BERT UTSEY RESPONDS TO RUNYAN'S LETTER
On yesterday, February 9, 2022, Bert G. Utsey, III, lead lawyer for the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina in its appeal before the SC Supreme Court, issued a letter to the SCSC Court Clerk of the Court responding to Alan Runyan's letter of objection dated 8 February. Utsey asked for direction from the court on whether he should present arguments opposing Runyan's claims:
We disagree with Mr. Runyan's position but do not know whether the Court desires additional argument on that topic. Please advise whether the Court would like for us to respond.
Thus the wording of the letter from the Clerk of the Court of February 3, 2022, has set up a peculiar situation. The letter started out, "Unless either party objects..." This was an invitation for one party to object; and it did, obviously the party that had the most to lose by the documentation requested. Does that phrase, and Runyan's objection, now close the court's request?
However, the letter also revealed that the court record included references from both sides about the 1987 journal in the hearing before Judge Dickson of November 26, 2019. So, obviously the journal was an issue raised in the lower court. What the justices of SCSC were asking in their letter of 3 February was the actual content of the journal that had been cited in Dickson's court. This is what Utsey provided and Runyan objected to. Any claim that the 1987 journal was not brought up in earlier court proceedings is manifestly untrue. The SCSC justices know it was mentioned in a hearing of 2019. What they wanted was the specific wording of the journal that is, after all, entirely germane to the issue at hand.
Now, the SCSC will have to decide whether Runyan's objection is sufficient to close the court's request for the 1987 journal (which they now have anyway) or Utsey is allowed to argue against the assertions Runyan made in his letter of objection in hopes of having the court overrule the objection.
This is yet another strange twist in a long, long strangely twisting legal war that never should have happened in the first place.
Stay tuned. We shall see if the SCSC will clarify this mess.
