Probate Judge may be the office on the ballot with which voters are least familiar, but it’s one that most Greenville County residents will come into contact. The Greenville County Probate Judge handles marriage licenses, wills and estates, protective services, and so much more.
On today’s episode, meet the candidates: Judge Debora Faulkner, incumbent, and Chad Groover.
Produced by The Greenville Podcast Company. Simple Civics: Greenville County is a project of Greater Good Greenville.
Transcript
Katy Smith
Hopefully, by now, you Simple Civics listeners have looked up your sample ballot at SCvotes.gov and have familiarized yourself with the choices you’ll have when you go to vote on or before November 8. Many of you know you will be voting for offices such as Governor, State Superintendent of Education, and in some districts for school board, but you may be surprised to see Greenville County Probate Judge listed on the ballot. But this is a role that touches so many lives in Greenville County. The probate judge has jurisdiction over marriage licenses, estates of people who have died, guardianships of people who have been deemed incompetent, conservatorships of estates of minors and incompetence, involuntary commitments to institutions for people with mental illness or chemical dependence, and more. Today, we’ll meet the candidates for Greenville County probate judge, incumbent Judge Debora Faulkner, and Chad Groover. Here were our ground rules. Each candidate received the same questions at the time of their invitation to join us. Each was given 10 minutes for their interview. They were also allowed to bring along a companion, such as a campaign manager, family member or friend and to record our session themselves. There were no edits made to the interviews with the candidates. First up is Judge Debora Faulkner.
Katy Smith
Well, I’m delighted to be here today with Judge Debora Faulkner. Thanks for joining us. Debora, please tell us about yourself and your interest in continuing to serve.
Judge Debora Faulkner
Hi, Katy. I’m so glad to be here. I was born in Waterloo, which is a small community in Lawrence County. After graduating from high school there, I went to the University of South Carolina, graduated from there and then went to the School of Law at the University of South Carolina. From there, I came to Greenville in 1982. And my first job here was working at Legal Aid. Since that time, I’ve been in private practice. And then I became a part time associate probate judge working for my predecessor, Diane Smock. And I worked in that position for two years. And then when judge Smock decided to retire, I ran for her seat and was lucky enough to win that race. And so then, since that time, I’ve been the probate judge for Greenville County and it has been the honor of my career to have this position. I enjoy it very much. And it is a job that allows me to use the skills that I have obtained through law school and just from life itself, to be able to satisfy my inner need for service to people.
Katy Smith
Great. Describe the role of probate judge and why it is important to the residents of Greenville County.
Judge Debora Faulkner
Well, if you’ve lived your whole life, and you never have to go to court, not even traffic court, you are going to be in probate court in one form or another. We handle estate administration. So anyone who is a resident of Greenville County and has a death in their family is going to come to the Greenville County probate court. We also do involuntary commitments, anybody in our county who poses a threat to themselves or to the people around them because of an untreated mental illness. We’re on call 24/7 to make sure that their due process rights are protected, and that public safety is also protected. We also do adult competency hearings, and we’re charged with protecting the property of incapacitated adults and minors. And finally we issue marriage licenses which is our happy department. And so that is the overall business of the probate court. And of course the probate judge also acts as a department head and has to administer the department which includes preparing budgets and that sort of thing.
Katy Smith
Great, thank you. Why should voters reelect you to serve in this role?
Judge Debora Faulkner
Well, I have some specific reasons for that. I’m very devoted to my job as probate judge, I’ve never run for another office. I’ve never been interested in running for another office. Being probate judge is all I want to do, and I want to do it because I believe that I have a solid record of service to our citizens. If you look at my time in office, you will see that I have a faithfulness to law. I have bulletproof ethics. I believe in the impartial application of the law to all people. I have been able to manage the largest and busiest probate court in the state of South Carolina, and also be able to turn on a dime when a citizen has an emergency, such as a suicide or homicide of a family member or threatening suicide or homicide. Or someone who has a mother with dementia, who is being scammed by telemarketers and we have to immediately freeze accounts, you have to be able to process in a large number of estates and other matters, but also be able to turn on a dime. I have done that. And I have done it all in an atmosphere of compassion, and fairness, and patience. We know that people who come to see us are facing a crisis most of the time. And we understand that and we don’t want people to be afraid to come to the probate court. Our mission is to help people and do it in a way that makes them feel that they have gotten a fair shake. And it’s been done in a way that they feel that they’ve been treated with a little TLC.
