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22. Public Office:
She has been employed by the South Carolina Attorney General's Office since March of 1989, as an Assistant Attorney General.

23. Employment As a Judge Other Than Elected Judicial Office:
She served as a Justice on the Moot Court Board in law school. She has served as a judge for the National Bicentennial Competition directed by the Center for Civil Education and cosponsored by the Commission on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution. She has also served as a judge for the South Carolina Bar's Mock Trial Competition. She has served as a Judicial Hearing Officer for the Employee Grievance Committee of the State of South Carolina.

25. Occupation, business or profession other than the practice of law:
None other than part-time jobs during high school, college and law school

32. Sued:
In 1984, she leased a condominium with a friend for a year. The friend married and moved out before the lease expired. The landlord sued the friend and named her as a party. The lawsuit was settled by her friend agreeing to honor most of the remaining terms of the lease.

44. Bar Associations and Professional Organizations:
American Bar Association; Richland County Bar Association; American Judicature Society. She is a member of several subcommittees of the South Carolina Bar.

45. Civic, charitable, educational, social and fraternal organizations:
Chairman of Board of Directors for the Council on Child Abuse and Neglect, 1989-1990; Board Member for the Council on Child Abuse and Neglect, 1988- 1993; Volunteer of the Month for the Council on Child Abuse and Neglect, 1991; President-Elect of Richland County Legal Auxiliary, 1993-1994; Board Member, Richland County Legal Auxiliary, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1993; active member, Junior League of Columbia; active member and choir member, Trenholm Road United Methodist Church

47. Five (5) letters of recommendation:
(a) Lois M. Snipes, Vice President, Middleburg Branch
First Citizens Bank
P. O. Box 29, Columbia, SC 29202
733-2070
(b) William A. Coates, Esquire
Love, Thornton, Arnold & Thomason, P.A.
P. O. Box 10045, Greenville, SC 29603
242-6360
(c) Reverend Regi Thackston
Trenholm Road United Methodist Church
3401 Trenholm Road, Columbia, SC 29204
254-6695
(d) Honorable T. Travis Medlock
Attorney General
P. O. Box 11549, Columbia, SC 29211
734-3655
(e) Donald L. Fowler
Fowler Communications, Inc.
P. O. Box 50627, Columbia, SC 29250
799-7550

The Judgement Rolls of Richland County are negative. The Federal Court records are negative. No complaints or statements have been received to date and no witnesses are present to testify. All right, if you would please answer any questions Ms. McNamee has got for you.
MS. HEAPE: Be happy to.
MS. HEAPE - EXAMINATION BY MS. MCNAMEE:
Q. Good afternoon.
A. Good afternoon.
Q. We are probably going to go over a lot of the same things we talked about with Mr. Dennis? Don't feel like you're being cheated or anything. Think about Mr. Williams.
A. That's a good point.
Q. What is your philosophy of the appropriate demeanor for a judge in a courtroom?
A. I think a Family Court judge has to be compassionate, open-minded, have a clear understanding of the law, be tactful, be firm, humility, I think is a good characteristic, intelligence and a general understanding of what the litigants are going through because most of the time the people in your courtroom are having the very worst day of their lives that they will ever have and I think it's very important to understand that and make the process as painless as possible for them to go through. But I think you also have to be firm with them.

I remember when I was practicing family law and I noticed a lot of people would use their children against each other in a divorce situation. I think the Family Court judge has to be very firm about that and explain that that's not going to be tolerated because that's too important. So I think firmness and all those are good characteristics. Justice tempered with fairness.
Q. I've heard that before. What quality is your strongest?
A. I think understanding, I guess, is the best way to put it because I'm decisive, but I'm also compassionate. I think as a prosecutor, I have kind of a tough reputation, but then again I -- when I need to be tough, I can be tough, but when I need to understand what people are going through and be compassionate about it, I can do that as well.

