data obtained from the Public Index was compared to the data recorded by MADD South Carolina staff and volunteers to assure accuracy of the data collected. The data in this report are from DUI cases (initiated by a DUI arrest) scheduled to be heard in chosen magistrate and municipal courts in Berkeley, Charleston, Greenville, Horry, Lexington, Richland, and Spartanburg Counties from January 2019 to July 2022. As noted earlier, we began in each county at different times with Greenville and Richland being among our original counties and Lexington and Spartanburg being the most recently added (early 2019). This report is the fourth that MADD has generated from this project with the first report being released in 2017, the second in 2018, and the third in 2020. The courts we monitored were chosen based on availability of access to court rosters, frequency of court hearings and the number of DUI cases heard in court. The courts most frequently monitored were the magistrate courts in our focus counties. The difficulty with the municipal courts was a lack of access to court rosters and wide variation in the number of DUI cases heard from hearing to hearing – meaning that some days you may have 15 DUI cases and the next hearing zero DUI cases. The magistrate courts seemed to always have a large number of DUI cases for each scheduled hearing. It made the most sense to maximize our resources to attend court where there are more cases being heard than travel to a court, sometimes at a considerable distance, to monitor one or two DUI cases. It is not the expectation of our court monitoring program to monitor every single DUI case, but to do a thorough and complete data collection of those cases that are monitored. In Greenville County, the courts we focused on primarily heard cases written by the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office and the Highway Patrol. In Richland County, the courts we focused on primarily heard cases written by the Richland County Sheriff’s Office, Columbia Police Department, University of South Carolina Police Department, and the Highway Patrol. In Spartanburg, the courts we focused on primarily heard cases written by Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office and the Highway Patrol. In Lexington, the courts we focused on primarily heard cases written by the Lexington County Sheri ff’s Office, Lexington Police Department, and the Highway Patrol. In Horry County, the courts we focused on primarily heard cases written by the Highway Patrol, Myrtle Beach Police Department, Conway Police Department, North Myrtle Beach Police Department , Surfside Police Department, and Horry County Sheriff’s Office. In Charleston, the courts we focused on primarily heard cases written by the Highway Patrol, Charleston County Sheriff’s Office, Mount Pleasant Police Department, North Charleston Police Department, and City of Charleston Police Department. In Berkeley County, the courts we focused on primarily heard cases from the Highway Patrol, Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office, and Goose Creek Police Department.
9
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online