Kaye Hearn
Kaye Hearn was a judge of the South Carolina Supreme Court Associate Justice. She assumed office on January 14, 2010. She left office on December 31, 2022.
Hearn was required to resign from the court once she reached the mandatory retirement age of 72.[1]
Hearn was elected to the court on May 13, 2009, and sworn in on January 14, 2010.[2] She is the second woman to serve on the South Carolina Supreme Court.[3] To read more about judicial selection in South Carolina, click here.
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country. As part of this study, we assigned each justice a Confidence Score describing our confidence in the degree of partisanship exhibited by the justices' past partisan behavior, before they joined the court.[4] Hearn received a confidence score of Mild Republican.[5] Click here to read more about this study.
Biography
Hearn received a B.A. degree from Bethany College in 1972, a J.D. from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 1977, and an L.L.M. degree from the University of Virginia's Graduate Program for Judges in 1998.[6] She received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the Charleston School of Law in 2010, an honorary degree from Francis Marion University in 2011, and an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of South Carolina in 2013.[7]
After graduating from law school, Hearn clerked with Julius B. Ness, a former member of the South Carolina Supreme Court. She then went into private practice, and in 1986, Hearn joined the 15th District Family Court. A year later, she became the chief administrative judge on the court, a position she served in until her election to the South Carolina Court of Appeals in 1995. Hearn was elected chief judge of that court in 1999. She was elected to the South Carolina Supreme Court in 2009.[6]
In 2011, Hearn was awarded the Jean Galloway Bissell Award by the South Carolina Women Lawyers’ Association.[7] She was also a 2004 South Carolina Trial Lawyers' portrait honoree. Hearn has held memberships on the Nelson Mullis Riley & Scarborough Professionalism Committee, the Chief Justice's Commission on the Profession, the Alternate Dispute Resolution Commission, the South Carolina Board of Bar Examiners, and the Partnership Board for the University of South Carolina Law School.[6] She was also the Chair for the 2011 Docket Management Task Force.[8]
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Elections
- See also: Legislative election
Justices of the South Carolina Supreme Court are chosen by the South Carolina General Assembly from a list of names provided by a nominating commission. Although official sources use the term election to describe this process, because it does not involve voters casting ballots in an open election, Ballotpedia considers this process an appointment.
2009
Hearn was appointed to the South Carolina Supreme Court by a vote of the South Carolina General Assembly in 2009.[6]
1999
Hearn was appointed as chief judge of the South Carolina Court of Appeals by a vote of the South Carolina General Assembly in 1999.[6]
1995
Hearn was appointed to the South Carolina Court of Appeals by a vote of the South Carolina General Assembly in 1995.[6]
Analysis
Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)
Last updated: June 15, 2020
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country as of June 15, 2020.
The study presented Confidence Scores that represented our confidence in each justice's degree of partisan affiliation. This was not a measure of where a justice fell on an ideological spectrum, but rather a measure of how much confidence we had that a justice was or had been affiliated with a political party. The scores were based on seven factors, including but not limited to party registration.[9]
The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[10]
- Mild Republican
- Strong Republican
This justice's Confidence Score, as well as the factors contributing to that score, is presented below. The information below was current as of June 2020.
Kaye
Hearn
South Carolina
- Partisan Confidence Score:
Mild Republican - Judicial Selection Method:
Direct legislative appointment - Key Factors:
- Appointed by a Republican legislature
- State was a Republican trifecta at time of appointment
Partisan Profile
Details:
Hearn was appointed by a Republican controlled legislature. South Carolina was a Republican trifecta at the time of her appointment
Bonica and Woodruff campaign finance scores (2012)
In October 2012, political science professors Adam Bonica and Michael Woodruff of Stanford University attempted to determine the partisan ideology of state supreme court justices. They created a scoring system in which a score above 0 indicated a more conservative-leaning ideology, while scores below 0 were more liberal.
Hearn received a campaign finance score of 0.69, indicating a conservative ideological leaning. This was more conservative than the average score of 0.47 that justices received in South Carolina.
The study was based on data from campaign contributions by the judges themselves, the partisan leaning of those who contributed to the judges' campaigns, or, in the absence of elections, the ideology of the appointing body (governor or legislature). This study was not a definitive label of a justice, but an academic summary of various relevant factors.[11]
State supreme court judicial selection in South Carolina
- See also: Judicial selection in South Carolina
The five justices on the supreme court are appointed by the South Carolina Legislature to serve on the bench. The South Carolina Judicial Merit Selection Commission screens and selects candidates for judgeships and then submits a list of three names to the General Assembly. The assembly then votes on the candidates, either choosing one of the three recommendations or rejecting the entire slate.[12][13]
Supreme court justices serve 10-year terms. Upon finishing their terms, judges are subject to re-election by the legislature.[13]
Qualifications
To serve on the supreme court, a judge must be:
- a U.S. citizen;
- between the ages of 32 and 72*;
- a resident of the state for at least five years; and
- licensed as an attorney for at least eight years.[13]
*A judge who reaches the age of 72 in office must retire by the end of that calendar year.[14]
Chief justice
The supreme court chooses its chief justice by the same legislative election process used to select other judges. The chief serves in that capacity for ten years.[13]
Vacancies
If a judge leaves office before the end of his or her term, the vacancy is usually filled by legislative election. The appointee serves until the end of his or her predecessor's unexpired term, at which point he must be re-elected by the South Carolina General Assembly to remain on the court. If less than a year remains in an unexpired term, the governor has the option to appoint someone to the unexpired term instead.[13]
The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ The South Carolina Office of the Attorney General, "To the Honorable Victor A. Rawl," accessed January 24, 2023
- ↑ The Augusta Chronical "Hearn sworn in as 2nd woman on SC’s high court," January 15, 2010
- ↑ The State, "Kaye Hearn is second woman on state’s highest court," archived December 13, 2009
- ↑ We calculated confidence scores by collecting several data points such as party registration, donations, and previous political campaigns.
- ↑ The five possible confidence scores were: Strong Democrat, Mild Democrat, Indeterminate, Mild Republican, and Strong Republican.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 South Supreme Court, "Justice Kaye G. Hearn" accessed July 15, 2021
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 SCNow, "Three distinguished S.C. professionals to receive FMU honorary degrees," archived May 19, 2011
- ↑ South Carolina Judicial Department "Docket Management Task Force," archived March 6, 2011
- ↑ The seven factors were party registration, donations made to partisan candidates, donations made to political parties, donations received from political parties or bodies with clear political affiliation, participation in political campaigns, the partisanship of the body responsible for appointing the justice, and state trifecta status when the justice joined the court.
- ↑ An Indeterminate score indicates that there is either not enough information about the justice’s partisan affiliations or that our research found conflicting partisan affiliations.
- ↑ Stanford University, "State Supreme Court Ideology and 'New Style' Judicial Campaigns," October 31, 2012
- ↑ Albany Law Review, "The Untouchables: The Impact of South Carolina's New Judicial Selection System on the South Carolina Supreme Court, 1997-2003," June 30, 2004
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedSCgeneral - ↑ The South Carolina Office of the Attorney General, "To the Honorable Victor A. Rawl," June 7, 2004
Federal courts:
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: District of South Carolina • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: District of South Carolina
State courts:
South Carolina Supreme Court • South Carolina Court of Appeals • South Carolina Circuit Courts • South Carolina Masters-in-Equity • South Carolina Family Courts • South Carolina Magistrate Courts • South Carolina Municipal Courts • South Carolina Probate Courts
State resources:
Courts in South Carolina • South Carolina judicial elections • Judicial selection in South Carolina