I'm mature with children, but for some reason children almost treat me like a peer. Children don't seem to have a hard time talking with me and

When I was working with the Council, I felt like I was accomplishing a certain amount to help children, but I wasn't getting in there getting my hands dirty enough and that's one of the reasons that I've always wanted to be a Family Court judge. My issue is children and I think they're just being thrown to the wolves and I think divorce and separation and all of those things are very harmful to them and also I think that the juvenile system is a place where a Family Court judge can make a huge difference in a juvenile's life.
Q. When -- well, I did ask this before, is there a weakness that you have in this whole litany of characteristics of a judge? Is there a --
A. I think my weakness is I can't let go of things sometimes, like even in the job that I have now, it's hard for me to shake things a lot, like during the day. I think it would be hard for me to sit in a litigated case involving children and the different issues that arise, the hard issues that arise, I think it's going to be hard for me to shake that. But you have to get in there and be objective the next day and listen to what everybody has to say and hear everybody's side and all that, but I think it would be hard for me to go in and out of the Family Court role into my regular role as a person.
Q. What are your methods of dealing with stress now and what do you foresee you'll be like in a stressful role like judge?
A. I work out. I work out, I do a Step class three times a week and I can tell when I haven't gone because people at the office start telling me about it and so then I'll make arrangements to go again. I do that.

I have a lot of hobbies. I like to water-ski and play tennis, that type of thing, spending time with my friends. Children help relieve stress for me. I can be around a child for a little while and for some reason the stress tends to kind of leave.
Q. Could you briefly describe your work schedule and your work habit --

My day is usually consists of talking back and forth with defense lawyers about cases and preparing cases for trial. And I handle most of the citizen complaints that come into the Attorney General's Office and on the telephone any calls that come in. Mainly, I'm just supervising the General Prosecution case load and making sure that it's moving and working with the judges who sometimes have questions about their cases moving and that -- and pretty much a description of my job.
Q. Would you say that your role in the Attorney General's office as an advocate for the State that that will easily translate into being a Family Court judge? Can you make any kind of comparison between the two roles, the advocate role versus the judicial role?
A. I think so because one of the reasons I wanted to go to work for the Attorney General is to get a little insight into the other side. Because I was a defense lawyer basically for six years in Family Court and workers' comp. and personal injury cases and that type thing, and as an advocate for, you know, my clients, and I wanted to get to the other side and actually get into the prosecution and more of a tough -- toughness minded role and I think that will help be a more balanced person when I get on the bench as opposed to someone who has only done defense work in their career or only been a prosecutor in their career. I think if a person has had a little bit of everything, all the bites of the apple, it makes them more well rounded.
Q. Do you have to negotiate with attorneys very often? You say you're on the phone a lot. Is it -- do they ask you for continuance -- I mean not continuances, but do they ask you to postpone things or how does that work with you?
A. They do. Most of the conversations I have with defense lawyers is they're trying to get you to drop the case or reduce the case or whatever and it's really kind of awkward because the Attorney General is a real strong law enforcement person and he doesn't believe in plea bargaining, so whereas a defense lawyer is used to being able to go to the solicitor and have a plea bargain. It's hard for them to understand that we don't normally do that.

So you have to try to balance out the hostility that you get there with the fairness that you're trying to give them. In the trial and we -- you know, we try to be -- we have an open file policy in our office, which means basically whatever we have, the defense lawyers get, which is also

But we try to do that in order to say, you know, we're going to have the fairest trial we can, you're going to have everything that we have and we'll just go in there and let the jury decide, so a lot of my day is spent trying to get defense lawyers to understand where we're coming from and maybe relieve a little bit of the hostilities.
Q. When you were in private practice I think you stated on your PDQ that your -- you did -- five percent of your practice was domestic; is that correct?
A. No. That's since I've been at the Attorney General's Office.
Q. Are you still doing domestic work?
A. Well, just guardian ad litem work and that type thing.
Q. Well, what were the percentages when you were in private practice?
A. I would say half, probably.
Q. Half of your work was domestic?
A. Half of my work was Family Court. I did a variety of contested issues, contested divorces, child custody, child support, adoptions, termination of parental rights pretty much across the board.
Q. Would you say you've had experience in all of those facets?
A. All areas of domestic law. And I also did a good bit of personal injury and workers' comp. work and I did a little bit of criminal. My law partner had a massive heart attack at 46 when we practiced together and he did solely criminal and so I had to learn in a hurry how to handle criminal cases. So I guess I did, for that year, I probably did about 30 percent criminal, but most of my practice has been domestic and general practice.
Q. What have you done to apprise yourself of the current status of domestic law?
A. Well, I attended a CLE on domestic law to try to keep myself up to date. I meet regularly with the different people that I have a lot of respect for that are in the field, friends of mine at DSS and DYS and some of the other fields that keep up with this. And I have a really good friend who is the Executive Director for the Council on Child Abuse and Neglect and I meet with him on a regular basis. I try to keep up with it that way.

And of course, my research skills are really good, so I don't think it would be a problem for me to update myself from four and a half years ago when I quit domestic practice to what has happened and how the marital property might be redefined now or, you know, what other issues have arisen since I left.

