South Carolina Attorney General Opinions
Free plain-English summaries of attorney general opinions issued in South Carolina, with full citations and the original source on every page.
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Could a South Carolina court change a California child-custody order that barred a mother from leaving California?
The 1996 letter said the state that issued a valid custody decree generally kept exclusive modification authority while it retained meaningful jurisdiction. South Carolina might consider…
Could a South Carolina family court use a bond instead of jailing someone for unpaid child support?
The 1996 informal opinion said a family court could require an appearance or performance bond to secure compliance with a support order instead of imposing a fine or imprisonment. It also described…
When did the Hampton County auditor elected in November 1996 take office?
The 1996 informal opinion said the elected auditor’s term began July 1, 1997, under the statute making the first July after election the start date. It said the comptroller should continue state…
Could a South Carolina Minority Affairs commissioner also serve on the State University board?
The 1996 informal opinion said yes. It considered a State University trusteeship a public office but said Minority Affairs Commission membership was most probably not, because its duties were mainly…
Could Allendale hold and fund a special election to change its municipal government?
The 1996 informal opinion said Allendale could hold a special election to change from council to mayor-council government through the statutory petition or ordinance route, and town funds would pay…
Could Oconee County pass a state grant to its school district despite an older county-tax funding opinion?
The 1996 informal opinion said the older AG opinion about transferring general county tax revenue did not prevent Oconee County from distributing state-origin grant money to its school district. The…
Could South Carolina release student SAT data after removing student identifiers?
The 1996 informal opinion said removing identifiers might permit release under the federal education-records law, but whether the remaining data identified students was a factual question. The AG…
Could Salley reserve all Chitlin Strut chitlin sales for the town itself?
The 1996 informal opinion questioned the validity of the town’s festival-day sales monopoly and urged the town not to enforce that portion of its ordinance. It said the AG could not invalidate an…
When did an elected Newberry County school board member’s term begin after the 1996 election?
The 1996 informal opinion said the term began on the first Tuesday in January after the election. The local act gave a four-year term but no start date, so the author applied the county-officer…
Did transferring a committed juvenile to a mental-health facility end juvenile-justice custody and parole authority?
The 1996 Attorney General opinion said no. It read the transfer statute as moving physical custody for treatment while Juvenile Justice retained legal custody, with discharge authority reserved to…
Did a South Carolina district have to provide home schooling to a student expelled for bringing a gun to school?
The 1996 informal opinion said no. The then-current statute allowed an expelled student to receive services in an alternative setting, but left placement to the local school board’s discretion and…
Could a sheriff serve a criminal warrant on someone attending family court, including a person later found to be a juvenile?
The 1996 informal opinion said court attendance gave no immunity from criminal process, so a valid criminal warrant could be served. It also said an officer had to execute a warrant valid on its…
Could a South Carolina school consortium charge other districts initial and annual fees to use its televised Spanish lessons?
The 1996 informal opinion said yes. It concluded that the consortium, educational television agency, and nonmember districts had contracting authority and no identified statutory bar to initial or…
Did a breath test below 0.10 require a South Carolina officer to drop a DUI charge in 1996?
The 1996 informal opinion said a reading below 0.10 did not automatically defeat a DUI charge; readings in the intermediate range could be considered with other evidence. If an issued DUI ticket was…
Could a South Carolina credit union add unrelated employee groups under the 1996 common-bond law?
The 1996 informal opinion said the new state credit-union law required a common bond across the groups in one credit union, not just within each added group. It treated the older regulation allowing…
Did one South Carolina concealed-carry permit cover every handgun a person owned in 1996?
The 1996 opinion accepted SLED’s reading that the permit covered only the type of handgun with which the holder qualified, based on the act’s reference to firing “the handgun” during training. The…
Could a South Carolina county council set holidays for staff employed by elected county officials?
The 1996 informal opinion said county government could set holiday policy for employees in elected officials’ offices as a general personnel rule. It said the county could not dictate the holidays…
Could inactive voter signatures count on a South Carolina public service district nominating petition in 1996?
The 1996 informal opinion said inactive voters did not count as qualified electors under the then-cited definition. It said the State Election Commission lacked authority to certify a candidate…
Could South Carolina’s health agency move its coastal division under another division without legislative approval?
The 1996 Attorney General opinion said no. Although DHEC had broad reorganization power, reducing the separate coastal division to a bureau within another division counted as dissolving that…
Could South Carolina’s governor appoint a temporary county council member while a special election was pending?
For the vacancy considered in this 1996 opinion, no. More than 180 days remained in the deceased member’s term, so the office advised that a special election was required and the governor lacked…
Did a South Carolina sheriff already in office in 1993 need to file a candidate affidavit for reelection in 1996?
