In fact, it was not unusual for the circuit’s prosecutors to take their first look at a case file a mere week before a trial was to take place. “That wouldn’t have been all that uncommon 30 or 40 years earlier, but by the time I took office, no one was still doing it that way,” said Stone, who was reelected to his fourth four-year term in 2020. “Our office needed a modern approach.” To promote accountability, Stone instituted “vertical prosecution,” in which the same attorney works a case from arrest through disposition. And although it took a while to raise the funds, he purchased computers and case-management software for the office, too.

Stone hasn’t stopped innovating since:
Concerned about revolving-door offenders and a growing case backlog, Stone assembled a Career Criminal Unit in 2009 to prosecute the circuit’s most dangerous and habitual criminals. Pending cases were cut in half within two years. Through 2021, the Career Criminal team had earned convictions against 405 of the 423 defendants it prosecuted, almost all of them violent offenders. That team is supported by an intelligence unit that uses technology and information-sharing to identify career criminals and prepare cases for trial. The office that once struggled to print a docket now assists local, state and federal agencies with cellphone data extractions and modern intelligence-gathering.
Recognizing the unique nature of crimes against vulnerable people, Stone launched a Special Victims Unit to prosecute rapists, domestic batterers and child abusers. He also opened the 14th Circuit Victims Services Center, a partnership with nonprofit agencies that assist victims of those crimes. In the summer of 2021, the center was recognized by the Alliance for Hope as South. Carolina’s first accredited Family Justice Center.

“Spend any amount of time around him and you understand prosecuting is truly a calling for him,” said First Assistant Solicitor Mary Jordan Lempesis, who has worked for Stone since 2009. “Most importantly, he’s not just innovating so that he can check off personal goals. His mantra is doing the right thing to the right people for the right reason. He instills that in us. “The ethical application of the law is the ultimate aim of every one of his innovations.” The Horry County native majored in English at Wofford College. He then studied at the University of South Carolina School of Law, intending from the start to become a prosecutor.

Stone readily admits many of his innovations are borrowed from people who influenced him along the way. In forming his intelligence unit and victims center, for instance, Stone adapted ideas he first learned about from fellow members of the National District Attorneys Association. (For years, Stone has been a board member of the nation’s foremost organization of prosecuting attorneys and in 2018 became just the second South Carolinian elected to be that group’s president.)

While prosecuting Richland County drug cases for the 5th Circuit Solicitor’s Office, where he started his career in the late 1980s, Stone also paid close attention to how his bosses – Solicitors Jim Anders and Dick Harpootlian – organized an office with a bigger caseload and faster pace than the 14th Circuit’s. A brief stint as the director of the S.C. Sentencing Guidelines Commission in the early 1990s gave Stone insight into state politics and lawmaking.

Moving into private practice, he defended law enforcement officers facing civil lawsuits. He also assisted defendants in death-penalty cases. The accused got the vigorous defense they are entitled to; Stone got an up-close look at skilled prosecutors such as former 11th Circuit Solicitor Donnie Myers, former 1st Circuit Solicitor Walter Bailey and former 15th Circuit Deputy Solicitor Fran Humphries. “All were excellent trial attorneys, and what I learned from watching them is the absolute necessity of meticulous preparation,” Stone said. “None of them ever left anything to chance. They knew every question and every answer before they entered the courtroom.” In that regard, Stone proved to be no slouch himself.

After moving to Beaufort County in the late 1990s, he continued his private practice but worked part-time as a prosecutor for Solicitor Randolph Murdaugh III. He successfully tried several high-profile cases on his own and also helped Murdaugh successfully argue for the death penalty for Tyree Roberts, who ambushed two Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office deputies in a Burton mobile home in 2002.

In 2006, the retiring Murdaugh persuaded Gov. Mark Sanford to appoint Stone to fill his unexpired term. Stone has been elected four times since, facing opposition just once. In that time, he also has prosecuted 21 career criminals, securing 17 life sentences in the process.
Stone says he is most at home in a courtroom, arguing before a jury, but he also derives great satisfaction from administrative inroads that breathe life into good ideas.

“You could do things the way they’ve always been done, I guess,” Stone said, “but what’s the fun in that?”