May 29

James Edward Moore was elected as an Associate Justice on this date in 1991, filling a vacancy created by the election of David Walker Harwell as Chief Justice.

May 28

On this date in 1979, in State v. Shaw, the Court upheld the sentence of death on Joseph Carl Shaw. Shaw later was the first person to be executed in South Carolina after reinstatement of the death penalty.

May 25

Randall Theron Bell was elected as an Associate Justice on this date in 1994, but died ten days later without having sat with the court.

May 21

Associate Justice Thomas Boone Fraser, Jr., died on this date in 1925. He was succeeded in 1926 by John Gates Stabler.

May 18

Henry McIver was elected as an Associate Justice on this date in 1877, to succeed Amiel Jenkins Willard who had been elected Chief Justice. McIver later served as Chief Justice.

May 15

Amiel Jenkins Willard was elected Chief Justice on this date in 1877, filling the uncompleted term of Franklin J. Moses, Sr., who had died in March.

May 14

Associate Justice William Luther Rhodes, Jr., was born in 1918. He served on the Court from 1975 until 1980.

May 13

Kaye Gorenflo Hearn was elected on this date in 2009 to serve as an Associate Justice. When she was sworn in on January 14, 2010, upon the retirement of John Henry Waller, Jr., she became the second woman to serve on the Court.

May 11

Ernest Adolphus Finney, Jr., was elected on this date to serve as Chief Justice, the first African-American to do so. Finney was sworn in as Chief Justice in December 1994, upon the retirement of Chief Justice Archie Lee Chandler. John Henry Waller, Jr., was elected as an Associate Justice on this date in 1994, filling the vacancy created by the election of Archie Lee Chandler as Chief Justice. Waller was sworn in on June 29.

May 9

Associate Justice John Cannon Few was born on this date in 1963. He became an Associate Justice in 2016.

May 7

Associate Justice Thomas Patrick Bussey was born on this date in 1905. He served on the Court from 1961 until retiring in 1975. On this date in 1975, George Tillman Gregory, Jr., was elected as an Associate Justice, succeeding Thomas Patrick Bussey, who was soon to retire. Gregory later served also as Chief Justice.

May 5

Former Chief Justice Amiel Jenkins Willard died in Washington, DC on this date in 1900. Willard had left the Court in 1880 after unsuccessfully disputing the election of Governor William Dunlap Simpson as his successor. Willard had contended that his term had not yet expired, but the Court ruled on October 15, 1880, in Simpson v. Willard, that he had been elected only to complete the unexpired term of his predecessor, not to a full six-year term.

May 3

Former Associate Justice John Hardin Marion died on this date in 1944. After being elected to the Court in 1922, he had resigned in 1926 to work for Duke Power.