South Carolina Criminal Defense Blog

Although I have not seen the memo, the Sun News is reporting that Chief Justice Toal sent out a memo to municipal courts today warning that the new system of "administrative courts" that are being set up to handle ordinances such as Myrtle Beach's anti-biker laws and other cities' smoking bans are in violation of the state constitution.

Chief Justice Jean Hoefer Toal on March 23 issued a one-paragraph memo to county and city administrators, attorneys and council chairs that says she received information that some counties and municipalities "are attempting to create by local ordinance another tier of courts, typically designated as 'administrative hearing courts'" to deal with smoking bans and other local ordinance violations. . . .

Toal calls the administrative hearing system "repugnant" to the state's uniform judicial system, and says setting up administrative hearing courts violates articles V and VIII of the state constitution.

Several lawsuits have been filed already over the Myrtle Beach ordinances and one of them challenges the constitutionality of the administrative hearing process as well. Besides the constitutional problems, the idea of passing a set of ordinances for the sole purpose of running a running a group of people out of town is disgusting and should not be something that Americans anywhere should stand for in this day and age. As I said before, Bikers Welcome - Come to Myrtle Beach, be loud, and don't wear your helmet. If they write you a ticket, pay it or fight it but don't let them run an entire group of people out of town.

Related posts:
Myrtle Beach's helmet law
Myrtle Beach begins enforcement of ordinances designed to force out bike rally
Myrtle Beach continues efforts to shut down the May bike rally
Three lawsuits filed to declare Myrtle Beach's bike rally ordinances unconstitutional
Matt Brown weighs in