When Stephen Goldfinch announced his campaign for Attorney General, he told the Coastal Observer newspaper he had prosecuted “hundreds” of cases as a JAG officer in the SC National Guard. Throughout the campaign, that number expanded to “thousands” on at least one occasion.
The Attorney General is the state’s top prosecutor. Evidently Goldfinch felt the need to establish his credentials as a prosecutor. But, the numbers don’t add up.
David Stumbo, Goldfinch’s opponent in tomorrow’s Republican Primary runoff for the Attorney General nomination, has been the Solicitor for the state’s 8th Judicial Circuit for over a decade.
According to military justice statistics, the average JAG officer conducts 3.5 prosecutions per year. An exceptional JAG prosecutor may conduct as many as 20 prosecutions per year. These numbers are for full-time active duty JAG officers in the four service branches.
Goldfinch joined the National Guard in 2019, merely seven years ago. IF, and it’s a giant if, he matched the total number of prosecutions per year of an exceptional active duty JAG officer, Goldfinch would only total approximately 140 prosecutions to date – noy hundreds, certainly not thousands.
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