The opinion said a sheriff who held office on July 1, 1993 and remained in office did not need a copy of the sworn affidavit on file with the county election commission to qualify for reelection. It…
Could Beaufort County put the word “accelerate” in a transportation sales tax ballot question?
The 1996 opinion said yes. Reading the ordinance as a whole, it considered “accelerate” descriptive of the transportation project and unlikely to prejudice voters for or against the measure.
Who controlled judges and support staff in a South Carolina council-manager municipal court?
The 1996 opinion said the city council appointed municipal judges and ministerial recorders, while the city manager employed and supervised nonjudicial court support staff. The council also had…
Did South Carolina’s 1996 concealed weapons permit law change when civilians could use force?
The opinion said the 1996 permit law changed who could lawfully possess a concealable weapon but did not alter the legal elements governing self-defense or other civilian uses of force. It supplied…
When did a South Carolina town have to pay a county jail for its prisoners?
The 1996 opinion repeated earlier guidance that a town generally bore the cost of people held for municipal-court matters, while the county bore the cost of state-law charges within general sessions…
Did a South Carolina school budget hearing have to let members of the public speak?
The 1996 opinion said the public had to have an opportunity to speak and express views at budget hearings covered by the cited statute. The office declined to decide whether a particular district’s…
Did South Carolina’s 1996 charter school racial-enrollment limit compare a school with its district or its attendance zone?
The opinion read the 1996 limit as comparing charter school enrollment with the racial composition of the entire school district, not an attendance area. It raised a constitutional concern about the…
Which South Carolina state officials qualified for the MUSC hospital payment rate under the 1996 appropriations provision?
The 1996 opinion read “state employees and officials of state government” broadly to include state employees and public officers. It identified a specific statutory exception for General Assembly…
Were South Carolina bail bondsmen’s monthly reports open to competitors under public records law?
The 1996 opinion said the reports appeared to be public records, but disclosure was uncertain and might be limited by personal privacy concerns. It left individual requests to the clerk of court and…
Could an Irmo fire district commissioner also serve on the Lexington-Richland school board?
The 1996 opinion said simultaneous service on the fire district board and the school board would probably violate South Carolina’s dual-office rule. A University of South Carolina business manager…
Who supervised nonjudicial staff in Rock Hill’s municipal court in 1996?
The opinion assigned day-to-day authority over nonjudicial court staff to Rock Hill’s city manager. The city council decided whether to establish a municipal court, selected its judges and…
Could an off-duty South Carolina officer carry a pistol into a bar outside the officer’s jurisdiction?
The 1996 opinion said the law-enforcement exception allowed the officer to carry statewide whether on or off duty, including into a business serving alcohol for on-premises consumption. It did not…
Was driving in South Carolina with a license suspended by another state treated as driving under suspension?
The 1996 opinion said yes: an out-of-state suspension remained a suspension for purposes of the South Carolina driving-under-suspension charge. It also said expiration of the suspension term alone…
Could South Carolina’s governor accept a whole town council’s resignations and leave the offices vacant?
The 1996 opinion said the governor lacked authority to accept New Ellenton’s mayoral and council resignations, so those submissions did not take effect. It added that even effective resignations by…
Could the Pee Dee Regional Transportation Authority add counties outside its original six-county region?
The 1996 opinion said an authority formed under the earlier statutes might expand beyond its original region if a local governing body passed a resolution and the authority approved it by majority…
Could a South Carolina officer seek a domestic violence arrest warrant after the suspect left the scene?
Yes. The 1996 opinion found no bar to an officer serving as the warrant affiant when the officer could present probable cause to a magistrate. It also found no bar to later service at another place,…
Could a South Carolina legislative nominee withdraw because a new employer barred employees from running for office?
The 1996 opinion said the employer policy fit the statute’s substantial-business-conflict category of legitimate nonpolitical reasons. If the nominee filed a sworn affidavit valid on its face and…
How could South Carolina collect an unpaid civil fine for drug paraphernalia in 1996?
The AG said the drug-paraphernalia fine could most probably be recovered through a civil action brought by a public official. He regarded the Court of Common Pleas as the preferable forum because a…
Could South Carolina use Enterprise Development, Inc. for a German sister-state exchange program?
The 1996 opinion said Enterprise Development, Inc. would most probably remain within its amended bylaws if it undertook the described German exchange work for the State. That assessment rested on…
Could a Beaufort County elections board member also serve on another South Carolina board?
The 1996 opinion said membership on the Beaufort County elections and voter-registration board counted as public office for the dual-office rule. It could not decide every possible second board in…
Could a Kershaw County transportation committee member also serve on its water and sewer authority?
