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Charlie Condon | |
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49th Attorney General of South Carolina | |
In office January 15, 1995 –January 15, 2003 | |
Governor | David Beasley Jim Hodges |
Preceded by | Thomas Medlock |
Succeeded by | Henry McMaster |
Personal details | |
Born | Charles Molony Condon Charleston,South Carolina,U.S. |
Political party | Republican |
Spouse | Emily Condon |
Alma mater | University of Notre Dame (B.A.) Duke University (J.D.) |
Profession | Attorney |
Charles Molony Condon,known as Charlie Condon (born c. 1953),is a former Attorney General of the U.S. state of South Carolina. For part of his term,he concurrently served as the first chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association. Condon is also a former Ninth Circuit solicitor (1980-1991);when he was elected to the position at the age of 27,he became the youngest solicitor in the history of South Carolina. In 2008,he was the chairman of John McCain's presidential campaign in South Carolina. He currently is an attorney in private practice in Mt. Pleasant outside his native Charleston,South Carolina.
Condon was first elected attorney general in 1994. In his reelection in 1998,he defeated,54-46 percent,the Democratic nominee,lawyer Tom Turnipseed,of the capital city of Columbia.
University of Notre Dame in South Bend,Indiana,Bachelor of Arts,1975, magna cum laude
While attorney general,Condon directed all prosecutors to follow a no-drop policy in domestic violence-related cases,even if victims are reluctant to press charges. [1] (He also successfully pushed) The victims' bill of rights,. . . (which),would require that crime victims be treated "with fairness,respect and dignity." Prosecutors would have to tell crime victims about changes in their cases and give them access to case records after investigation are closed. Judges would ensure the mandates were followed. [2]
Condon announced as the first chairman of the association,that the members would act as a policy organization to promote Republican ideas of limited government,crime fighting,and individual responsibility.
Asked about the new activism by many attorneys general,Mr. Condon,though cautioning that he could not speak for all Republicans in the post,said the line between the legislature and a state's chief legal executive had to be carefully drawn. Pointing to the national battle over teen-age smoking as an example,he said,'I think everyone has his role,and in terms of limited government the idea of what should and shouldn't be done through the legislature rather thanthrough the judicial branch raises some serious questions.'" [3]
In 2001,Attorney General Condon declared an open season on home invaders. He mandated that,"citizens' defending their home against invasion should not be arrested,charged or prosecuted." [4] "The message needs to be sent loudly and clearly that the state is going to back the homeowner if their home is invaded," he said in an interview. "I'm putting home invaders on notice that if an occupant chooses to use deadly force,there will be no prosecution."But Mr. Condon said he was tired of seeing homeowners who defended their homes dragged through lengthy investigations and trials before being cleared,when it was obvious to him that they did nothing wrong.
"You don't want to put the homeowner in the position of saying,'If I use deadly force,I might be cleared after a trial,'" Mr. Condon said. "That's tantamount to saying that people have rights,but there's a huge cross attached to it. Most courts have a laissez-faire attitude about these things,figuring that everything will come out fine after a trial. But I think we need to send the message that the home is sacred ground,period." [5]
While serving as Attorney General for South Carolina,Condon argued as respondent in the case Reno v. Condon . Congress enacted the Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994 (DPPA),which establishes a regulatory scheme that restricts the States' ability to disclose a driver's personal information without the driver's consent,after finding that many States sell such information. The DPPA conflicts with South Carolina law,under which information contained in the State's DMV records is available to any person or entity that fills out a form listing the requester's name and address and stating that the information will not be used for telephone solicitation. The Attorney General of South Carolina filed suit,alleging the DPPA violated the Tenth and Eleventh Amendments. After success in District court and Appeals Court,the suit wound up in front of the Supreme Court. Condon was successful in the Appeals Court which ruled that Congress was stepping illegally into state territory and noted further that there exists no constitutional right to privacy in information contained in public records. South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon,when hearing that the Supreme Court agreement to hear the case,said he believed citizens have a right to keep their privacy protected—which he says is guaranteed by a clause in the South Carolina Constitution. But the real question is who should be enforcing that protection Condon said. Condon and other state officials strongly believe that states should have full autonomy when it comes to administering public records. In the case before the Supreme Court,South Carolina will argue that the new federal law violates the 10th Amendment. [6]
"The people of Carolina established drivers' records,maintained them,and have a right to determine their use," he said in a statement. "South Carolina should be run by South Carolinians. If the federal government can tell us what to do with these records,it can tell us we can't keep records at all. The 10th Amendment is the legal and spiritual guardian of state rights. Washington,D.C.,is a long way from South Carolina,and the federal government needs to keep its distance." [7]
Condon's appearance was received by the Court as political,and his position garnered a lively and entertaining round of questions from the more liberal members of the Court. [8]
Whitner vs. State of South Carolina,328 S.C.1,492 S.E. 2d 771(1997)
State ex rel Condon vs. Hodges,349 S.C. 232,562 S.E. 2d 623 (2002)
Condon is a private practice attorney in Mt. Pleasant,South Carolina. He specializes in the areas of Criminal Defense;Criminal Law;White Collar Crime;Drug Crimes;Juvenile Criminal Law;Personal Injury;Workers' Compensation;Automobile Accidents and Injuries;Wrongful Death;Government Relations;Government;Litigation;Administrative Law;Guardianship and Conservatorship;Workers Compensation;Professional Licensing.
