South Carolina House Debates Impeachment Inquiry into Solicitor Byron Gipson

Byron Gipson faced lawmakers at the State House after a narrow 3-2 vote advanced a resolution toward what proponents call an impeachment inquiry into the Fifth Circuit Solicitor’s handling of several Midlands murder cases. The Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026, proceedings followed public outrage over a contested sentence reduction in the 2002 murder of Carl Smalls Jr. and the 2025 killing of 22-year-old Logan Federico in Columbia.

The three legislators who voted to advance the measure were Rep. Pace, Rep. Cody Mitchell of Hartsville and Rep. Weston Newton of Bluffton, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee that will next take up the resolution. The two “no” votes were cast by Rep. Justin Bamberg of Bamberg and Rep. Spencer Wetmore of Folly Beach. The exact language of the motion or resolution advanced was not supplied in available excerpts.

The Price matter sits at the center of critics’ claims. A defendant identified as Price had been serving a 35-year sentence in the 2002 murder of Carl Smalls Jr. and was released 16 years early after a secret agreement that South Carolina reporting says was signed by Solicitor Byron Gipson, Price’s attorney, House Rep. Todd Rutherford of Richland, and then-Judge Casey Manning, who was nearing retirement. The South Carolina Supreme Court later revoked that reduced-sentence deal and returned Price to custody. Members of the Smalls family said in a letter read at the hearing by Rep. Pace, “Our family was wronged by the solicitor, and we are willing to lend our voice in any effort to have him impeached.”

The Federico case prompted separate calls for action. Logan Federico, 22, was shot and killed last year inside a Columbia home; her father, Steve Federico, attended the Feb. 17 hearing and has urged federal prosecutors to take over the case. Republican gubernatorial hopefuls Congressman Ralph Norman and Congresswoman Nancy Mace have publicly urged Gipson to resign; Mace said, “Logan Federico should be alive today. Her murder was entirely preventable. When prosecutors fail to do their jobs, when dangerous criminals with decades of charges walk free because of missing paperwork and soft-on-crime policies, South Carolinians pay the price with their lives.”

Gipson attended the hearing and defended his office, pledging to continue seeking justice while pushing back on outside pressure from Attorney General Alan Wilson, who in October called on Gipson to seek the death penalty and suggested he might intervene if Gipson did not decide soon. Gipson argued an early death-penalty determination “would set a dangerous precedent.”

The controversy has split elected officials over constitutional authority and process. An individual identified only as Pope said, “I think it's unconstitutional,” calling the House resolution a “slippery slope” that could reduce the Judiciary Committee to “just impeachment business.” By contrast, Gov. Henry McMaster’s office issued a statement that “Solicitor Gipson has created this lack of public confidence through his own prosecutorial actions or inactions” and asserted the General Assembly has authority to remove executive branch officials in extreme circumstances. The SC Daily Gazette noted it remains unclear whether legislators even have the authority to impeach a solicitor.

Reporting on who did what in prior plea deals is mixed: one account attributes a key plea in the Federico-related chain to Lexington County prosecutors in a Republican solicitor’s office, not to Gipson’s office. Several names and details remain unconfirmed in available excerpts, including the first names and offices for “Pace” and “Pope,” the full text of the House resolution advanced Feb. 17, and the year of AG Wilson’s October statement, and those records will be material as the House Judiciary Committee, led by Weston Newton, prepares the next step.