carolina Department of Transportation, titled “Applying Successfully Proven Measures in Roadway Safety to Reduce Harmful Collisions in SC”
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