Retraction and Clarification Regarding Procedural Status in Appeal (Case No. 2024-001241)

This statement should be read as a continuation of my earlier article, “How a Criminal Case Was Disguised as Civil — and Why the Court of Appeals’ Posture Is Unconstitutional,” published December 28, 2025. I am proceeding on the assumption that the reader is already familiar with the factual background, the sequence of events in probate and circuit court, and the constitutional concerns laid out there. That article explained how incarceration was imposed through proceedings framed as civil, and why that posture stripped away protections that are mandatory in any criminal prosecution.

What follows does not revisit that entire history. Instead, this statement addresses a narrower but important issue that arose afterward: how the Court of Appeals has now described the procedural posture of the appeal, what that means for who is considered a party, and why the Court’s wording created confusion that could have been avoided from the start—especially for a pro se litigant who was denied counsel at the root of the case.

Correction and Clarification Regarding Procedural Status in Appeal (Case No. 2024-001241)

I am issuing this statement to correct and clarify the procedural posture of my pending appeal. This is a partial withdrawal of my arguments. It is an attempt, using the Court’s own language, to describe what the Court says the posture is, why the posture became unclear, and why clearer wording from the beginning could have prevented confusion in a case where liberty was taken without the protections required by our constitutional republic.

I write as a pro se litigant (I am representing myself without an attorney in court). I did not choose to be pro se. I was denied counsel at the onset of what the system later acknowledged—at least in substance—was criminal contempt. That denial of counsel is not a footnote. It is the origin of the constitutional injury. And it matters because when a person is denied counsel and then forced to litigate alone, the courts should communicate in a manner that does not require a law degree to decipher.

This case is serious. It concerns whether South Carolina courts can impose incarceration through a proceeding treated as civil, without the safeguards required in criminal prosecutions, and then insulate the result through procedural posture shifts and ambiguous framing. If that is allowed, then constitutional rights become conditional: rights exist only when courts feel like recognizing them. Law becomes a weapon of the state, not a provision for order.

I. What I Said Before, and What I Now Retract

I previously described this appeal as existing in an unprecedented “hybrid” posture—part civil, part criminal—not as rhetoric, but because that is how the case functioned in practice. The posture of a case is not a cosmetic label; it determines who the parties are and who is permitted to defend the ruling on appeal.

In a civil appeal, the judge whose order is being reviewed may appear through counsel to defend that ruling, because the matter is treated as a dispute between private parties and the court’s order is part of that civil litigation. In a criminal appeal, however, the judge does not act as a litigant defending his own decision. The ruling is defended by the State, through the solicitor’s office or the Attorney General, because criminal contempt is treated as an offense against the State, not a personal dispute involving the judge.

Here, I was held in what the Oconee Probate Court labeled civil contempt, yet I was sentenced to 50 days of incarceration, which is a criminal punishment. The probate court determined the posture to be civil, so I filed a civil appeal in circuit court. The circuit court maintained that civil posture and allowed Judge Singleton to appear through private counsel, Jim Logan, as though this were an ordinary civil matter. When I then appealed to the South Carolina Court of Appeals, I again filed under civil procedures because that was the posture the courts themselves had set. Only after I moved to disqualify Logan, arguing that the contempt was criminal from the start, was the Attorney General added to the case, because the Attorney General defends criminal matters on behalf of the State.

That is where the confusion arose. My motion to disqualify Logan was denied, and the order did not plainly state that Judge Singleton was removed as a respondent or that Logan was removed as counsel of record. Instead, the Attorney General’s submission — which the Court recounted — stated that “to the extent the appeal is of criminal contempt sanctions, the State was the respondent and the Attorney General would represent the State.” That phrasing is conditional and limited. It is not the same as saying, “This is a criminal contempt appeal and the State is the only proper respondent.” It leaves open the possibility that the matter could still be treated as civil in some respects.

At the same time, the Court denied disqualification of Logan, used the technical word “substitute” rather than “remove” or “dismiss,” and continued to copy Logan on Court correspondence and service lists. For a pro se litigant — already denied counsel at the outset — those combined signals reasonably suggested that nothing definitive had changed about who remained “in” the case. The misunderstanding did not arise from carelessness; it arose from layered legal phrasing where plain language would have eliminated doubt.

However, as of January 28, 2026, the Court has now stated—clearly—that my understanding of that posture was not the Court’s position, and not what the Court intended.

So here is the narrow retraction:

I retract the claim that this appeal is formally a “hybrid” matter in which the convicting judge and the State are both parties at the same time.

