SC solicitor faces ethics questions as man claims innocence

For 15 years, Michael Pearson has been imprisoned in South Carolina for a violent Clarendon County crime he insists he didn’t commit.

Now, more than two years after he said law enforcement investigators told him they had come to believe he was innocent and that he would soon be a free man, Pearson’s quest for freedom is gaining momentum.

And as it does, the solicitor who prosecuted the case that resulted in his 60-year sentence is coming under fire.

Recently, a judge appointed to Pearson’s case by the South Carolina Supreme Court said he had “never read an application with as much information and data that potentially supports someone being innocent” and sternly emphasized that every day Pearson remains behind bars could be a liability to the state.

The solicitor who tried Pearson’s ca