The 1996 opinion said concurrent service would most probably be allowed. It treated transportation committee membership as an office but concluded, with acknowledged doubt, that the water and sewer…
Could the Patriots Point Development Authority lease property for development?
The 1996 opinion said the Authority’s statutory power to lease property was clear. It understood that the Budget and Control Board had already approved the master lease and that subparcel leases…
Could a South Carolina student retake the high school exit exam in the summer after junior year?
The 1996 opinion said state law did not appear to bar officials from authorizing the summer exam for a student who had failed portions twice and completed junior-year credits. It expressly did not…
Did a South Carolina officer have to witness an ordinance violation to issue an ordinance summons?
The 1996 opinion said the ordinance-summons statute contained no requirement that the officer personally witness the offense. It distinguished the summons from a custodial arrest and urged a court…
Did South Carolina’s 1996 school health-education rules apply to guest speakers and teachers of other subjects?
The 1996 opinion said the Comprehensive Health Act appeared to apply when instruction by a visitor or a teacher of another subject covered a topic within the Act. Whether a particular presentation…
Could a Spartanburg technical-education commissioner also serve on the city construction appeals board?
The 1996 opinion concluded that simultaneous service would probably violate South Carolina’s dual-office rule. It treated the education commission role as an office and said the appeals board…
Could a sheriff serve a South Carolina family court child-support arrest order on Sunday?
The 1996 opinion said the described order was most probably civil process because detention could end when the person complied with the child-support order. Civil process of that kind was generally…
Could a South Carolina town add its own fee for processing expungement orders?
The 1996 opinion warned that a municipal expungement-processing fee appeared constitutionally questionable because the State prescribed uniform court fees. It did not declare an ordinance invalid…
Would Richland County council seats become vacant if redistricting delayed the next election?
The 1996 opinion said council members whose terms expired before successors could be chosen would continue as de facto officers until successors were elected and qualified. It left the…
Who could authorize dirt-track racing on Sunday in South Carolina in 1996?
The 1996 opinion advised obtaining a permit under the Sunday-event statute, especially if ticket sales, admission or other preparations began before 1:30 p.m. The statute assigned permitting to the…
Could Charleston police investigate a crash involving one of their employees driving someone else’s private car?
The 1996 opinion said the police department was covered by the statute barring an agency from investigating a collision involving its own employee and a privately owned vehicle. The result did not…
Did a South Carolina sheriff have to obey another county court’s order to transport a prisoner?
The 1996 opinion said a sheriff receiving a transport order valid on its face had to execute it, even when compliance required work outside the sheriff’s county. The order remained binding unless…
How did military leave count for a South Carolina corrections employee working 12-hour shifts?
The 1996 opinion said the employee could take up to fifteen regularly scheduled work days of military leave, even when those days were twelve-hour shifts. It also said alternative scheduling could…
Did a 1996 South Carolina expungement order require police to destroy the whole investigation file?
The 1996 opinion distinguished records that log the arrest and charge, which had to be purged under the cited expungement laws, from investigative work product and evidence. It said incident reports…
Who must a South Carolina city notify and cite when a train blocks a street crossing?
The 1996 opinion said notice should go to the conductor, engineer, agent, or other person in charge for each obstructing train. A citation required identifying a responsible person from the facts;…
Can a South Carolina mental health center overrule a doctor’s emergency commitment decision?
The 1996 opinion said the examining physician had to consult the local mental health center about admission and alternatives, but the center could not veto the physician’s disposition decision. The…
Could Myrtle Beach’s base redevelopment authority approve a federal land transfer to a Bible college?
The 1996 opinion said the authority’s approval of a federal conveyance to a Bible college did not appear to violate state or federal rules on government support of religion, given the stated facts.…
Must South Carolina campus police help private process servers or vehicle repossessors?
The 1996 opinion endorsed the college police chief’s general practice of allowing private service or repossession to proceed while officers stood by for trouble. It said officers should address…
Could a former owner bid at auction for a vehicle forfeited after a South Carolina DUI or suspended-license offense?
The 1996 opinion said the former owner could bid at the required public auction and could buy the forfeited vehicle if the bid won. Forfeiture ended the owner’s prior title, and the opinion said the…
Could a South Carolina resort refuse a house party and require deposits for minors?
The 1996 opinion said an innkeeper could refuse a house party when there was reason to expect unlawful drinking, other lawbreaking, or disruption. It also said the statute allowed security from each…
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Attorney general opinions in South Carolina are written by the South Carolina Attorney General's office in response to questions from state agencies, legislators, and prosecutors. They are not binding like court decisions, but courts and agencies treat them as persuasive guidance on how state law applies. Every opinion above has a plain-English question and short answer, plus a link to the full original text.