Review the Agenda here:  2012 Law Enforcement Legislative Agenda

Application Process:
Interested applicants must submit the following:

1. State of South Carolina employment application (located at the following link:)
   PDF File of State Application
2. Cover Letter
3. Resume

Applicants should upload each document to the Attorney General’s Office website using the form below. All documents should be in pdf format saved with the following document titles:

• LastName_FirstName_Resume
• LastName_FirstName_Coverletter
• LastName_FirstName_Application

All documents must be uploaded at one time. Applicants will not have an opportunity to save a portion of their application and return later to submit the remaining documents.

All applicants are required to submit to standard background checks that include a criminal history check, driver’s license check, and a drug screening. Law Clerks assigned to the Prosecution/State Grand Jury Section are required to complete and pass a more extensive background check and take an oath of secrecy. Law Clerks so sworn must keep the confidence of the state grand jury and not disclose the testimony of a witness or other evidence received by it to anyone except as authorized by law. Law Clerks must maintain confidentiality even beyond the duration of their employment with this Office.

Applications must be submitted no later than 5:00 pm on March 9, 2012. No applications will be accepted after the deadline. The Office will begin accepting fall semester applications in July 2012.

Upon the end of the clerkship, the Office can make no obligation to hire law clerks as permanent or non-permanent employees. All law clerks serve at-will.

The attorneys general wrote a letter to the Secretaries of the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Treasury, and Labor, informing them that if such a mandate is promulgated, the states are “prepared to vigorously oppose it in court.”

Regarding the mandate, Wilson said, “The proposed mandate would clearly be an unconstitutional burden on religious entities that currently provide health care to their employees.”

“Such an action would be an unprecedented and troubling coercion of organizations and individuals to act contrary to their religious beliefs.”

Read the full letter here :  AGs Letter on Religious Liberty

“This ‘settlement in principle’ provides certain protections for consumers dealing with the difficult issue of mortgage foreclosure,” said Wilson. “It also provides certain guidelines for how these mortgage servicers should operate going forward.”

State Attorneys General Component
The settlement puts in place the first-ever nationwide reforms to mortgage servicing standards for the five largest servicers. The standards require these servicers to offer a single point of contact, adequate staffing levels and training, better communication with borrowers and appropriate standards for executing documents in foreclosure cases. In addition, these mortgage servicers have agreed to end improper fees and dual-track foreclosures for many loans.

The five banks will now be required to regularly report compliance with the settlement to an independent, outside monitor that reports to state Attorneys General.
Servicers will be required to pay penalties for non-compliance with the settlement, including missed deadlines.
Approximately $2.5 billion will be paid to the participating states. South Carolina’s share will be approximately $32.8 million. In addition, each state’s banking regulator will receive $1 million for foreclosure prevention and education.

In addition, $1.5 billion will be distributed to certain borrowers who experienced foreclosure.

Federal Component
The federal portion of the settlement requires the five banks to provide assistance to borrowers in danger of foreclosure who have the intent and ability to stay in their homes. With these funds, the five banks will provide multiple forms of assistance including refinancing assistance, loan modification, facilitation of short sales, unemployed payment forbearance, relocation assistance, waiving of deficiency balances and funding for remediation of blighted properties. This assistance is valued at $17 billion.
In addition, the settlement requires the banks to offer refinancing to other borrowers who are current on their payments but whose mortgages currently exceed their home’s value. This assistance is valued at $3 billion.

For Borrowers
Due to the complexity of the mortgage market and this agreement, which will be executed over a three-year period, borrowers will not immediately know if they are eligible for relief.

For loan modifications and refinance options, borrowers may be contacted directly by one of the five participating mortgage servicers. Banks will be conducting a vigorous search to identify eligible borrowers and this may take six to nine months. Some eligible borrowers who experienced foreclosure will be contacted by a settlement administrator regarding a monetary payment. In addition, the settlement requires the banks to offer refinancing to other borrowers who are current on their payments but whose mortgages currently exceed their home’s value. This assistance is valued at $3 billion.

Borrowers who think they may qualify for loan modifications may wish to contact banks directly:
Bank of America: 877-488-7814
Citi: 866-272-4749
Chase: 866-372-6901
GMAC: 800-766-4622
Wells Fargo: 1-800-288-3212

For the details, latest information and/or updates on the settlement, visit: www.NationalMortgageSettlement.com.

The DOJ has refused to allow South Carolina to enact its Voter I.D. law, claiming it does not adequately protect voters from discrimination, per the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  However, very similar laws have been upheld by the United States Supreme Court (in the case of Indiana), and even pre-cleared by the DOJ itself (in the case of Georgia).

The state’s Voter I.D. law was passed in 2011, and requires voters to show photo identification.  The identification can be obtained free of charge from the S.C. Department of Motor Vehicles.

The complaint explains: “The covered voting changes in Act R54 [Voter I.D. law] do not and will not prohibit any voter in South Carolina from voting for or electing his or her preferred candidate of choice.”

