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• Judge: Local courts to consider smoking violations break law  

A memo from South Carolina's top judge said any courts created to consider violations of local ordinances like smoking bans are illegal under the state's Constitution, an edict that has some municipal officials wondering how they should deal with violators.

"The courts are purportedly established for the purpose of hearing smoking infractions, as well as various other local ordinance violations," Chief Justice Jean Toal wrote in the one-paragraph memo sent Monday to municipal administrators and judges throughout the state. "The creation of these courts is repugnant to the long-standing concept of the state uniform judicial system."

Instead, Toal wrote, infractions of local ordinances - like bans on smoking in public places - should be heard by magistrate and municipal courts, bodies she said are constitutional.

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