SC Judge Benjamin praised by Democrats, grilled by GOP senators over past case decisions

South Carolina Judge DeAndrea Gist Benjamin found herself the center of both praise and criticism Tuesday before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee as she seeks a seat on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Benjamin, who for 11 years has worked as a 5th Judicial Circuit state judge overseeing civil and criminal trials in Richland and Kershaw counties, told senators she has committed her life to the American judicial system.

“And it would be an honor and a privilege to continue my service on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals,” she said.

President Joe Biden nominated Benjamin, the wife of former Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin, to the bench in August. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals is one of the nation’s 13 appellate courts and is one step below the U.S. Supreme Court. Often, Supreme Court justices are plucked from the nation’s appellate courts. The appeals court is authorized 15 judges from Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia and North and South Carolina.

Introducing Benjamin to senators Tuesday was U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, a Columbia Democrat who called Benjamin a “longtime friend,” saying he recommended the Columbia High School, Winthrop University and University of South Carolina School of Law graduate to Biden for consideration to fill the vacancy created by Judge Henry Floyd’s assumption of senior, or semi-retired, status on the court.

“I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Judge Benjamin for her entire life,” said Clyburn, adding her family are fixtures in South Carolina’s capital city.

Noting Benjamin’s young daughters in attendance, Clyburn, who pushed Biden to nominate the first Black woman to the Supreme Court, said Benjamin “sets an example for those girls, my granddaughters and others similarly situated that anything is possible.”

Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said Tuesday that Benjamin brings “the whole package.”

Acknowledging her lengthy history as a lawyer and judge — Benjamin worked as a clerk for state Judge Casey Manning, worked for the 5th Circuit Solicitor’s Office, was an assistant state attorney general under former Attorney General Charlie Condon and also served as a municipal judge — Durbin also noted that she has the support of Clyburn and backing from the state’s two Republican senators, Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, via blue slips.

“I don’t know how you did it, but you did, and it’s an amazing demonstration of belief in what you’ve produced in your life and what you can produce in years to follow,” Durbin said.

Senate Republicans skewer past rulings

But while Democratic senators commended Benjamin for her years of public service and work across South Carolina, several Republican senators focused much of their questioning on three of her past rulings — one case in particular.

In August 2020, while out on bond for the 2017 murder of Mayra Sanchez in Richland County, Albertus Lewis shot and injured two Lexington County deputies responding to a domestic disturbance at an apartment complex off Bush River Road. When deputies arrived, Lewis was using a child as a “human shield while armed with a handgun,” the warrant said.

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who opened his remarks criticizing the Biden administration for “exacerbating” what he said was the release of violent citizens, asked Benjamin whether releasing Lewis on bond was a mistake.

Benjamin, who by this point in her roughly 40-minute back-and-forth with senators had already responded to a similar question, said Lewis initially was denied bond on the Richland murder charge when he first stepped into her courtroom. Benjamin said she only gave bond after the state violated the court’s order to try the case, noting discovery was missing and Lewis had asserted his constitutional right to a speedy trial.

“That was after two years when he initially was before me and I denied his bond,” she said. “In considering any bond, I consider the U.S. Constitution, the South Carolina Constitution and I have to consider the bond statute of the General Assembly in South Carolina.”

That’s not any comfort to the families of the sheriff’s office deputies, Cruz responded.

Both cases involving Lewis, from 2017 and 2020, are listed as pending in court records. Lewis remains jailed in Lexington County.

Benjamin also defended herself in two other cases.

One was the case of Troy Stevenson, who in 2018 was acquitted of murder in the 2013 shooting death of Kelly Hunnewell. Prior to that case, Stevenson, who didn’t kill Hunnewell but was described as the lookout, came before Benjamin on a burglary charge and was given bond.

Trying to paint Stevenson as a danger to the community, Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn asked Benjamin to justify her reasons for issuing bond on the burglary charge. Stevenson, Benjamin said, was a juvenile when he came to her and did not at that time have a criminal record. Those charges were later dismissed, she added.

In another case, Benjamin defended her decision to lower a prison sentence to 28 years from an original 30-year sentence for an inmate convicted of murder, explaining an official at the state Department of Corrections petitioned the court asking for a reduction because of his assistance in handling issues of gang violence in prison.

A letter Benjamin said she received from a corrections official said the inmate “unequivocally saved the lives of corrections officers.”

In other examples of sentences not mentioned Tuesday, Benjamin in 2019 sentenced a woman to 21 years in prison with no parole after she pleaded guilty to felony DUI for killing a Lexington County motorcyclist. And, in 2013, in the case of Brett Parker, a Midlands bookie convicted of killing his wife and friend in a plot to free himself from a mountain of debts by collecting an insurance policy on his wife, Benjamin sentenced him to life in prison without parole.

“I take seriously the oath that I have taken to uphold and protect the constitution of my state and the United States of America,” Benjamin said Tuesday.

Of the thousands of cases Benjamin said she’s handled in her more than 18-year career, Durbin said staff found somewhere around 59 of her decisions had been appealed, and about 10 to 11 decisions of hers had been reversed.

That would put Benjamin, Durbin said, in the “99.9% category of getting it right.”

“You’re qualified to serve on the circuit bench, and thank you for appearing before us today,” Durbin finished.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote at a later date whether to advance Benjamin’s nomination.