In United States law, an Alford plea, also called a Kennedy plea in West Virginia, an Alford guilty plea, and the Alford doctrine, is a guilty plea in criminal court, whereby a defendant in a criminal case does not admit to the criminal act and asserts innocence, but accepts imposition of a sentence. This plea is allowed even if the evidence to be presented by the prosecution would be likely to persuade a judge or jury to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This can be caused by circumstantial evidence and testimony favoring the prosecution, and difficulty finding evidence and witnesses that would aid the defense.
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. It prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and sets requirements for issuing warrants: warrants must be issued by a judge or magistrate, justified by probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and must particularly describe the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.
Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution requires U.S. states to provide attorneys to criminal defendants who are unable to afford their own. The case extended the right to counsel, which had been found under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to impose requirements on the federal government, by imposing those requirements upon the states as well.
Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that U.S. state laws criminalizing sodomy between consenting adults are unconstitutional. The Court reaffirmed the concept of a "right to privacy" that earlier cases had found the U.S. Constitution provides, even though it is not explicitly enumerated. It based its ruling on the notions of personal autonomy to define one's own relationships and of American traditions of non-interference with any or all forms of private sexual activities between consenting adults.
Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that upheld, in a 5–4 ruling, the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law criminalizing oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults, in this case with respect to homosexual sodomy, though the law did not differentiate between homosexual and heterosexual sodomy. It was overturned in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), though the statute had already been struck down by the Georgia Supreme Court in 1998.
Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 (1969), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that helped to establish an implied "right to privacy" in U.S. law in the form of mere possession of obscene materials.
A rape shield law is a law that limits the ability to introduce evidence about the past sexual activity of a complainant in a sexual assault trial, or that limits cross-examination of complainants about their past sexual behaviour in sexual assault cases. The term also refers to a law that prohibits the publication of the identity of a complainant in a sexual assault case.
Holmes v. South Carolina, 547 U.S. 319 (2006), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court involving the right of a criminal defendant to present evidence that a third party instead committed the crime. The Court vacated the rape and murder conviction in South Carolina of a man who had been denied the opportunity to present evidence of a third party's guilt, because the trial court believed the prosecutor's forensic evidence was too strong for the defendant's evidence to raise an inference of innocence. The Court ruled unanimously that this exclusion violated the right of a defendant to have a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense, because the strength of a prosecutor's case had no logical relationship to whether a defendant's evidence was too weak to be admissible.
Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407 (2008), is a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which held that the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause prohibits the imposition of the death penalty for a crime in which the victim did not die and the victim's death was not intended.
Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U.S. 469 (1975), was a United States Supreme Court case involving freedom of the press publishing public information. The Court held that both a Georgia statute prohibiting the release of a rape victim's name and its common-law privacy action counterpart were unconstitutional. The case was argued on November 11, 1974, and decided on March 3, 1975.
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Reno v. Condon, 528 U.S. 141 (2000), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994 (DPPA) against a Tenth Amendment challenge.
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Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U.S. 365 (1986), was a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that clarified the relationship of the right to effective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment to other constitutional rights in criminal procedure. In this case, evidence against the defendant was probably seized illegally, violating the Fourth Amendment, but he lost the chance to argue that point due to his lawyer's ineffectiveness. The prosecution argued that the defendant's attempt to make a Sixth Amendment argument via a habeas corpus petition was really a way to sneak his Fourth Amendment argument in through the back door. The Court unanimously disagreed, and held that the Fourth Amendment issue and the Sixth Amendment issue represented different constitutional values, and had different requirements for prevailing in court, and therefore were to be treated separately by rules of procedure. Therefore, the habeas corpus petition could go forward. In its opinion, the Court also gave guidance on how to apply its decisions in Stone v. Powell and Strickland v. Washington.
Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 91 (1990), is a landmark search and seizure case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. In a 7-2 decision, the court held that a person staying as a guest in the house of another had a legal expectation of privacy, and that a warrantless entry into that house to arrest the person tainted the arrest and the individual's subsequent statements.