How a Criminal Case Was Disguised as Civil — and Why the Court of Appeals’ Posture Is Unconstitutional

When judges abuse their power, consequences are rare. What has happened in my appeal is not merely abusive — it is structurally unprecedented in American law.

This case now sits before the South Carolina Court of Appeals in a posture that should not exist: a criminal appeal in which the sentencing judge remains a party, represented by private counsel, alongside the State of South Carolina. That arrangement violates the most basic principles of judicial neutrality, separation of powers, and due process. It is not a technical error. It is a constitutional failure.

The judge who sentenced me to jail in what was later acknowledged to be a criminal matter remains personally represented in the appeal. That alone should alarm anyone who understands how criminal law functions in the United States. Judges do not defend their own incarcerations. They do not appear as litigants. And they do not sit beside the State as co-respondents in criminal appeals.

This is not an ordinary case. And the courts’ refusal to correct it reveals more than confusion — it reveals institutional self-protection.

How This Case Began

The events that led here arose from a contentious probate dispute involving my wife, an immigrant opposing a long-established family in Oconee County. On October 24, 2023, after filing papers in that probate matter, I stood in the courthouse lobby. Without warning or accusation, the court accused me of committing crimes in the lobby that I did not commit. Specifically, I informed a man of his right to represent himself in court and was accused of committing the crime of impersonating a lawyer.

On May 24, 2024, I returned to the courthouse to pay a bill on my wife’s behalf. Given prior false accusations, I recorded myself at the clerk’s window for my own protection. In response, Judge Danny Singleton, the Oconee County Probate Judge, sent an email to my wife and all parties in the estate case stating that I would be held in contempt of court. I was notified through my wife.

Five days later, on May 29, 2024, I returned to the courthouse to receive a summons. Again, I recorded for my own protection. At Judge Singleton’s direction, I was arrested, placed in handcuffs, and immediately sentenced to ten days in jail for what was labeled direct contempt of court.

Direct contempt, by definition, can only occur in open court. That limitation did not trouble Judge Singleton.

Later that same day, while I sat in a holding cell, both a sentencing order and a summons arrived. The sentencing order contained no case number at all. The summons listed my wife’s civil probate case number — a case to which I was not a party. I served the sentence and appeared for the “trial” on June 17, 2024, in probate court as directed by the summons.

A Criminal Case Stripped of Criminal Protections

At the June 17 hearing, I had an approved public defender. Both the public defender’s office and I understood this was a criminal matter because incarceration was on the table. Once proceedings began, however, my public defender, John Abdalla, engaged in a discussion with Judge Singleton in open court. Together, they decided — mid-hearing — that the case was civil.

My public defender then left the courtroom.

Judge Singleton denied my request for a continuance to obtain counsel. He then assumed every role in the proceeding: moving party, investigator, prosecutor, and judge. I was forced to defend myself alone. At the conclusion of the hearing, I was sentenced to fifty days in jail for the events of May 24.

Notably, there was never any hearing at all regarding the events of May 29 — the date of my arrest. I have never been accused of violating any law or court order on that date. The only authority cited was a South Carolina Supreme Court administrative order restricting electronic devices at the clerk’s window, which I did on May 24. That order is not a statute. It is not a criminal law. I was never served with it, never willfully violated it, and therefore committed no violation.

The Appeal and the First Failure to Correct the Error

I appealed to the Tenth Circuit Court in Oconee County. The case was heard by Judge Lawton McIntosh. Judge Singleton appeared — personally — represented by his attorney, Jim Logan, under the same civil posture created in probate court.

Judge McIntosh acknowledged that the sentence imposed was criminal. Yet he did not remove Judge Singleton as a party. He did not refer the matter to the county prosecutor. He did not restore criminal protections retroactively. Instead, he upheld the probate court ruling before final briefs were filed, despite clear constitutional objections raised in open court.

I then appealed to the South Carolina Court of Appeals.

The Court of Appeals Creates an Impossible Posture

The case was initially appealed from the probate court to the Tenth Circuit Court, with Judge Lawton McIntosh presiding. Over the course of three hearings spanning approximately six months, Judge Danny Singleton appeared at each hearing represented by his private attorney, Jim Logan. At the July 17 emergency release hearing, Judge Singleton—through counsel—argued for my continued incarceration. Anyone with a basic understanding of constitutional law should find that posture deeply disturbing. A judge who disguised a criminal case as civil then appeared in a higher court to defend his own ruling and demand continued punishment. That is not a neutral role. Judge McIntosh, a veteran judge fully aware of the governing law, nonetheless entertained this spectacle as though it were routine. The appeal proceeded entirely under a civil posture: it was filed as civil, docketed as civil, and treated as civil throughout. On February 7, 2025—before final briefs were filed and after open-court argument established that there was no evidence I willfully violated any court order—Judge McIntosh upheld the probate court’s ruling, while vacating the remainder of my sentence. Throughout this process, I paid more than $400 in civil filing fees that would not have applied had the case been properly treated as criminal.