That retraction is not a retreat from the merits. It is not a concession that the underlying proceedings were lawful. It is not forgiveness for what happened. It is simply an acknowledgment that the Court has now described the posture differently than the way it reasonably appeared to me from the Court’s own actions and language.

II. The Core Fact the Court Has Now Stated

On May 30, 2025, the Court issued an order that said:

“After careful consideration, we deny Appellant’s motion to disqualify counsel for Respondent Singleton and request for sanctions against Attorney Logan. However, we grant the motion to clarify the State is the proper respondent and substitute the State as Respondent.”

As a pro se litigant, I read that the way ordinary people read words:

• You denied disqualification.

• You did not say counsel was removed.

• You did not say the judge was no longer a respondent.

• And then you kept copying Jim Lgan as counsel.

That combination is exactly how confusion is manufactured—especially for someone denied counsel and forced to litigate alone.

Then, on January 28, 2026, after denying my motion for clarificaniton, the Court clarified the issue in an order stating:

“The State was substituted as the respondent because the order on appeal involves criminal contempt. Attorney Logan is therefore not counsel for a party to the appeal.”

So the Court’s present position is unmistakable:

1. This is a criminal contempt appeal.

2. The State is the respondent.

3. Jim Logan is not counsel for a party to the appeal.

That is the clarification I was asking for. The irony is that the Court delivered it only after first saying “no clarification is required.”

III. Why the Confusion Was Predictable (and Preventable)

The May 30, 2025 order did not say, in plain language, what it could have said in one sentence with zero ambiguity:

• “Judge Singleton is no longer a respondent.”
• “Attorney Logan is removed as counsel of record.”
• “The State is the sole respondent, represented by the Attorney General.”

Instead, the order denied my motion to disqualify counsel and then stated it would “clarify the State is the proper respondent and substitute the State as Respondent.” The word used was “substitute,” not “remove,” “dismiss,” or “replace.” The order does not state that Judge Singleton is no longer a party. It does not state that Logan is removed as counsel. Furthermore, Logan continued to be copied on the Court’s correspondence.

For a seasoned attorney, maybe that combination of signals is enough. For a pro se litigant who was denied counsel at the very beginning of the case, it is not. Years ago, I saw a quote on a 6th-grade classroom wall that said: “We do not write to be understood; we write so that we cannot possibly be misunderstood.” Court orders—especially in cases involving incarceration—should follow that rule. Precision and clarity are not stylistic choices; they are safeguards.

The Court’s January 28, 2026 order explains why the substitution matters. It states that “the order on appeal involves criminal contempt” and that the State was substituted as respondent for that reason. The May 30 order itself cites authority confirming that in criminal contempt matters the State is the adverse party, but the order does not state plainly that this is an appeal of criminal contempt.

It is now clear that this is an appeal of criminal contempt, and the governing principle is straightforward: criminal contempt is an offense against the State, so the State—not the judge—is the litigant defending the ruling on appeal. That is not difficult to state with zero ambiguity.

That principle is exactly why the convicting judge should not be involved as a party defending his own incarceration decision. The Court has so far not addressed my request, made in my motion to clarify, asking why Jim Logan remains listed on every order and included in Court emails. The Court’s own cited authority identifies who the adverse party is—and it is not the judge.

IV. The “Neutral Judge” Problem Does Not Disappear Just Because the Caption Does

Even accepting the Court’s clarification, the underlying neutrality concern remains, and it remains for two reasons: appearance and operation.

The May 30 order was served and copied to private counsel, Jim Logan, listing him on the cc/service list. This has been true of every order since the appeal began, both before and after the May 30 order. Even in the January 28 order, the Court again copied private counsel on the same order in which it declared he is “not counsel for a party.”

This is the part I do not understand. Judge Singleton is not a party, and Logan is not counsel for a party. Yet Logan continues to be treated, for service purposes, as though he is counsel of record.

I am not accusing the Court of bad faith. I am describing the practical impact of what happened: it created a record that looked like the convicting judge still had a live channel into the appeal through counsel who kept being copied. In a criminal appeal, due process principles and longstanding case law require a neutral and detached judge. When the judge’s former private counsel continues to be included on all appellate communications after the Court states he represents no party, it creates an appearance that is difficult to reconcile with that neutrality requirement.

From where I sit it seems that if the convicting judge is truly neutral in a criminal appeal, then the system should avoid even the appearance that he is being notified like a participating litigant.

V. Why I Moved to Disqualify Logan (and Why “Substitution” Does Not Cure the Underlying Wrong)

My motion to disqualify explained the basic rule: criminal contempt is against the State, not against the judge. The May 30 order did not plainly state that this was an appeal of criminal contempt, nor did it clearly state that the State was the sole adverse party. Instead, the order used conditional and technical language about “substituting” the State as respondent, without expressly removing Judge Singleton or his counsel from the case.

