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Committee reappoints three municipal judges and approves ordinance to lengthen bond court term to four years
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Summary
The Public Safety Committee approved reappointment of Judges Byrd, Shahid and Ferguson and passed an ordinance amending the municipal code to make the bond court judge a council-elected, four-year position, citing consistency in bond-setting and courtroom efficiency.
The Charleston City Public Safety Committee on April 28 approved reappointment of three municipal court judges and passed an ordinance that changes the bond court judge position to a four-year term elected by city council.
A municipal court representative asked the committee to reappoint Judge Byrd, Judge Shahid and Judge Ferguson, whose terms expire April 23. The representative described Judge Byrd as the bond court judge (a position created in June 2024 when bond court responsibilities were taken back from Charleston County), Judge Ferguson as the judge primarily handling DUI trials and pretrials, and Judge Shahid as overseeing short-term rental and livability cases while also working pretrial dockets.
Committee members asked for and received statistics on docket improvements. The municipal court representative and Judge Ferguson described a marked reduction in older cases: the oldest DUI case dates to 2020 (a sealed-sentence case pending arrest), 2021 and 2022 have only a few pending matters, and 2023 has a small number pending; for short-term rental cases the representative said the oldest is from 2022 with 12 pending overall, and 2024 shows 24 cases of which 21 involve a single defendant. The judges stated a goal of avoiding any case older than 18 months on the municipal docket except for extraordinary circumstances such as sealed-sentence cases or awaiting general sessions resolution.
On the ordinance, the municipal court representative said converting the bond court judge from a two-year to a four-year term would promote consistency in bond setting, improve fairness to affected parties and help attract and retain qualified judges. The representative noted judges continue to share bond court duties as needed and asked council to approve the code amendment; members approved the ordinance by voice vote.
The committee praised the court team’s work and approved the reappointments and ordinance; no recorded opposition was noted in the committee’s voice votes. The representative offered to provide memos and additional statistics by email for members who requested them.
