Investigative journalists ⁠⁠Mandy Matney⁠⁠ and ⁠Liz Farrell⁠⁠ were honored to sit down with Dr. Jermaine Johnson — basketball player turned state representative for parts of Kershaw & Richland Counties, now a candidate for governor of South Carolina.

But this conversation isn’t really about a campaign or politics. It’s about our justice system, and the uncomfortable truth that South Carolina runs two of them: one for the powerful and well-connected, and one for everybody else.

Jermaine has lived inside both. He talks candidly about being homeless as a teenager, about being a young father trapped in a family court system with no lawyer and no fair shot, and about the men he watched get jailed for child support they had already paid.

Dr. Johnson explains why South Carolina’s way of electing judges is broken, why a decades-old mug shot keeps resurfacing, and why courage is in such short supply under the State House dome. It’s an honest, hopeful, occasionally infuriating conversation about fixing what’s rigged.

Explore Dr. Jermaine Johnson's campaign for South Carolina governor 🗳️

facebook.com/DrJermaineJohnson

instagram.com/drjermainejohnson

☕ Cups Up! ⚖️

Episode References

Read the Post and Courier's in-depth profile of Johnson's journey from homelessness and pro basketball to the Statehouse 📰

Read about Turner v. Rogers, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case out of South Carolina on jailing parents for unpaid child support without a lawyer ⚖️

Read the actual statute — S.C. Code § 63-17-1020 — and its definitions of "license" and "licensing entity" 📜

Stay Tuned, Stay Pesky and Stay in the Sunlight...☀️

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