2 women challenge SC’s Defense of Marriage Law
South Carolina’s Defense of Marriage Law and a state constitutional amendment expressly banning same-sex marriages are being challenged by two Lexington County women who were legally married in Washington, D.C., The State reported.
S.C. Highway Patrol Trooper Katherine Bradacs and Tracie Goodwin filed a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Columbia last week, saying in the lawsuit that they are “treated as strangers in their home state,” according to The State.
“We should value people who want to live in a committed relationship, regardless of gender,” their attorney, John Nichols, told The State.
Gov. Nikki Haley and State Attorney General Alan Wilson are defendants in the case, which will be heard without a jury.
The Defense of Marriage Law was signed in 1996. It was followed 10 years later by the constitutional amendment, which passed in the general election by a 78-22 percent margin.
Feral hog problems escalate across state
Feral hogs are damaging property in suburbs across the state, and despite laws that allow the animals to be shot freely, the problem isn’t expected to lessen any time soon, The Post and Courier reported.
The hogs have been reported mostly along river basins in all 46 counties, according to The Post and Courier, and more than 26,000 were reported killed by deer hunters last year alone. But a single female can bear as many as 30 piglets in a year, and the population continues to increase.
People illegally moving hogs from one place to another in order to hunt them has apparently spurred the problem in recent years, The Post and Courier reported.
“These hogs didn’t make it from the mountains to the coast by walking,” Department of Natural Resources Regional Wildlife Coordinator Sam Chappellear told The Post and Courier. “Now you’ve opened up a can of worms, and you can’t put the top back on it.”
Weekend Sumter shooting injures 2
Two people were seriously wounded and a 19-year-old man is charged with attempted murder after a weekend shooting in Sumter, The State reported.
Trevaughn Ziontae Jackson, of Sumter, was arrested Sunday morning after police say he shot a 30-year-old man and a 52-year-old woman Saturday afternoon, according to The State.
A news release from the police department said an earlier altercation involving the male victim, the suspect and others may have led to the shooting, although police are still investigating the motive behind the incident.
In addition to two counts of attempted murder, Jackson is charged with discharging a firearm into an occupied dwelling, possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime and unlawful carrying of a pistol, according to The State. He was being held on $157,000 bond.
Jackson had previously pleaded guilty to receiving stolen goods and had been arrested for first-degree burglary.