Longtime Beaufort County judge, former jail director dies at 71
Beaufort County magistrate judge Mark Francis Fitzgibbons, who served as a county official for more than three decades and has been credited with bringing the detention center out of “the stone ages,” died Thursday at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. He was 71.
Fitzgibbons, a native of Buffalo, New York, moved to Beaufort County in 1988 when he was hired as the jail administrator.
He helped design and operate the new detention center, which was the first South Carolina jail to be nationally accredited. He was also one of the first jail administrators in the country to be recognized as a certified jail manager.
During his more than 15 years leading the Beaufort County Detention Center, he was elected as president of the American Jail Association and the South Carolina Jail Administrators’ Association. He also was a commissioner for the Accreditation for the American Correctional Association, worked as a consultant and trainer at correction centers throughout the country, and served as an adjunct faculty member in colleges in Beaufort and Florida.
Fitzgibbons retired as detention center director in 2005, when Gov. Mark Sanford appointed him as a Summary Court Judge. He served in that position until his death.
“When this opportunity first came on the horizon, I felt it might be a nice change,” Fitzgibbons told the Beaufort Gazette in a 2005 article about his new position. “I’ve learned a lot about the criminal justice system, and that experience will help me be effective as a magistrate.”
Former county administrator Gary Kubic praised Fitzgibbons for being an excellent employee who was “professional in all aspects in what he does,” the article said.
“He brought the jail facility from the stone ages,” Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner previously said, adding that Fitzgibbons helped coordinate efforts between law enforcement and the jail by, among other things, bringing in new technology for handling inmates.
Before coming to South Carolina, Fitzgibbons attended Canisus College in 1970, and went into active duty with the U.S. Army as a Military Police Officer for five years after graduation, serving in both Germany and Korea. He’d stay in the reserves for several years, rising to the rank of major.
He also worked with the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department in Florida for more than a decade, working at the jail there as he rose through the ranks to become a captain.
At the time of his death, Fitzgibbons was an active member of St. Peter’s Catholic Church, where he’d been involved in the parish since he and his family first moved to Beaufort. He was also a member of the Knights of Columbus for more than 30 years.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks donations be made to St. Peter’s Catholic Church on Lady’s Island Drive in Beaufort, where they will receive friends at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. A Mass of Christian Burial will follow at the church at noon, and interment will be at Beaufort National Cemetery.
