Meet the Candidates: Solicitor | Duffie Stone

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Age: 57
Personal: Attended Wofford College, B.A., and University of South Carolina School of Law, J.D. Presently, the solicitor for the 14th Circuit and has been in that office since 2006.
President of the National District Attorneys Association, chairman of South Carolina Prosecution Commission and chairman of South Carolina Domestic Violence Advisory Committee.

Why are you running for office in Colleton?
I went to law school in 1985 to be a prosecutor. I have worked as a prosecutor for almost all of my 30 years practicing law, and for 23 years in the 14th circuit. For me, being the solicitor is a calling.

What do you consider the main issue facing the community?
Repeat offenders. Like most areas, Colleton’s biggest crime problem is brought about by a relatively small number of criminals that commit a disproportionate number of crimes. I refer to these as career criminals.

How will you address those issues?
We created the Career Criminal Unit several years ago to target that small number of criminals responsible for a disproportionate number of crimes. After several years of innovations, this unit now consists of our most experienced prosecutors, in-house investigators and SLED-trained analysts, who identify and investigate gangs and other career criminals using the latest technology. Further, we partner with the Justice Department and have a prosecutor from our unit working full time in the U.S. Attorney’s office prosecuting some of these offenders in federal court utilizing federal statutes and sentences.
This is one of the most successful prosecution programs anywhere. We have earned convictions against 96 percent of the career criminals we have prosecuted. Parts of our program are now being emulated by solicitors in Charleston, Lexington and Columbia.
We now need legislative help dealing with organized groups of career criminals or gangs. South Carolina needs an effective anti-gang statute. North Carolina and Georgia both have statutes to allow large groups of gang members to be arrested and prosecuted at the same time, destroying the entire criminal enterprise at once. I have met with colleagues in North Carolina and Georgia, as well as in-state, and drafted an anti-gang statute to be proposed in the next legislative session. I will be working with our legislative delegation to give prosecutors around the state the tools we need to address this problem.