South Carolina AG wants court to unseal secret order that freed convicted killer 16 years early

South Carolina’s attorney general is pushing for a court to unseal a secret order that resulted in a man convicted of killing a college football player nearly two decades ago being released from prison last month 16 years early. 

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson on Tuesday filed a motion to unseal the directive, his office told Fox News Digital. 

“This office was never served with any motion nor order, nor was it ever made aware of any proceeding or circumstances which would have reduced the defendant’s sentence,” the motion said.

Jeroid Price, was serving a 35-year prison sentence when he walked free under an order written by now-retired Judge Casey Manning at the request of Price’s attorney, state Rep. Todd Rutherford, The State newspaper reported. Fox News Digital has reached out to Rutherford’s office. 

Price was quietly released from a prison in New Mexico on March 15, South Carolina Department of Corrections spokeswoman Chrysti Shain told Fox News Digital. Price was serving his sentence out of state under an interstate prison compact agreement, Shain said. 

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“This is a travesty of justice,” 1st Circuit Solicitor David Pascoe said Monday. “The information I received is that Judge Casey Manning signed the order.”

Price was convicted in 2003 of killing Carl Smalls at a Columbia-area nightclub. Smalls, 22, had played football at the University of South Carolina before transferring to the University of North Carolina where he played defensive end, the newspaper reported. Smalls was affiliated with a Bloods rival gang, the Crips, but was not a full-fledged member, police said at his trial.

His family received a robocall about Price’s release.

“I was just devastated,” Smalls’ father, Carl Jr., told the news outlet. “They weren’t going to say nothing; it was a done deal. ‘We’re the law, this is what we did and you folks deal with it.’”

Under South Carolina law, someone must serve 30 years-to-life for murder and is not eligible for credit that would reduce the mandatory minimum of 30 years. 

Wilson asked Richland County’s chief administrative judge to unseal the records for a limited review by his office for “potential statutory and constitutional violations related to this release.”