But my argument was never only procedural. It was moral and constitutional. I was sentenced to jail in proceedings that were treated as civil and docketed as civil, and my sentencing order had no case number. I was denied counsel at the outset. Then the system later acknowledged the contempt was criminal—after liberty had already been taken—while continuing to litigate in a posture that allowed the same actors to preserve their advantage.

So even if the Court now says Logan is not counsel for a party, that does not erase what happened before:

• A judge denied me counsel in a case that resulted in incarceration.
• A private attorney appeared for that judge in proceedings involving punishment.
• The State, through its prosecutors, was not positioned as respondent from the outset because the Court maintained a civil posture—not because of any delinquency on my part. That is exactly the condition that creates due process confusion and then leaves the unrepresented defendant to struggle through the consequences.

VI. The Retraction Does Not Retract the Atrocious Conduct Alleged

Let me be direct and fair at the same time:

This correction is not a retraction of the core misconduct. It is not a softening of what I believe occurred in the probate court and the circuit court. It is not an endorsement of the Attorney General’s litigation tactics. It is a correction about party posture—because the Court has now explicitly stated its view.

The injustice remains serious.

Judge Singleton denied me counsel and then operated in roles no judge should ever occupy at once: moving party, victim, lead witness, supervisor of witnesses, prosecutor, and investigator—inside a sham process driven by retaliation, not law. That is not a functioning constitutional republic. That is power laundering itself through robes and procedure.

We cannot call ourselves a constitutional republic if judges are encouraged to use the constitution itself as toilet paper.

VII. The Motion to Dismiss Issue Still Matters (and It Still Looks Like Avoidance)

My concern remains that the Attorney General is relying on procedural arguments in an effort to prevent this Court from reaching the merits of what happened.

The Court’s August 25, 2025 order confirms that “[o]n June 2, 2025, the State filed a motion to dismiss this appeal.” The Attorney General’s position, as I understand it, is that because the State was not notified of the appeal at the time it was filed, the appeal should be dismissed on that basis alone. The State is not arguing that it suffered prejudice from the timing of notice. The argument is procedural: dismiss the case because notice was not provided at the outset.

But the Court did not grant that relief as to the February 7, 2025 order. Instead, the Court ruled:

“We deny the State's motion to dismiss the appeal from the February 7, 2025 order. However, Respondent may present this argument in its initial brief, and Appellant may respond in his initial reply brief.”

That is the part that troubles me. The Court denied dismissal, yet expressly permitted the same notice argument to be raised again in the merits briefing—despite the fact that the underlying facts regarding notice are not going to change between now and final submission. If the Court is going to decide the notice issue, then I respectfully submit it should be decided clearly and directly, not held in reserve as a procedural trapdoor after the record and merits are fully briefed.

There is also a critical context point that gets lost in the State’s framing: from the beginning, I have consistently argued that this matter was criminal in substance and that I was entitled to constitutional protections. The courts maintained civil posture and processed the case under civil conventions; I appealed within the posture the courts themselves imposed. The Attorney General now characterizes the notice problem as though it is my delinquency, rather than the predictable consequence of a case being treated as civil while producing incarceration—the very confusion I have been objecting to from the start.

Whether the Court agrees with my characterization or not, the core concern remains: notice and procedural arguments should not become an escape hatch from constitutional review, especially where the system itself created the confusion by treating a jailable contempt proceeding as civil at the trial level, and then allowing that posture to persist into the appellate process.

And none of this is academic. While this appeal moves forward, real-life consequences continue: restrictions, collateral harm to my family, and the ongoing burden of litigating alone against the resources of the State.

VIII. What I Am Asking the Court of Appeals to Do

The Court has now confirmed in clear language that:
• This is a criminal contempt appeal.
• The State is the adverse party.
• Private counsel is not counsel for a party.

It is not clear why this was not stated in equally clear terms at the time of the May 30 order, but that clarification has now been made.

Having clarified that, I respectfully ask the Court to do what the public expects courts to do: decide the case on the merits, in light of the constitutional violations raised, rather than through procedural maneuvering that prevents accountability.

IX. Closing

This retraction corrects the procedural record as clarified by the Court’s January 28, 2026 order. It withdraws only the claim that this appeal existed in a “hybrid” posture with the convicting judge and the State as co-parties at the same time. It does not withdraw the underlying constitutional objections, the due process arguments, or the factual narrative describing how incarceration was imposed without counsel and without the protections required in criminal prosecutions.

The legal issues remain before the judiciary. The injury remains real. And the obligation to confront it remains unavoidable.