Legal Question in Criminal Law in South Carolina

There are a number of laws that pertain to urination in public. Most of them involve disposal violations and various things that people are charged with as far as contamination of ground water, illegal dumping, and so forth. Judging from the way you wrote your question however, I don't think that is what you are referring to.

I believe you are referring to quite simply as the law making it a crime for a person to urinate in public. Your question asks, "What is the law of......" Well, in all honesty, that is pretty much it. Its illegal to urinate in public. Now exactly what constitutes "public" depends. That particular issue itself has been litigated. Since I don't know the facts and circumstances of your particular situation, its hard for me to address that.

Believe it or not, I once was successful in getting one of these charges dismissed on the grounds that it was an emergency. The lady I represented had a letter from her doctor that stated she had a condition whereby her not relieving herself in a timely manner could not only be harmful, but downright dangerous to her.

South Carolina, as with all other states, have different types of special defenses to crimes. The defensse of Emergency and Necessity were applicable in that case. These as well as other certain defenses are in a category by themselves and are treated differently than the typical defenses you hear about all the time, such as Self-Defense.

These can be difficult cases to handle with these defenses. But very feasible if the facts are in the defendant's favor. There is also the possibility of one of the programs that are available to people who have no record or no serious record. The programs can result in the person not being convicted and having their record expunged.

You are welcome to call if you want.

Robert J. Johnston

[email protected]

Horry/Georgetown Counties

843-946-0099