Domestic violence victims in SC can wait weeks for legal protections

COLUMBIA — Domestic violence victims in parts of South Carolina are going weeks without legal protections, particularly in rural counties and the Grand Strand, according to a report by University of South Carolina researchers.

South Carolina is the only state in the country without temporary, emergency protective orders, put in place by judges to safeguard victims who file for them until they can hold a hearing for long-term approval.

The delay allows their abusers to have ready access to a gun while they wait.

With a protective order, a judge can require the abuser to turn in his guns for the length of the order, usually six months to a year. State law allows that only if a hearing determines the person seeking protection has reason to fear “imminent peril.”

The lack of temporary orders is “one of the biggest gaps in law,” said University of South Carolina law professor Lisa Martin, who leads student clinics offering legal assistance to domestic violence victims.

That’s especially a problem due to the wide variance across the state in how long it can take a family court judge to hear a victim’s request, another key finding of the USC study.

It involved a review of a year’s worth of court documents and protective order filings in 45 out of South Carolina’s 46 counties. (Berkeley County opted not to participate.) The research was done by Martin’s law students, as well as USC students taking psychology and women’s and gender studies.

They found a statewide average of 14 days between a court filing and hearing. Across those 3,451 cases, 91% of those seeking protection were women. A quarter of those cases cited the alleged abuser’s access to guns. Researchers did not analyze reasons for the delays.

The time gap grew to more than a month in the worst cases.

In Chesterfield County, 54% of victims waited more than 15 days to get a hearing.

In Edgefield and Union counties, 57% waited that long. It was 62% in Dillon County and 70% in Marion County. In fast-growing Horry County, where judges heard petitions from 114 people seeking protection, 72% of petitioners waited more than 15 days.

In Lee County, only nine victims sought orders but all of them waited 30 to 45 days for a hearing. Only one was approved.

Timing of these hearings is important because abuse victims are most at risk around the time they leave a relationship, according to Sara Barber, who heads the S.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault.

“There are lives here that we can help or hurt,” Barber said of the cases featured in the study.

Barber said those who sought protective orders reported terrifying incidents, to include being pushed down stairs or having their head squeezed so tightly their nose bled.

“He said you belong to me until the day you die and you’re not dead, yet!” one court filing read.

Researchers didn’t evaluate why judges denied requests, though they noted that reasons varied from paperwork errors to people not showing up for hearings. They plan to delve into that more in following phases.

‘Left out’

South Carolina has historically rated at or near the worst in the nation in the rate of women murdered by men. The state’s consistent top-five showing led to a Pulitzer Prize winning series by The Post in Courier, published in 2014, calling state leaders out for lack of action. According to the series, even when victims got orders of protection, enforcement depended on victims calling police to report a violation.

The Legislature responded in 2015 with a law that increased penalties for abusers. It also prohibited those convicted of domestic violence from possessing or buying guns for a period of three years to a lifetime, depending on the severity of the crime.

The state fell out of the top 10 in 2018, before reverting to sixth-worst in 2019. The state’s ranking improved to 23rd in 2020, according to the most recent report by the Violence Policy Center.

“I still wake up in the middle of the night thinking about some of these cases,” S.C. Supreme Court Justice John Cannon Few, a former circuit court judge, said earlier this month during a presentation of the findings at the law school.

South Carolina encourages abuse victims to seek court orders as the primary way to protect themselves.

“If that is going to our be central focus, then we have an obligation to make sure it’s working,” Martin said.

As a second phase of their study, the researchers will analyze the use of emergency restraining orders, which are an option in cases of an immediate threat. A judge can issue those within 24 hours, but they aren’t as extensive as protective orders.

The alleged abuser is supposed to stay away but can keep his guns. Protective orders also decide custody of children and living arrangements.

The state also lacks protections for those physically threatened by a dating partner they don’t live with.

South Carolina is among just three states where victims must have lived in the same home as the abusive partner to qualify for protective orders.

“What I found glaring is how many people are left out all together,” Martin said.

Task force findings

Adding dating partners to the protective order law was among recommendations in 2019 from a task force originally formed by then-Gov. Nikki Haley.

But the part that temporarily takes away alleged abusers’ guns has prevented passage of legislation to do so.

The latest bipartisan attempt has been sitting on the Senate calendar since February 2023. Floor debate on the bill chiefly sponsored by Sen. Katrina Shealy, R-Lexington, has been blocked by Sen. Tom Corbin, R-Travelers Rest. He did not return a message from the SC Daily Gazette. But in the past, he’s said a restraining order shouldn’t take away someone’s Second Amendment rights.

A bipartisan House bill that would allow judges to issue emergency protective orders has gone nowhere since its February 2023 filing.

Martin said she can’t speak to how well police enforce protective orders once they’re issued. But in her experience, they give peace of mind and a sense of acknowledgment from the legal system to those seeking them.

“They really can help people feel supported,” Martin said.