SC · rules
SCRE 605
Competency of Judge as Witness
The judge presiding at the trial may not testify in that trial as a witness.
Note:
This rule is identical to the first sentence of the federal rule and is consistent with
South Carolina law providing that a judge may not testify as a witness in a case being
tried before that judge. State v. Bagwell, 201 S.C. 387, 23 S.E.2d 244 (1942). The
second sentence of the federal rule dispenses with the requirement of an objection to
a judge being a witness. This sentence was deleted as being inconsistent with the law
of this state. See State v. Torrence, 305 S.C. 45, 406 S.E.2d 315 (1991).
Provenance
- Source
- www.sccourts.org
- Retrieved
- 2026-10-02
- Edition
- supplied-sc-04-print-version-2026-10-02
- Content hash
ba678d26f0fa97a77b572de2b6e31077c31dedc4b44a0a8eb3847211e9980c14
The link goes to the issuing authority’s own document — the one we read to produce this record. Where a source publishes whole titles rather than sections, your browser may need a moment to jump to the provision.
Unofficial copy of government-published law, reproduced from official sources with full provenance. Not an official publication; verify against official sources before relying on it in a filing. Records in the 'guidance' corpus, and only that corpus, are sub-regulatory (interpretive guidelines, survey procedures) and are not binding law. Validity bounds follow each jurisdiction's declared temporalBasis.