Shanekia Garvin had been on probation since 2018 for assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature and filing a false police report when she allegedly stopped contacting her probation agent in June 2022 and fell behind on supervision fees totaling an undisclosed amount. A probation violation warrant was served on her in April 2023 while she was serving a family court contempt sentence, and her revocation hearing was set for September 2023 — less than a month before her five-year probation term was set to expire by operation of law.
The Supreme Court found that Garvin did not validly waive her right to counsel because the trial court failed to establish she understood what she was giving up. As Justice Hill wrote, 'Waiver, after all, is the intentional relinquishment of a known right,' and 'what matters is what the defendant reasonably understood, not what the court said.' The court noted that while Form 1364 told Garvin she 'may' have a lawyer represent her, the trial judge described the form as including her 'right to counsel,' sending contradictory signals.
The court was particularly critical of the minimal inquiry conducted at the hearing, writing that 'the trial court never asked Garvin whether she voluntarily signed the form and understood its contents.' Justice Hill noted that when Garvin told the court she didn't have an attorney, the judge simply responded, 'Well, you've had since June 19th' — the date she was served with the hearing notice nearly three months earlier.
The case reached the Supreme Court after Garvin appealed her revocation to the Court of Appeals, which affirmed in an unpublished opinion in November 2024. At the original revocation hearing before Circuit Court Judge Maite Murphy in Orangeburg County, the probation agent testified that a previous judge had warned Garvin there would be 'zero tolerance' for future violations. When Garvin tested positive for cocaine at the hearing, Judge Murphy revoked her probation and ordered her to serve the full ten-year sentence.
The state argued that two simple questions — whether Garvin recalled signing the notice form and whether it included her right to counsel — were sufficient to establish waiver. The court firmly rejected this approach, emphasizing that 'assumptions cannot satisfy' the state's burden to prove a knowing waiver. Justice Hill wrote that 'any clarity it may have brought is uncertain' given the mixed messaging about whether counsel was a right or merely a possibility.
The Supreme Court acknowledged that its ruling appeared to conflict with a 2009 Court of Appeals decision, State v. Bryant, which upheld a waiver based on the same form. However, Justice Hill distinguished Bryant because there 'the trial court's expansive colloquy at the hearing (after Bryant signed the form) confirming Bryant's understanding of her right to counsel and her informed wish to waive it' was lacking in Garvin's case.
The court noted that while South Carolina guarantees the right to counsel at all probation revocation hearings through Rule 602(a), this goes beyond federal constitutional requirements since the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Sixth Amendment does not extend to probation proceedings. Justice Hill explained that South Carolina 'made the practical (and efficient) choice to guarantee the right to counsel for all revocation hearings' rather than forcing trial judges to determine case-by-case which hearings require counsel.
The case now returns to the trial court for a new revocation hearing where Garvin's right to counsel must be properly addressed, though given that her original probation term has long since expired, the practical implications of the ruling remain unclear. The decision provides guidance for trial courts conducting future revocation hearings on how to properly establish waiver of counsel.