THE ACTING JUSTICE IS
A RENAISSANCE MAN
Lockemy has had a long and highly distinguished career in the law and the state courts of South Carolina. Born on September 23, 1949, he is now 72 years old. According to my information, he must retire as an Appeals Court judge by the end of this year.
His life story is one fit for a Hollywood movie, the poor boy who made it big. He was born in the Newtown area of Dillon County SC where his parents owned a mom-and-pop store, Lockemy's Grocery. Throughout all the years he both kept to his roots and excelled far above them. According to the blurb on the SC Court of Appeals website he has been: bagboy, newspaper boy, Captain in the U.S. Army, Colonel in the National Guard, member of the SC state legislature, youth baseball coach, actor in a community theater, lawyer in a local firm, circuit judge, judge on the SC Court of Appeals, Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, Kiwanian, and adjunct professor of the USC law school. Yet through it all he has remained a son of Dillon County. What a résumé!
In education, he is a man after my own heart: B.A. in History from University of North Carolina, Pembroke; law degree USC; M.A. in History from the Citadel; and presently working on a Ph.D. in History [at age 72!], at USC. Who could not be impressed?
For more insight into his remarkable personal life, see this article from Dillon. The author points out Lockemy is a Native American. The ABA website says he is the first Native American to serve as Chief Judge of the SC Court of Appeals.
Thus, among the five justices in the hearing, one is an African American man, one is a Native American man, and three are white men. What is wrong with this picture? What about the 51% of the population not represented on the court today? The only woman on the SC Supreme Court now was ruthlessly hounded off the case by certain partisan elements in the state. Courts, as juries, should reflect the people of the community they serve. Nevertheless, we have what we have.
As far as the church case goes, the only hint we have of Lockemy's attitude about it comes from a summary of the 2017 SCSC decision he wrote (page 72 of 89) in 2018 for the state bar annual report. At the end he stated:
While all individuals are guaranteed the freedom of disassociation from a religious body, here the question of the disposition of ecclesiastical property following the disaffiliation from the [Appellants] is a question of church governance, which is protected from civil court interference by the First Amendment. (p. 72 of 89)
If Judge Lockemy still defines the case the same way today (and no one should dare speak for him), I would take this to mean he would see the matter at hand as a First Amendment case. If so, it seems to me if the majority of justices agree this is a First Amendment case, it would follow that they would have to defer to the Episcopal Church to decide its own polity and policies. This was essentially what the majority did in the SCSC decision of 2017 and what the circuit court did not do in 2020.
