There seems to be a de facto informal system within the S. C legal system whereby officers of the court protect each other regardless of what laws, regulations and the code of conduct require.

Those of you who have served in the military, especially the Army, may be familiar with the term West Point Protection Association.

This was a term derisively used, especially during the Vietnam War, to describe an informal system whereby West Point graduates protected the records of each other regardless of rank or other considerations. One West Pointer protected another regardless of what actually happened in the field.