Legislators elect 3rd female SC Supreme Court justice in state history

Left to right, retired South Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Toal, Justice Letitia Verdin and retired Justice Kaye Hearn, pose in the state House balcony, Wednesday, June 5, 2024, the day Verdin became the third woman in state history elected to the high court. (Provided by SC House photographer Sam Holland)

COLUMBIA — Legislators unanimously elected Court of Appeals Judge Letitia Verdin to the South Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday.

The addition of Verdin, 53, of Greenville County, means the Palmetto State will no longer be the nation’s only all-male high court. She becomes the third female justice in state history — following former Chief Justice Jean Toal and retired Associate Justice Kaye Hearn.

“What a glorious day for our Supreme Court to welcome now another sister,” said Toal, who was among past and present justices in attendance for Verdin’s election.

With Verdin’s election, however, South Carolina joins 18 other states with an all-white court, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. The state Supreme Court has not been all white since retiring Chief Justice Don Beatty was elected an associate justice in 2007.

Toal spoke to the importance of persuading more women and people of color to join the judiciary in the state.

“It’s a calling,” she said. “But for those of us who have chosen that route, serving the cause of justice in South Carolina, it’s rewarding and I am delighted to see people of the caliber of Letitia Verdin decide to make that their life’s work.”

Verdin will fill the opening created by Beatty’s retirement. By law, judges in South Carolina must retire from full-time work by Dec. 31 of the year they turn 72. Beatty, who turned 72 in April, will retire when his term ends July 31.

Verdin, a graduate of Furman University, worked as a prosecutor after earning her law degree from the University of South Carolina School of Law. She was an assistant solicitor in the 13th Judicial Circuit (Greenville and Pickens counties) and the 8th Judicial Circuit (Abbeville, Greenwood, Laurens, and Newberry counties). In both offices, she led the Family Court unit prosecuting juveniles, according to her judicial biography.

She has more than 15 years of experience on the state bench. She was first elected a Family Court judge in 2008, then to the Circuit Court in 2011 and the Court of Appeals just last year.

The election of Verdin, who lives in Travelers Rest, means the high court remains lopsided geographically. Four of the five justices live in the conservative Upstate. Only Justice George James, of Sumter, lives in a different region.

Beatty, too, is an Upstate resident. The former House Democrat, who was first elected to the Circuit Court in 1995 straight from the Legislature, hails from Spartanburg.

Of the past female justices, Toal — like Beatty — was a former member of the state House and a practicing lawyer for 20 years, at a time when women comprised less than 1% of licensed lawyers in South Carolina.

Legislators elected the Columbia Democrat to the high court in 1988 and in 2000 named her the state’s first — and still only — female chief justice. The led the judicial branch until December 2015, when the state’s age limit for judges forced her to retire from full-time work.

She still works as a part-time Circuit Court judge.

For several years, there were two women on the state’s high court.

Hearn served on the high court from 2009 until early 2023, after her final opinion, written for a 3-2 majority, struck down the state’s first so-called “fetal heartbeat” law as violating the state constitution’s protection from unreasonable invasions of privacy.

Following her departure, the Legislature passed a new version of the law that bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, which addressed concerns raised by Justice John Few, considered the swing vote. The newly all-male court upheld that law 4-1 last August, with Beatty the only opponent.

While it’s Beatty’s impending retirement that created the vacancy being filled by Verdin, her election is actually for the seat of Justice John Kittredge, of Greenville, once he replaces Beatty as chief justice.

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