For years, South Carolina solicitors have been asking the General Assembly to fix a flaw in our homicide by child abuse statute. It was a flaw we encountered in real cases, with real victims, and it created outcomes no one believed were just.

Under the old law, homicide by child abuse only applied if the child was under the age of 11. Once a child turned 12, the statute no longer applied, even if that child was still dependent, still vulnerable, or unable to protect themselves. That arbitrary cutoff had nothing to do with the nature of abuse or the reality of how these crimes occur. It was simply a line in the statute, and it left too many children unprotected.

Solicitors across South Carolina raised this issue repeatedly. We saw cases where children suffered horrific abuse that resulted in death, yet prosecutors were forced to rely on alternative charges because the statute written specifically to address child abuse deaths could not be used. That is not how a justice system should function.

This year, the General Assembly finally addressed the problem.

I want to thank Solicitor Duffie Stone and Senator Thomas Alexander for their leadership in moving this legislation forward. The bill that passed expands the age threshold to better reflect reality and includes protections for disabled children regardless of age. That change closes a loophole that should never have existed.

Both the House and the Senate passed this reform unanimously. That level of agreement tells you something important: protecting children is not a partisan issue, and it should never be treated as one.

This reform was already part of my agenda as Attorney General. I have long believed that our laws must be written with the victims in mind and grounded in what prosecutors actually see in court. When statutes fail to account for how abuse happens, justice suffers. This fix brings the law closer to common sense and gives prosecutors the tools they should have had all along.

I also want to thank the members of both chambers who took the time to understand this issue and act on it. Too often, criminal justice reforms stall because they are inconvenient or politically risky. That did not happen here, and the state is better for it.

There is always more work to do when it comes to protecting children. But this was an important step. It strengthens accountability, removes an unjust limitation from our law, and makes it clear that South Carolina will not tolerate gaps that put vulnerable children at risk.

When lawmakers listen to those charged with enforcing the law and respond accordingly, the system works better. This time, they did exactly that.