ANGLICAN DIOCESE OF SC NAMES ITS TWO LAWYERS FOR HEARING OF 8 DECEMBER
The Anglican Diocese of South Carolina submitted to the South Carolina Supreme Court, on 25 October, the names of the two attorneys who will represent the ADSC side in the hearing before the justices of the SCSC on 8 December 2021.
The two are: C. Alan Runyan and C. Mitchell Brown.
Since Runyan himself filed the paper with the SCSC, one may wonder if he will be the lead in the hearing. He has been the highly visible director of the ADSC litigation since he filed the suit against the Episcopal Church on January 4, 2013. He was the lead in the circuit court trial of 2014, the ADSC presenter in the hearing before the SCSC in 2015, and the lead in the circuit court proceedings of 2016-2019. He has had a mixed score card. He won in the circuit courts and lost in the state supreme court. The Anglican side also suffered a major loss in the federal district court, in Charleston, which recognized the Episcopal diocese as the sole owner of the historic diocese and placed an injunction on the Anglican side from pretending to be the continuation of the pre-schism diocese. That decision is now on appeal but is not under a stay.
Brown is a partner in the Nelson and Mullins firm, in Columbia SC. According to their website , he is a specialist in appellate law and has deep presence in South Carolina.
According to the COVID-19 protocols of the SCSC, each side is limited to two lawyers in the courtroom for the hearing of Dec. 8. The Episcopal Church side must inform the court of the names of its two lawyers by next Monday, Nov. 1. I will relay the names here as I receive them.
Runyan and Brown will have 25 minutes to present their case. They will speak after the Episcopal side makes its 25 minute presentation. After Runyan and Brown give their presentation, the Episcopal side will have 10 minutes for rebuttal. That will be the end of the hearing.
So, Runyan and Brown will have only 25 minutes in which to make their best case. They will argue to uphold the Dickson Order of 2019 which ruled that the parishes had not acceded to the Dennis Canon and the local properties remained in the hands of the local churches, not the Episcopal Church. The SC Supreme Court decision of 2017 had ruled that the Episcopal Church was the owner of 29 of the 36 parishes in question along with Camp St. Christopher. The Episcopal Church lawyers will argue that the SCSC decision was binding and Dickson had no right to relitigate the issues settled by the SCSC and therefore his Order of 2019 should be reversed by the high court.
