SC Judge Alison Lee, ex-Obama nominee, retires from the bench

Longtime South Carolina Judge Alison Lee, whose mostly quiet career on the bench included a few controversial moments, retired Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Judicial Merit Selection Commission confirmed.

Lee, who will turn 65 in September — the state has a 72-year age limit on judicial service — gave no explanation for her retirement, news of which had quietly been circulating in judicial and legal circles for several weeks but not publicly announced.

Lee notified South Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Donald Beatty on April 27 of her retirement from active status, effective May 16, said Erin Crawford, chief counsel for the Judicial Merit Selection Commission.

Lee also notified the commission, Crawford said.

“She’s going to serve in an ‘active retired capacity,’” Crawford said, meaning Lee could fill in from time to time to handle trials or other judicial tasks on a part-time basis, serving at the pleasure of the chief justice.

Lee, a circuit judge since 1999, was a state administrative law judge from 1994 to 1999. She was one of 16 at-large judges, meaning she was not assigned to any particular one of the state’s 16 judicial circuits.

In June 2013, Lee was nominated to a prestigious seat as a federal judge by then-President Barack Obama.

She appeared headed to the judge’s post. But the next month, July 2013, a popular Columbia baker, Kelly Hunnewell, was gunned down by intruders seeking money at her commercial bakery early one morning as she worked alone, preparing bagels.

Newspapers reported soon after that Lee had previously sharply reduced the bond of one of the accused killers, allowing him to make bond and be free at the time of Hunnewell’s killing. Law enforcement and Republican critics called Lee soft on crime, and, soon after, South Carolina’s two Republican U.S. senators — Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott — opposed her nomination, causing her to withdraw.

In 2019, Lee lost a contentious race to Blake Hewitt in the S.C. General Assembly to win a seat on the S.C. Court of Appeals.

In response, Lee’s supporters charged racism was the reason behind her 87-73 loss to Hewitt, who is white, and Black lawmakers walked out of the joint assembly to protest the outcome.

It was Lee’s sixth and final attempt for a Court of Appeals seat.

Lee also made news last year in one of South Carolina’s most notorious criminal cases.

In an action that belied any criticism that she might have be soft on crime, Lee denied a motion by attorneys for now-convicted killer and accused embezzler Alex Murdaugh to reduce his bond from what was then $7 million.

“After considering all of the information provided, this Court finds that the current bond is reasonable to assure his appearance in court,” Lee wrote in an order that called Murdaugh both a flight risk and a danger to the community.

It was one of South Carolina’s highest bonds ever set in a criminal case, if not the highest, lawyers said at the time.

Murdaugh is now serving two consecutive life sentences for murdering his wife, Maggie, and youngest son, Paul.

And, last year, Lee dismissed a case brought by The State newspaper against the Lexington-Richland 5 School District. The newspaper alleged a violation of the S.C. Freedom of Information Act when the school board secretly approved a $226,368 payment from the district to former district superintendent Christina Melton after she resigned in June 2021.

Lee did not rule on the merits of the case, but dismissed it because of a procedural matter the newspaper contends was not within its control. The State has appealed the decision to the S.C. Court of Appeals.

Lee’s official South Carolina biography notes that from 1994 to 1999, she served as a state administrative law judge in South Carolina. From 1989 to 1994, she worked as staff counsel for the South Carolina Legislative Council, and from 1984 to 1989, she practiced civil litigation with the Columbia-based McNair Law Firm, then one of the state’s most prestigious.

She graduated from Vassar College in 1979 and Tulane Law School in 1982, the South Carolina Legislative Manual says.

In South Carolina, where relationships are highly valued, Lee had a credential of consequence: She is the niece of the late South Carolina civil rights icon Matthew Perry, who successfully represented Black protesters in landmark cases across the state in the 1950s and 1960s.

Perry went on the become South Carolina’s first Black federal judge. Columbia’s federal courthouse, dedicated in 2004, is named after him.

In fact, Lee’s first legal job in South Carolina was in 1983-84 as a law clerk to C. Tolbert Goolsby, a white judge on the S.C. Court of Appeals, who had a legendary long and close friendship with Perry.