‘You’re about to get Federicoed’: SC crime victims, prosecutors demand change
In an emotional news conference Thursday, three people whose family members were brutally killed in South Carolina and a pair of prosecutors who have been advocates for changing the state’s way of picking judges came together in York County to demand judicial reform and changes in how the state deals with violent offenders.
They said at the Moss Justice Center that their goal is to mobilize the public in South Carolina to voice concerns about lawyer/legislators who pick the same judges they later appear before. They said they also want to fix gaps in the mental health system for violent people, and ensure judges don’t have incomplete or erroneous information when deciding whether to release suspects after arrest.
Stephen Federico of Union County, N.C., whose daughter Logan was killed in May in Columbia by a man with a long history of violent crimes and arrests, had a warning for politicians or anyone in the criminal justice system who wants to deter changes that would keep violent offenders from harming others.
Federico has become a national figure in the criminal justice debate after his emotional testimony in September before a congressional committee that met in Charlotte over the light rail killing of Iryna Zarutska and other public safety problems.
National media have covered Federico’s push for justice for his daughter and demands for accountability in the case.
He said Alexander Dickey, his daughter’s accused killer, is a “career felon, a career criminal.” Dickey had dozens of arrests over the years before his daughter died, Federico said.
“Unfortunately, the system that was supposed to protect her also took her life,” Federico said.
He said “the system is broken, and I plan to turn it on its head.”
Federico said court officials didn’t have complete information about Dickey’s criminal history when letting him out before the killing of his daughter.
Federico, who has made appearances on Fox News and other outlets since the Charlotte hearing, said South Carolina legislators and judges will hear from him soon.
“Buckle up,” Federico told the cameras . “You’re about to get Federicoed.”
He appeared with: Kevin Brackett, the 16th Circuit solicitor and York County’s top prosecutor; South Carolina attorney general candidate David Pascoe, who is the top prosecutor in the First Circuit south of Columbia; Lori Williams, whose brother was killed in Rock Hill in 2021; and Renea Barber, whose husband and brother were shot dead in 2019.
Mental health system failure
Brackett pointed out the glaring need for mental health reforms in the justice system concerning violent offenders. He said the public needs to pressure lawmakers about gaps in handling mental health crises that led to the deaths of Barber’s family in 2019 and Karson Whitesell in Fort Mill in 2018.
Barber’s husband, Timothy Barber, and her brother, Robbin Thompson, were gunned down in Rock Hill by Jimar Neely, who was going through a psychotic episode after not taking court-ordered medication following a mental commitment. Neely was found not guilty by reason of insanity and is in a state hospital.
Whitesell was shot dead by Christopher Mendez at the Peach Stand in Fort Mill after Mendez had gone to a hospital and said he needed help because he was going to kill people. Mendez is serving life in prison.
Both cases show killers who were not handled properly by the mental health and the judicial systems before the crimes, Brackett said.
“These people cannot be trusted to take their medication,” Brackett said. “Somebody needs to be assigned that responsibility.”
Renea Barber said state lawmakers must act to protect other families.
“We need changes now,” Barber said.
Pascoe: SC judge selection ‘eroding public confidence’
Pascoe and Brackett have long been advocates for changing how state judges are picked.
The S.C. General Assembly votes on judicial candidates after a screening process that includes lawyer/legislators who later appear in court on behalf of clients before those same judges. Brackett, Pascoe and others have criticized that as a conflict of interest.
A prosecutor for 32 years now running as a Republican in the state attorney general’s race, Pascoe prosecuted members of the legislature years ago for corruption. Those same defendants had the power to hire and fire the judges in the state who would hear the cases, Pascoe said.
South Carolina and Virginia are the only states in which state lawmakers pick judges.
That system creates an unfair system where lawyer/legislators have an advantage in court before judges that they have hired, Pascoe said. That must be fixed with meaningful judicial reform where no lawyer/legislators are on the screening committee that looks at judge candidates before the legislature elects them, he said.
That system “is eroding public confidence in our judicial system,” Pascoe said. “You cannot have an independent judiciary when they are solely hired, and fired and funded by the legislative branch.”
Public confidence in a fair justice system is just as important as fairness in courtrooms, Pascoe said.
Pascoe said Federico’s passionate pleas for reform in the past two weeks have “become a tsunami” because Federico “had the guts to speak out about the South Carolina system.”
Pascoe put the blame on the state’s law enforcement and court system — including people such as himself — in Logan Federico’s death.
“We failed Logan Federico, and that’s why she was murdered in Columbia, South Carolina,” Pascoe said.
Pascoe also pointed out the case of Lori Williams’ brother, retired Rock Hill Police Lt. Larry Vaughan. Vaughan was killed in July 2021 in downtown Rock Hill. Evan Hawthorne hired a lawyer/legislator to help with the defense, who later helped get the accused out on bail before trial.
Hawthorne is serving life in prison after a jury convicted him in a trial that ended in September. He has appealed his conviction and sentence.
In a statement, Hawthorne’s parents said the claim that they hired attorney Todd Rutherford so he could exercise any form of improper influence was false.
“We hired Mr. Rutherford to represent our son through proper legal channels, as any family would,” Robert and Vonda Hawthorne said in the statement. “At no time did we ask, expect, or authorize him to exercise any judicial powers, political influence, or other improper actions. Any claims to the contrary are false and damaging.”
What happens now?
York County Sheriff Tony Breeden, Williams, Pascoe and Brackett urged the public to demand changes from their state legislators over how judges are picked so that lawyer/legislators do not pick the judges they later appear in front of.
“The problem is that it’s sad that it takes daughters, and brothers and sons to be taken for people to wake up,” Breeden said. “We don’t work for the legislature — they work for you.”
Brackett ended the news conference by urging the public to demand its representatives enact changes to ensure better mental health accountability in courts.
The killings of Iryna Zarutska, Logan Federico, Timothy Barber and Robbin Thompson and Larry Vaughan have pushed the region and country to wonder what is going on with the judicial system in both Carolinas, Brackett said.
People “had to die” before an outcry from the public has prompted elected officials to look at broken parts of the court system, Brackett said.
He said it is unfortunate it took those killings to get people to go “‘What the heck is going on out there? Is the criminal justice system effectively serving the people of South Carolina and North Carolina?’”
Editor’s note: This story was updated on Nov. 6, 2025, with comment from the Hawthorne family.
This story was originally published October 9, 2025 at 3:10 PM.
