and could get a guilty plea. Cases that are being contested by the accused may still be awaiting a jury trial and therefore are not captured in these results. Richland County had a 30% conviction rate in our 2020 report, 13 percentage points higher than we now show. The shift was from DUI convictions to those that are dropped, dismissed, or found not guilty. It is uncertain what are all the factors leading to Richland now having a much lower conviction rate, but it was the county most impacted by court closures. The Chief Magistrate kept courts closed and then restricted operations returning to normal well past when other counties were resuming normal functions.
National Data
It is difficult to make any strong comparisons to national data as each state has varying DUI sentencing options. For example, many states have processes in place where some first-time DUI offenders can have their charge expunged after some combination of education, treatment, community service, and fines with the understanding that there will be a traditional sentence if the terms are violated by the offender. In the table below, MADD de scribes this as “deferred prosecution.” South Carolina does not have an option like this.
With that limitation acknowledged, the table above shows the various dispositions of DUI cases from 15 states, including South Carolina, that have MADD Court Monitoring. It shows 63% of those arrested are found guilty of DUI. Considering five out of seven South Carolina counties in our report show a less than 50% conviction rate, we believe it is safe to say that South Carolina as a whole has a conviction rate far worse than the national average.
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