South Carolina

Dane Phillips: All rise! Welcome y’all to the Direct Examination Podcast! I’m Dane Phillips, and we’re down one red-headed ginger today.

Joseph Bias: And I’m Joseph Bias! Thank you so much for tuning in. We’ve been on a little bit of a hiatus, but we wanted to make sure we ended the season with the most illustrious guest possible. Amber is doing great, holding up in a bunker somewhere with hand sanitizer, paper towels, and baby Evie!

Dane Phillips: Mommy and baby are safe! But for the survival of the human race, she’s secured away so the podcast can live on even if the coronavirus wipes Joseph and me out! (laughs)

Joseph Bias: That’s right! Today’s guest is a former Chief Justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court, former Circuit Court Judge for the 5th Judicial Circuit, former Richland County Public Defender, former Richland County Attorney, former Columbia Municipal Judge, and served 30 years in active duty and reserve service in the U.S. Army JAG Corps. Today he advises clients at Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd on complex litigation and appellate matters and serves as a certified mediator and arbitrator. He is also a fellow Wofford Terrier alumnus! Please welcome Justice Costa Pleicones to the podcast!

Justice Costa Pleicones: Well, thank you, Joseph and Dane. Thank you for allowing me to be with you today. Generally speaking, news of my public appearances is met with a groundswell of apathy (laughs), so I hope I do not shrink your podcast audience!

Dane Phillips: Not at all! It’s a true honor to have you here, Justice. Let’s start with your origin story. You started out in Columbia, went to Wofford, USC Law, served in the Army, and then became a public defender in Richland County.

Justice Costa Pleicones: That’s right. After law school, I served in the Army for four years, three months, and eight days as a prosecutor and claims attorney. When I got out, I had a wife and two children, and the best available job paying the most money was as a public defender in Richland County under my dear friend and classmate John Young. Over my 52 years as a lawyer, I’ve served as a prosecutor, public defender, private practitioner, county attorney, municipal judge, circuit judge, Associate Justice, and Chief Justice. Serving as a public defender gave me a deep sense of empathy for people in the criminal justice system—they’re not all bad people, and they deserve to be treated with dignity as human beings.

Joseph Bias: You’ve always maintained a strong sense of judicial detachment. What are your thoughts on judges using social media today?

Justice Costa Pleicones: Years ago, Justice Toal and I conducted a CLE where we strongly cautioned all judges against being on social media like Facebook or Twitter. When you “friend” someone on social media, and that person appears before you in court the next day against someone you didn’t “friend,” it creates immediate perception problems. A judge cannot comment on social issues that might come before the court. During my tenure as Chief Justice, I even had to suspend a judge in the upstate for expressing controversial political opinions online. Judges must remain detached from the public political realm.

Dane Phillips: One of your major achievements as Chief Justice was bringing the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE) to South Carolina. What led to that decision?

Justice Costa Pleicones: The three-day bar exam was an ordeal, and it wasn’t a good tool for evaluating practice readiness. Shortly after becoming Chief Justice on January 1, 2016, I signed the order adopting the two-day UBE in South Carolina. It is now the national standard across nearly 40 jurisdictions. To ensure new lawyers still understood local practice, we partnered with law professors at USC and Charleston School of Law to create an eight-hour online South Carolina-specific module that applicants must complete before admission.

Dane Phillips: What are your thoughts on proposed legislation regarding attorney-conducted voir dire in South Carolina?

Justice Costa Pleicones: I am very skeptical of wide-open attorney voir dire. In many states, attorney voir dire devolves into a conditioning process where lawyers try to indoctrinate jurors to their position before any evidence is ever presented. Under our current system, a trial judge has broad discretion to conduct thorough, liberal voir dire—including individual questioning in complex or high-profile cases—to ensure a fair and impartial jury without turning the process into a circus.

Joseph Bias: You dissented in the famous State v. Langford decision regarding solicitor control of criminal dockets. What was your perspective on that ruling?

Justice Costa Pleicones: While I was sympathetic to the majority’s concern that certain solicitors were abusing docket control, I dissented because it was not a preserved issue in that case, and the court offered no practical framework for how judges would manage dockets instead. I often cite Colonel DeLoach’s “wing-walker rule” from the 1930s barnstorming days: a wing-walker never lets go of one handhold until he has another one firmly in his grip! We threw out solicitor docket control without having a workable alternative system ready to grab onto.

Dane Phillips: As an experienced mediator today, what advice do you give attorneys preparing for mediation?

Justice Costa Pleicones: Prepare for mediation as if you are preparing for trial. Provide the mediator with a thorough, succinct mediation statement detailing your legal positions and key evidence well in advance. Most importantly, be prepared for a good mediator to challenge your assumptions. A mediator’s job is not to judge, but to test the strengths and weaknesses of both sides to help you reach a settlement.

Joseph Bias: Justice Pleicones, we end every episode by asking our guests for a war story. What is one that stands out from your career?

Justice Costa Pleicones: Late in my career as a circuit trial judge, I presided over a death penalty case involving a young offender who had already killed two people and then brutally beat an 85-year-old woman to death with a porcelain commode lid. During jury selection, the defense attorney, David Bruck, announced that they were waiving a jury and wanted me to decide the sentence solo.

During the penalty phase, the victim’s elderly relatives improperly testified that they wanted the death penalty imposed. I received anonymous phone calls threatening me if I didn’t sentence him to death. After evaluating the extensive evidence of severe mental disturbance, I sentenced him to life in prison instead of death.

After court adjourned, the victim’s three 85-year-old female relatives asked to speak with me in chambers. I braced myself, expecting a confrontation. Instead, they sat on my couch, looked at me, and said, “We just want to thank you. If you gave him death, this case would be tied up in appeals for the next 20 years and we’d never have closure before we die. Because you gave him life, it’s over today, and we can finally move on.” That moment has stayed with me forever.

Dane Phillips: What an incredible story and what an amazing perspective on justice.

Joseph Bias: Justice Pleicones, thank you so much for joining us, sharing your wisdom, and capping off Season 3 of our podcast!

Justice Costa Pleicones: Thank you, Joseph and Dane. It has been a true pleasure being with you today.

Dane Phillips: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @SCLawPod. Follow Joseph @JosephPBias, Dane @SCCrimLawyer, and Amber @RedJudicata. Leave us a five-star review, and we’ll see y’all next season on the Direct Examination Podcast!