The Court of Appeals initially accepted the case under the same flawed civil posture. As the Appellant, of course I had no choice but to adhere to the posture of the court, so I filed a civil appeal and paid the filing fee. Jim Logan continued filing motions as counsel for the sentencing judge. I then, in a formal motion, asked the court to recognize what should have been obvious from the beginning: incarceration makes this a criminal case.

The Court of Appeals partially agreed. It acknowledged that criminal contempt is an offense against the State but it did not go so far as to explicitly state that my appeal was a criminal appeal. On May 30, 2025, the court added the State, represented by the South Carolina Attorney General — led by Alan Wilson, as a party.

But the court did not remove Judge Singleton.

From that point forward, every order and correspondence from the Court of Appeals has listed both Jim Logan, counsel for the sentencing judge, and the Attorney General as counsel of record. In other words, the court has maintained a posture in which the judge who imposed incarceration remains a litigant in the criminal appeal of his own ruling.

I have searched extensively. I have found no precedent for this anywhere in American law.

Why This Posture Is Unconstitutional

In criminal appeals, the convicting judge is not a party. The State defends the conviction. The judge becomes a neutral, institutional actor whose rulings are reviewed — not personally defended.

Allowing a judge to remain a party collapses the separation between adjudicator and litigant. It destroys neutrality. It invites self-interested decision-making. It turns the appellate process into an exercise in institutional self-defense rather than constitutional review.

Even the Attorney General appears uncomfortable with this arrangement. The State has avoided serving Jim Logan on motions — essentially an admission that the posture is indefensible. I have filed motions seeking clarification of the roles of Judge Singleton and Jim Logan and requesting proper service of Jim Logan in the AG’s filings. The Court has not yet responded to these motions.

Avoiding the Merits

Since the appeal began, counsel for Judge Singleton and the Attorney General have done everything possible to avoid the merits of the case. Addressing those merits would expose structural failures that cannot be rationalized or minimized. It does not require a law professor to recognize that a probate judge who issues a summons under an unrelated civil case number, presides over a criminal case disguised as civil, acts simultaneously as investigator, prosecutor, lead witness, and moving party, denies the accused the right to counsel, and then issues a sentencing order without a case number—because the probate court lacks jurisdiction to create a criminal case number—has acted in a manner that is constitutionally indefensible. Avoiding review is the only remaining way for these institutions to prevent those failures from being laid bare.

Now that the case has been recognized as at least partially criminal, the Attorney General seeks dismissal based solely on service timing—despite the fact that, at the time the appeal was filed, the court itself treated the matter as civil. Jim Logan was therefore served in accordance with the rules governing civil appeals. The State was added later by court order, a step that necessarily presupposed the court’s jurisdiction. Since then, the State has participated fully in the appeal and has never claimed any resulting prejudice.

In its order addressing the Attorney General’s motion to dismiss, the Court deferred the service argument and instructed that it be raised in the final brief. The Attorney General’s final brief, however, addresses none of the twenty-three constitutional and statutory violations raised in my appeal. Instead, it relies entirely on the service issue, effectively asking the Court to dispose of the case without examining the substance of the record or the violations alleged.

Meanwhile, Judge McIntosh continues issuing biased rulings in cases involving my wife, threatening our American investments. I remain under a gag order that makes publication of this article itself an act of contempt. I am still prohibited from leaving South Carolina more than a year after being released from jail — all while this appeal drags on.

Why This Matters

This case is no longer just about me.

If courts can retroactively relabel civil proceedings as criminal only after incarceration has occurred, deny the protections required in criminal cases, and then insulate the resulting convictions from review by keeping judges as parties to the appeal, constitutional rights become conditional. They exist only at the court’s convenience.

The precedent that would be set if the South Carolina Court of Appeals rules in favor of the State is chilling. A person could be sentenced to jail through a fundamentally fraudulent criminal proceeding labeled as a civil hearing. That person would be required to appeal under the court’s chosen civil posture. The court could then reclassify the case as criminal and dispose of it on service grounds alone. If that is not an abuse of power at the expense of the vulnerable, it is difficult to imagine what is. I am not surprised to see such conduct originate in Oconee County or the Tenth Circuit. I was stunned to see the Attorney General’s Office and the South Carolina Court of Appeals so fully participate in it.

I have taken steps to ensure that Chief Justice John Kittredge of the South Carolina Supreme Court is aware of this case. He ran as a strict constitutionalist. Yet under his leadership, the system has shown no capacity for self-correction when those principles are tested.

This case has reached final briefing. The record is complete. There is no procedural excuse left.

What remains is a simple question: Will the courts enforce constitutional structure—or continue protecting themselves from it?