Whether South Carolina's Defense of Indigents Act denies equal protection between criminal defendants who choose to proceed pro se and those with state-appointed counsel

QUESTIONS PRESENTED South Carolina has no exoneration act or other avenues to compensate one who had been wrongly incarcerated, wrongly convicted and/or wrongly prosecuted; it was the last state to return control of the criminal docket from prosecutors to the courts; and it requires indigent criminal defendants who choose to proceed pro se to front their defense expenses and seek court-ordered reimbursement under a very low cap. But Ex Parte Brown, 393 S.C. 214, 711 S.E.2d 899 (2011), held that a lawyer’s time is private property which may not be taken by the state for the defense of indigent persons accused of crimes without just compensation. Petitioner chose to defend herself pro se against two indictments of harassment in the first degree initiated in December 2009. One indictment was tried to a jury on 22-26 February 2010, ending in a deadlocked jury and mistrial. The prosecutors : contrived to keep that indictment from being retried and to keep the other indictment from ever being tried until 13 August 2012, when Petitioner, still pro se, finally succeeded, thank God, in having her motion to have both indictments dismissed with prejudice heard and granted. In the interim, she had incurred ‘ considerable costs for investigations, transcripts, audio and visual exhibits, etc. in preparation for trial/retrial. Upon her exoneration, she moved for reimbursement of her defense expenses. Her motion remained unheard for three years and was ultimately denied because South Carolina’s Defense of Indigents Act allows these expenses to be reimbursed if incurred by a lawyer but not by pro se defendant. The questions presented, therefore, are: ; 1. Does South Carolina’s Defense of Indigents Act, SC Code of laws 17-3-5 et segq., without rational basis, deny equal protection between criminal defendants who choose to proceed pro se and those who accept counsel? 2. Does South Carolina take pro se criminal defendants, indigent or not, private property ' without just compensation in its failed efforts to convict them of crimes? 3. If a sovereign uses Rule of Civil Procedure 11 or its equivalent to compensate a civil defendant for expenses incurred in defeating a frivolous civil claim, does equal protection require the same sovereign to use add a similar provision to its criminal rules so as to render one exonerated of false and frivolous criminal charges whole at the end of the : criminal trial without requiring the exonerated criminal defendant to sue separately? PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI Petitioner (“Dr. Faltas”) prays this Court by certiorari to review South Carolina’s (“SC”) supreme court’s 4 October 2017 affirmance of the trial court’s denial of her pro se indigent criminal defense expenses and 7 March 2018 denial of rehearing. OPINIONS BELOW: SC’s supreme court’s opinion and denial of rehearing are not reported but are appended hereto, as are the trial court’s orders. JURIDICTION: On 8 June 2018, the Honorable Chief Justice Roberts kindly extended the time to file petition to 6 August 2018 (17-A-1356). This Court’s Juris, diction of this timely petition is thus invoked under 28 U.S.C. §1257. Constitutional and Statutory Provisions Involved: Amendments V, VI and XIV to the U.S. Constitution are not here recited in deference to this Court’s profound knowledge thereof. South Carolina’s Defense of Indigents Act, §§ 178-5 et seg., SC Code of Laws, is reprinted in the