In fact, “South Carolina’s photo identification law does not bar anyone from voting, but merely imposes on voters a responsibility to obtain an approved photo identification card and to bring it to the polls unless one of the exemptions in Section 5 of Act R54 applies.”

Said Attorney General Wilson, “The DOJ has denied citizens in South Carolina protection of a law that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in Indiana, and the DOJ itself pre-cleared for Georgia.”

Citing the provisions in Section 5 of the Voter I.D. that provide voters with an ability to vote after swearing an affidavit, Wilson explained, “Nothing in this law prevents anyone from voting if they cannot immediately show a valid photo identification.”

Read South Carolina’s complaint:
Voter ID Complaint

# # #

Ghosts haunt crooks on line

Internet crimes task force finding success

By LaDonna Beeker

The Journal

OCONEE COUNTY — Westminster Police Sgt. Gordon Hopkins starts his computer, turns on the recording program and signs in to a Yahoo music chat room. Today, he is a 12-year-old female.

Minutes later a 26-year-old male supposedly living in Miami, Fla., begins a chat.

“ASL?” asks the adult male, after his initial “hey” and “what’s up?” It’s a chat acronym to ask another person’s age, sex and location.

“I tell them the minor age, and sometimes they leave at that point or they hang around and chat,” Hopkins said.

If the chatter continues with the “minor,” there’s a chance a crime is about to be committed.

Hopkins is one of many trained investigators in South Carolina who is a part of an Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force run out of the S.C. Attorney General office.

Among the 55 affiliated agencies across the state are the Westminster Police Department, Oconee County Sheriff’s Office, Pickens County Sheriff’s Office and Central and Clemson police departments.

“The mission and goal of the task forces from day one has been to protect children from crimes that are facilitated through technology against them,” said Deborah Shupe, commander for the S.C. Attorney General ICAC.

ICAC History

South Carolina was one of 10 task forces started in 1998 by the Department of Justice.

“Originally in the task forces, the focus was on education and trying to educate the public,” Shupe said. “In around 2002 or so, the focus from Washington (D.C.) shifted to investigation and prosecution. We now actively investigate and prosecute cases.”

In 2004, the criminal solicitation of a minor law was enacted, Shupe said, which opened more doors for prosecution as suspects could be arrested before ever touching a child.

The task force made its first arrest in January 2005.

In 2008, the U.S. Congress passed the Protect our Children Act, which Shupe said codified ICAC. With the new law, there must be an ICAC task force in every state, funded on an annual basis.

The Attorney General’s office continues to receive federal funds that pay for most ICAC activities. The amount South Carolina receives varies annually based on a formula that includes the number of cyber tips and population in a jurisdiction.

“Of the 61 task forces (in the nation), we are somewhere in the middle of the funding,” Shupe said. “For a state our size, we are doing a good job. We are getting cyber tips and making the arrests.”

Becoming an investigator

Internet investigators are typically recommended by their agency or by request. For Hopkins and Investigator Justin Ward, of the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office, becoming an ICAC officer came with personal interest and a desire to stop Internet predators.

“We are looking for predators,” Hopkins said. “We are in the business of protecting children.”

Before an officer can become certified to go undercover online, several classes and first-hand training with another ICAC investigator are required.

“We have to have basic computer skills, preparation to get online, set up websites to visit, create an underage persona, learn lingo of the age portrayed and learn the computer software, which is a tool to capture screen shots and discussions,” Hopkins said.

Hopkins took a pre-test to be accepted into the course through the Attorney General’s office. Once trained and set up for work, everything has to be documented and recorded.

“Legal issues (are) involved, so documentation is key,” Hopkins said. “Your proof is your evidence.”

When an officer signs on, it records the Internet provider address, places a time stamp all on software to display who the investigator is and records every chat the officer has with screen shots as the chat takes place.

Investigators can track the user’s IP address and also request a screenshot of the suspect’s screen and send that to a judge when requesting a warrant.

Three prosecutors in the Attorney General’s office handle only ICAC cases. They are available to investigators daily to filter legal questions or resolve problems officers might have with a case. ICAC members also work with agencies in other counties and states, depending on the location of the suspect.

The amount of time and the time of day an investigator chats undercover varies depending on manpower and online activity.

Predators, Hopkins said, are online day and night and sometimes even access chat rooms while at work.

A success

South Carolina has more predators behind bars or banned from accessing the Internet than it did about 10 years ago.

“There are around 300 people that would be online soliciting children or trading child pornography in South Carolina and might have actually reached out and harmed a child, who are not in a position to do that now and are prosecuted,” Shupe said.

Offenders can also be required to register as a sex offenders.

With more grant money, the Attorney General’s office was able to create an in-house lab to process computer hard drives seized from suspects.

“We always want to expand,” Shupe said. “We are outnumbered. There is no way we can get all the bad guys. We certainly can’t arrest our way out of the problem.”

###

ICAC cases prosecuted in South Carolina

Statewide – 300
Oconee – 21
Pickens – 2

ICAC convictions

Statewide – 190
Oconee – 18 convicted/3 pending
Pickens – 2 convicted

Source: S.C. Attorney General’s Office