This is not the kind of thing I normally get into — the disposition of celebrity’s estates — but I thought it interesting that the Columbia Journalism Review had taken an interest in a dispute involving both our attorney general and a semi-retired reporter in Newberry.

Excerpts from the piece:

When the judges responsible for distributing the estate of the late musician James Brown started refusing freedom of information requests from the estate’s former trustees last year, a 60-year-old, semi-retired freelance reporter named Sue Summer wondered why. She started reporting on the squabbles over Brown’s estate for her local paper, theNewberry Observer, when she wasn’t caring for her granddaughter. In the year since her first story ran, Summer believes the attorney general—and therefore the state—has attempted to stop her digging three times, culminating in an extremely broad subpoena issued last month that lists the attorney general as a plaintiff. It requests that she turn over all her on- and off-the-record material pertaining to the case.

This latest subpoena comes after the Facebook page Summer made to document her reporting was taken down after she published a piece in March detailing seven ways Attorney General Alan Wilson allegedly violated the Freedom Of Information Act, she told CJR. (The page has since been reinstated.) In May, Summer received her first subpoena, from the lawyers of a woman called Tommie Rae Hynie, who claims she was married to James Brown at the time of his death. The subpoena specifically demanded all of Summer’s reporting on Hynie’s diary, which is seen as key to the case. The newest subpoena, issued on behalf of Brown’s children, was served on August 22, with a deadline of October 26.

“This is the third attempt to make me go away,” said Summer, who believes the subpoenas are being issued to scare her off the case. “They want me to hush very quickly.”…

When Summer was served with her second subpoena in August, she said that she felt she was missing a part of the story—why would the state make repeated efforts to discourage her from publicizing the case? She took a closer look at the attorney general Alan Wilson’s re-election campaign contributions from July (Wilson took over from McMaster as attorney general last year). Two coincidences caught her eye.

On the day of Summer’s subpoena hearing in May, Wilson—who is responsible for deciding the final distribution of the estate—received election campaign contributions from a law firm who have hired private practice lawyers to secure Tommie Rae Hynie a share. (Wilson did not respond to a request for comment.) Summer also discovered that one of Hynie’s two high-powered attorneys teaches law at the University of South Carolina where McMaster has worked as a fundraiser since finishing his AG term.

“It certainly raises an eyebrow,” Summer said. “As a matter of fact, Wilson was on a bus tour promoting transparency in government on the very day that I was issued a subpoena by his lawyer.”…

It’s an unusual case in a number of ways, not least the fact that private estate disputes are not usually the kind of thing a reporter spends a lot of time digging into. But it looks as though when they do, they might hit some nerves.

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