Usually, he will tell them about 12 or 13 questions and answers to them that are usually kind of shocking to them. For instance, if you threaten a teacher, that's a crime that can be punishable by five years in prison. A lot of people don't know that, things like that.

And then afterwards the teachers and administrators are allowed to ask the panel any questions about -- we don't give legal advice, but we try to explain to them that you don't have to be in fear of your students in the school. You don't have to sit back and be threatened by a student. You don't have to put up with a child sitting in your classroom spinning the barrel of a revolver, that type of thing.

You would not believe what we have found that some of the teachers in this state are putting up with and scared to death to do anything about it. It's a shame.
Q. What is the status of the law on searching lockers?
A. Searching lockers, it is completely legal for school officials.
Q. On a random basis?
A. Constitutional and fully legal.
Q. How will you go about making your decision in a case and writing down -- what kind of procedures will you use for writing an order?
A. Well, I have a little bit of a different thought about that. I -- first of all, it's like I tell the jurors in my cases, you don't make a decision until you've heard everything, until you've heard all the evidence, you've heard from all the witnesses and you've judged their credibility and you've observed the demeanor of people and all of those things, they should do to assess a witness' credibility.

So I will try as hard as I can to keep my mind open. Like I said, I think openness is a very good characteristic for a judge. Keep my mind open until I've heard everything and then when I have heard everything, I would like to make a decision. You know, if it's uncontested, people

But in a contested matter, I would write my own orders because I would like to make the decision in a hurry as fast as possible and go ahead and draft the order and then send it to them for any factual irregularities, not any arguments one way or the other, but just what was or is factually not correct in the order. I see several reasons for that. One, I think -- I don't think it was ever envisioned that parties write orders. I think the judges have always been envisioned as writing the orders.

I do think it would be a lot of work, but I think that way you get in your order what your -- you want your order to be, what you are ordering as opposed to getting an order back after, say, a month and having to look at it and try to remember after you've heard 29 cases between the first case and your 30th case and try to remember what you actually did order. It has to be impossible.

You know, you can pull the transcript and look at it, but I would like to be able to make the decision within the day. And it might be that once you get there, it can't be done that way, but that's what I would like to do is be able to make the decision that day, write some notes out and sketch out the order and go ahead and write the order and submit it to both attorneys because that way there is no question.
Q. Have you ever been disciplined by a court that you've appeared before?
A. No, I have not.
Q. What is your philosophy about ex parte communication?
A. They're not allowed.
Q. What does it mean to you?
A. Ex parte communications are when one lawyer might come up to you in a social situation, this is the way I envision it, and bring up a case that might have been before him and try to talk about it there and that's not acceptable.

And if the lawyer does not understand, then I'll make sure that he does after our conversation because I think that is one of the worst possible things that could happen to the justice system.
Q. And your philosophy about gifts and social activity?
A. I would not accept any gift. I know sometimes you can hurt people's feelings and if they want to give you like a little candle or little cup or whatever as a thank you for a speech or whatever, I just think it's easier just as black and white. I'm a black and white person. I think it's a clear cut thing.

At this point, I would just like for the Members of the General Assembly just to know who I am and then after judicial screening, I would like the opportunity to talk with them further about my qualifications, aspirations and my candidacy in general.

I think it's a bad thing, so I think mediation is wonderful and I'd like to see us lean towards that in the Family Court.
Q. And I asked Mr. Dennis and I will ask the other people, too, what do you think we can do about our problems of growing juvenile crime in this state?
A. I think -- first of all, I have a real problem sending truancy juveniles to R and E. I think that's a bad practice and I don't think that's going to scare them out of not going to school, it's just going to help them learn other crimes or learn ways to be a criminal.

I think as members of the General Assembly, I guess you guys are the ones that would have the power to change that somehow, to provide for another system for truant, victimless crimes to be received and evaluated. I think the Marine Institute is a wonderful idea and I would wish that we had 150 of them. I know it takes funding to do that, but I've seen it work miracles.

I was at a luncheon one day sitting at a table full of six juveniles and they were all had an attitude and slouched in their chairs and they had their hats on and all and their parents were there and they didn't have any interaction with their parents which is not unusual and then the instructors or the people that work at the Marine Institute would come in and they would just light up like a Christmas tree. But they didn't want to and they didn't want you to see them doing it, but they just lit up. And they're, you know, moving around in their chairs and everything and you can tell there is a connection, a real strong connection.

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