Katy Smith
We have a few minutes left, is there anything else you’d like our listeners to know?
Judge Debora Faulkner
Yes, I would like to emphasize the fact that I am a very dedicated public servant. During COVID, when the pandemic was very serious here in Greenville County, we stayed open at the probate court when many other courts closed. We issued marriage licenses out in the parking lot. We did shift work in my office, because people were having deaths in their family. And we had a 52% rise in depression in our minors, and our children. So we were having to do involuntary commitments of children. So that in of itself shows that I am dedicated to the citizens of Greenville County. And so as my staff. Also, I would like to take this opportunity to.. for all of those who are listening to this, that I humbly ask each and every one for their vote. And that allow me to continue my record of service to the people of Greenville County. And if I will, if given that opportunity, I will make sure that we will continue to grow and use the efficiency that we’ve done over the past few years. In order to process these cases.. we’ve done a lot of technology, we’ve used technology for the lawyers and everyone who comes into our court can attend a class and learn how an estate administration operates. So with all that, and there’s lots more I could talk about, but I just humbly ask for the votes of the people who are listening here. And thank them for the opportunity to allow me to serve them over the last few years.
Katy Smith
Well thank you for your service and your interest in continuing to do so and we will look forward to seeing your name on the ballot on November 8.
Katy Smith
Next up is Chad Groover. I’m delighted to be here today with Chad Groover who is running for probate judge. Chad, let’s start by you telling us about yourself and your interest in serving.
Chad Groover
Well, thank you very much, Katy for having me. This is a great.. this podcast is a great service for voters. And the opportunity to speak is very much appreciated. Well, I’m a native South Carolinian. I’m originally from Florence County and then I grew up in a military family so we traveled the world. But when it came time to go to college, I decided to come back home to South Carolina and went to Bob Jones University got a degree in biology. Science really wasn’t my forte for life, I don’t think. So I went off to law school at Mercer down in Georgia. And after law school, I went up to DC and I worked for about eight years in the district, mostly for Senator Chuck Grassley on the United States Senate Judiciary Committee. On that committee I was the crime counsel for the Subcommittee on crime and drugs that Senator Grassley co chaired with then Senator Joe Biden, now President Biden and planned hearings, wrote speeches, wrote bills for the senators, vetted bills for the senators and it was a great job, loved it very much. Enjoyed it but at some point you realize you don’t want to stay on Capitol Hill forever. And so I left and went to the US Attorney’s Office in Cedar Rapids, Iowa where I was a narcotics and firearms prosecutor for the Feds. Wonderful job, enjoyed it. I would still be doing it now except for I met my wife and fell in love, got married, and we decided to move back to Greenville because this is where she lived. And thankfully, we’ve been here now 14 years, we’ve started a family, bought a house and all the things that families do and look back on that 14 years with with a lot of fond memories and pride in the things that we’ve been able to accomplish. For the last 12 years or so, I’ve been doing probate work. Prior to that I did some general litigation and I worked for Bob Ariel, when he was solicitor. I was an assistant solicitor for about a year and a half or so. But for the last 12 years, I’ve been doing estate planning, probate, probate litigation, Guardian and conservatorship actions, the types of law that are all within the bailiwick of the probate court. So I’ve got 12 years of very intense probate experience, it’s the only thing I do, I don’t do car wrecks or criminal defense or family court. In fact, the only court I actually serve in is the probate court. And because of that, I’ve developed a great love for that court. And not just for the court, but for the people in the court and for the subject matter. And it’s a wonderful court that serves Greenville citizens and serves them when they are in some of the most difficult times of life. The loss of a relative, the incapacity of a loved one who’s becomes old and with dementia and can’t handle their own affairs and they need help, people who’ve had loved ones that were young and develop mental illness and and didn’t know what to do or where to go and, and over the years, I’ve had an opportunity to help families in these types of situations in the probate court. And so I have great love for this court and decided that at this age and stage of life, I wanted to make the transition from being a probate lawyer to being a probate judge. And it’s a court that I loved and is the only court I would want to be a judge of. And so I decided to go ahead and put my hat in the ring and run for Greenville County probate judge.
