The Honorable Ernest A. Finney, Jr.

In May 1994, South Carolina's general assembly elected Ernest Finney to the position of Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court, effective December of 1994, making him the first African-American Chief Justice of South Carolina since Reconstruction. Finney's qualifications are impeccable. Finney earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Claflin College, now University, in 1952. In 1976, he won an election to become South Carolina's first black circuit judge. Finney retired from the state Supreme Court in 2000 and was named interim president of S.C. State University in 2002.