Sheriff could swing solicitor’s race, but which way?

Two candidates are vying in Tuesday’s Republican primary for 14th Circuit Solicitor, but the race may very well swing on how the public feels about someone who isn’t running.

That someone is Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner, who is married to one candidate, Angela McCall-Tanner, and is a political enemy of the other, incumbent Duffie Stone.

The solicitor oversees a district spanning five counties, but Beaufort County, with its substantial voting bloc — 71 percent of the votes in the 2012 election — will play an oversized role in determining who will serve as the circuit’s top prosecutor, deciding whether police correctly gathered evidence and sought the appropriate charges and even turning down cases brought by law enforcement. From there, the solicitor determines whether there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime has been committed.

How voters ultimately see that relationship between prosecutor and police likely will decide the race. Would a husband-wife duo represent an unprecedented conflict of interest that eliminates a vital system of checks and balances between county law enforcement and prosecutors? Or would such a pairing allow the agencies to work more closely and effectively than they do now?

For John Crangle, executive director of S.C. Common Cause, a Columbia-based government watchdog group, a McCall-Tanner victory would be alarming.

“There would be no distance between the two that there should be normally” if McCall-Tanner is elected, Crangle said, adding that he can think of no example in the state’s recent history of a solicitor and sheriff being married.

Stone, unsurprisingly, agrees.

“The (solicitor) has to be unbiased,” Stone said. “They have to be neutral. And every day, the (solicitor) makes decisions ... on law enforcement. Did (police) read the defendant their rights? Did they execute the search warrant correctly?”

Tuesday’s stakes are particularly high. No Democrat is running, so the candidate who wins Tuesday will get the $136,905-a-year job.

Jim Gibson of Beaufort, who worked as a prosecutor, criminal defense attorney and civil litigator in South Carolina before retiring, said these are legitimate concerns for residents.

“I can assure you that law enforcement needs someone diligently reviewing their practices and taking steps to correct erroneous and illegal activities and procedures,” he said. “What would happen if the sheriff’s wife were the solicitor and found misconduct in the sheriff’s department of which her husband is the head?”

But both McCall-Tanner and Tanner disagree with Stone’s assessment and stress that the sheriff’s office and the solicitor’s office are on the same side, working in sync to make cases for the state of South Carolina.

“We have the same interest,” said McCall-Tanner, who worked in the solicitor’s office for 12 years. She was Stone’s deputy solicitor, his second-in-command, for four of those years. “They can’t keep secrets from each other when it comes to a case.”

She added that she would have no qualms telling her husband that his agency dropped the ball on an investigation.

“I hold P.J. Tanner to an extremely high standard, and he holds me to an extremely high standard,” she said, adding that her expectations extend to those who work for the sheriff as well. “There is not a deputy out there who believes that I would cover for them if they made a mistake. And they know probably the first person I’m going to tell is their boss.”

And in cases where a conflict of interest exists — such as suspicion of police misconduct — McCall-Tanner said she would recuse herself so that another solicitor or the S.C. Attorney General’s Office could handle the case.

“I should not be working on it and neither should Duffie Stone,” she said.

Conflict of interest?

Critics also point out the impracticality of the arrangement that could lead to new complications and costs.

“It’s quite possible that (McCall-Tanner) won’t be able to function as a solicitor in most or all of the cases that are brought (to her office) by the (Beaufort County) Sheriff’s Department,” speculated Crangle. “Even if you get convictions, one of the grounds (the defense) would appeal on would be conflict of interest.”

Colin Miller, associate dean for the University of South Carolina School of Law in Columbia, added that even if McCall-Tanner recused herself and someone else from her office stepped in, that might not be good enough.

“There are definite possible problems with conflict of interest,” Miller said. “She can certainly recuse herself from directly handling the case, but the person who would be prosecuting it would be accountable to her ultimately.”

And if another solicitor or state attorney was called to handle the case, the prosecution would add on the extra costs for transportation, meals and motels to host that person for trial, Crangle said.

“The logistics of it would increase the costs of the prosecution substantially,” he said. “Then you have to factor in appeals on misconduct and would then have to send the same person to the court of appeals or hire outside council.”

McCall-Tanner said the speculations were hypothetical fears that are unlikely to occur, pointing out that her marriage has been an issue only once during her time in the solicitor’s office.

In 2006, a Charleston defense attorney called for a pre-trial motion to have her removed from a case because of her proximity to the head of law enforcement in Beaufort County.

Stone, then McCall-Tanner’s boss, called in expert witness Gregory Adams, a USC law school professor, to give testimony on whether a conflict existed. Adams said there was not one because McCall-Tanner was ultimately supervised by Stone, who had only a professional relationship with the sheriff.

Three circuit court judges agreed with Adams’ opinion in that case, according to McCall-Tanner, and she was eventually able to prosecute.

But Adams, who recently donated $1,000 to Stone’s campaign and was one of his law school professors, said his opinion would have been different if McCall-Tanner had been the solicitor, not the deputy solicitor.

“The reason she was allowed to handle the case was because she wasn’t the boss,” Adams said. “She’s got to know that ruling would probably come out differently if she was the solicitor and not the deputy (solicitor). Mr. Stone assured (the judge) that he was carefully supervising her and making final decisions, and that allowed the judge to say ‘I’ll let that go forward.’ ”

McCall-Tanner disagrees with Adams’ assessment.

“If I had had a conflict of interest, then my boss would have had a conflict of interest,” she said.

Breakdown of communication

Meanwhile, McCall-Tanner is claiming that Stone does not communicate well with law enforcement officials across the circuit, which has led to hard feelings.

“Everyone I’ve talked to in five counties said there has been a loss in communication, that they do not have a good working relationship and have lost respect and trust for the solicitor’s office,” she said.

Sheriff P.J. Tanner has spoken harshly of Stone, calling him a liar, and adding that he and Stone have not even spoken since April 28, 2014, aside from public events.

The men’s relationship hit rock bottom that spring, Tanner said. That’s when Stone told The Island Packet that the sheriff’s office was solely to blame for the mishandling of evidence in a murder case — not the solicitor’s office. The mishandling temporarily derailed the case against three men accused of killing Khalil Singleton, 8, on Hilton Head Island.

Tanner said that Stone admitted to him that the solicitor’s office did share in the blame, overlooking a video tape that suggested a sheriff’s deputy had coerced a suspect.

“In this particular case, (Stone) wasn’t going to accept any responsibility for any wrongdoing by any member of his office,” Tanner said, adding that Stone is scared of negative press.

Stone said he has a solid relationship with law enforcement and sticks by his claim that his office was not to blame with the botched evidence collecting.

“The sheriff has been angry ever since the Khalil Singleton case,” Stone said. “The tapes were embarrassing to him, and he has not spoken to me since. He has made his feelings well-known by running his wife against me and then taking an active role in her campaign.”

But both men say their strained relationship is not affecting their ability to do their jobs and that taxpayers should not be worried.

“I can work with anyone, and on a professional basis, I will continue to work with whoever the solicitor is,” Tanner said. “As far as going to lunch together — no, I can’t do that.”

This story was originally published June 12, 2016 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Sheriff could swing solicitor’s race, but which way?."