Being arrested for domestic violence in South Carolina raises a lot of urgent questions, from whether jail is unavoidable to how long someone might be held before release. The following FAQ addresses three common questions about domestic violence arrests in South Carolina: who gets taken to jail, how long someone can be held, and what the arrest and booking process looks like.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will You Go to Jail for Domestic Violence?
Now this question could be interpreted a couple of ways. In other words, if the police are arresting you and charging you with domestic violence, yes, they’re going to take you to jail. Now, when the case goes to court months later and you get convicted or you do a plea deal or something like that, will you go to jail then? Not necessarily. But at the time of arrest, yes, in South Carolina, if the police are called to a domestic violence disturbance, they’re pretty much required under the law to determine who is the primary aggressor and take that person to jail. In many instances, much more so than you would think, when they can’t determine who the aggressor is, and say it’s a man and a woman, say a husband and wife, and they really can’t determine who the primary aggressor was, and maybe both of them have marks on them and they both accuse the other person or other witnesses have accused them of assaulting each other, we have cases where they take them both to jail where they’re both charged with domestic violence. But everybody’s going to jail on a domestic violence call. The police are not going to leave a domestic violence call probably almost never without taking someone to jail because that’s what the law requires them to.
What Happens After a Domestic Violence Arrest?
They’re taken to jail. They’re handcuffed. They’re put in the car. They’re going to be questioned. In South Carolina, once you get arrested, first of all, once the police get there, they have what we call body cameras. In other words, the police is wearing a camera that’s videotaping you and also recording sound. Also, when you get in the car, the patrol car is equipped with a video camera and a recorder. So, if you’re sitting in the car by yourself talking to yourself, you’re being videotaped and recorded. So, that’s going to happen all the way to the jail. Once you get to the jail, they’re going to fingerprint you. They’re going to photograph you. They’re going to process you. They’re going to take all your property because when you’re in jail, you have nothing. You don’t have your wallet. You don’t have your phone. You don’t have any of your property. They take all your property and put it in a basically a property inventory bag to return to you when you get out of jail. So, you’re going to sit in jail until you have a bond hearing, which in a domestic violence case should be within about, say, 12 hours, depending on what time you get arrested.
How Long Can You Be Held in Jail for Domestic Violence in South Carolina?
Just a basic domestic violence charge is probably, you know, 12 hours, 15 hours. When you’re arrested and booked, you have a right to a bond hearing. South Carolina courts are pretty good about this. And so, let’s say you’re arrested at 10:00 at night. You’re either going to go to a bond hearing, say, at 9:00 in the morning or maybe at 3:00 in the afternoon, something like that. And so you’re going to be in there that long before you have a bond hearing. There’s some victim notification laws they have to comply with. Sometimes under extraordinary circumstances, something could delay your bond hearing. But that’s basically it. Now, if it’s a more serious charge, because there are several degrees of domestic violence, third degree is the least charge. It’s the lowest charge. It’s the simplest charge. That’s the one that most people are charged with. But the degrees go all the way up to where you have extreme aggravation where somebody was really harmed, could have been life-threatening. So if you have a situation like that, which we don’t see many of those at all, but in those kind of situations, yeah, bond could be denied just like a bond could be denied on an attempted murder or an aggravated assault or a robbery or something like that if the crime is serious enough and it has certain factors to it in order to protect people or keep the person from fleeing the jurisdiction. In those situations, bond could be denied, but those cases are much more rare. In the garden variety domestic violence case, bond is going to be set and the person’s going to be released.
Domestic violence charges in South Carolina carry serious and immediate consequences, and the details of an arrest can shape how a case moves forward. With nearly 30 years of experience and a background as a former prosecutor, Greg McCollum brings a broad understanding of how these cases are handled in South Carolina courts. Having a knowledgeable defense attorney involved early in the process can help someone understand their rights and options at each stage.
If you have questions about domestic violence charges, call the Greg McCollum Complete Legal Defense Team at (843) 626-5480. Consultations are confidential.