Katy Smith
Thank you. Well describe the role of probate judge and why it is important to the residents of Greenville County.
Chad Groover
Well, interestingly, the probate court is a court that a lot of people don’t know much about. But it’s the court that affects more greenvillians than any other court system. Not everyone winds up in family court, thankfully, certainly not everyone winds up in general sessions and facing criminal charges. But everyone is getting married or has a loved one that passes away or a family member that’s incapacitated or, or is facing mental illness. And so it affects a lot of people. And it covers these areas. So marriage licenses, like we said, that’s where you have to go in and get your license to get married. If you have a loved one that dies, you have to go to the estates section to do what we call a post mortem of your probate of your estate. So that we make sure that creditors get paid and that all the devotees and heirs of an estate receive what they’re supposed to receive. The trust section is there. So if you have a revocable living trust or an irrevocable trust, you want to make sure that’s the court that can modify this trust or deal with trust issues. Like we talked about before, with incapacity, guardianships, conservatorships, those are all dealt with in the probate court, as well as minor conservatorships. So if you’ve got a child and they inherit something and it’s over a certain amount, then well, you’ve got to have a conservator over that money to make sure that it’s not misspent. Unfortunately, I’ve had the not privilege of helping families who didn’t spend their money wisely and incurred the wrath of the court and be helped out. So I’ve seen many of these cases where, you know, minors need help with their with their funds, and make sure that they’re not taken advantage of. And then involuntary commitments. That’s a section that’s I tell you, that’s a section that really tears at your heart because you see people and families that aren’t expecting to have to deal with mental illness, and then it raises its head and they don’t know how to handle it. There’s security issues. The court plays such a vital role in protecting these people who who might be a harm to themselves or maybe others or deal with substance abuse issues. So this courts, not like other courts in that it’s not just judicial, its judicial, but it’s also administrative. And so from an administrative standpoint, you’re managing all of those estates. And after the Guardian and conservatorship is granted, you have to manage those Guardian conservatorships over time. So there’s an administrative angle to this as well. So in looking for the characteristics for a probate judge, you want to make sure a probate judge is a leader who can daily manage people and systems. So it’s management of people, which has its own issues, but also management of systems to make sure that we’re being efficient, that we’re doing things the way they need to be done in order to move files along to conclusion so that people can have their issues taken care of in an efficient, effective way. But it’s also a judgeship. So you need a judge that knows the law and has the right kind of judicial temperament to sit on the bench. Knowing the law, thankfully, I’ve done this for a long time. But you want to make sure it’s a judge that is dispassionate, a judge that, like Chief Justice Roberts said in years ago, it’s a judge that calls balls and strikes. The role of the judge is to say what the law is, not what they want the law to be. And in implying the law to the set of facts comes down with the conclusions and findings in orders that represent the fair application of the law to the situation. And since this is a court that has responsibility for removing people’s constitutional rights from them, if they’re incapacitated, or suffer from mental illness or chemical dependency, you have to make sure there’s a healthy respect for due process. So you want to make sure that it’s a judge that will apply due process rights, and that the judge has a good healthy view of individual liberties and the role of government. And it’s a judgeship that has great impact on the lives of people. And so we want to make sure that whoever we elect represents the people here.
Katy Smith
Why should voters elect you to serve in this role?
Chad Groover
Well, experience I think, is a key factor. You know, with 12 years of experience in this is not a new area for me, I would come to this office ready to lead and ready to judge. And I think that you need a judge that has a good vision for the future for the office. And I think there’s some areas we can improve in efficiency and in technology, and like like electronic filing, which I think is every other system has it but the probate court doesn’t.
Katy Smith
Excellent. Well, we really appreciate you joining us and we look forward to seeing your name on the ballot on November 8.
Chad Groover
Thank you very much.
Catherine Puckett
Simple Civics: Greenville County is a project of Greater Good Greenville. Greater Good Greenville was catalyzed by the merger of the Nonprofit Alliance and the Greenville Partnership for Philanthropy. You can learn more on our website at greatergoodgreenville.org This is a production of the Greenville Podcast Company.
