The defense attorney who orchestrated a closed-door deal that saw convicted murderer Jeriod Price released from prison 16 years early has urged his client to turn himself in after the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned Price’s release.
Todd Rutherford, a defense attorney and state representative (D-Richland), called on Price to surrender peacefully to authorities at a Friday afternoon press conference.
“Mr. Price does not know or may not know that he has a warrant for his arrest,” Rutherford said. “My legal advice is that he needs to turn himself in. Although, Mr. Price did nothing to deserve this; he was released legally from jail.”
Rutherford last spoke to Price prior to Wednesday’s Supreme Court hearing, which Price did not attend. Rutherford said he was unable to contact Price, though he spoke to Price’s mother, who said law enforcement searched her house. She does not know Price’s whereabouts either, Rutherford said.
“Yesterday, Price had the opportunity to turn himself in. He has not done that. He is a fugitive, and we are actively looking for them,” Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said Thursday.
The Richland County sheriff said that Price likely fled when he saw the “handwriting on the wall” about his case. But he is currently being pursued by fugitive tracking teams from from the sheriff’s department, the S.C. Law Enforcement Division and the S.C. Department of Corrections.
“For 45 days, (Price has) been enjoying life he did not deserve to enjoy,” said Lott, whose department originally investigated the murder committed by Price back in 2002.
Price was convicted in December 2003 of the murder of Carl Smalls, a University of North Carolina football player who had previously placed for University of South Carolina. Smalls was shot and killed at Club VooDoo following a fraternity and sorority party where tensions rose between rival gangs, the Bloods and Crips.
But Price was freed just 19 years into his 35-year sentence after Judge Casey Manning ordered his release following private negotiations between Rutherford and 5th Circuit Solicitor Byron Gipson. The revelation that a convicted murderer had been released following secret proceedings and without the family being notified of a hearing, as required by South Carolina law, caused outcry in the state’s law enforcement and legal communities.
The S.C. Attorney General’s Office filed a motion asking the state Supreme Court to order Price returned to prison, which was granted in a 3-2 decision Wednesday.
Manning’s order freeing Price, which was unsealed in advance of Wednesday’s hearing, outlined how Price had offered ”substantial assistance to law enforcement that saved lives,” Rutherford told the Supreme Court Wednesday.
The order gave examples of how Price had saved corrections department employees from being attacked by other inmates. But the main action Price took was getting word to prison authorities that a dangerous inmate, Jimmy Lee Causey, had escaped in 2017 without their knowledge and had been on the lam three days, Rutherford said.
Price’s whereabouts since his release in New Mexico on March 15 are unknown, though Rutherford said he might’ve gone through Texas. He did obtain a South Carolina driver’s license on April 7 and gave an address in Florence, sources with knowledge previously told The State.
When Price is found, Rutherford said that in order to keep him safe, the Attorney General’s Office suggested putting Price in solitary confinement or sending him back to New Mexico.
“Both of them still equate to either a death sentence or a life looking over your shoulder,” Rutherford said. “All the inmates know he was the one who brought back one of the most dangerous individuals in South Carolina history.”