Judge John C. Few
COLUMBIA -- What was a three-way race to fill the seat of a retiring justice on the South Carolina Supreme Court is suddenly down to two with under a week until the vote. Thirteenth Judicial Circuit Judge John C. Few withdrew his name from contention on Tuesday in the General Assembly's short-list ballot on Feb. 6 to fill the vacancy. The race is now down to Court of Appeals Chief Judge Kaye Hearn and Court of Appeals Judge John Kittredge. Few, Hearn and Kittredge were chosen early last month by the state legislature's Judicial Merit Selection Committee as the short list to replace Justice Moore, LNL reported. Hearn is taking her second shot at the Supreme Court in less than a year after losing in early 2007 to Justice Donald W. Beatty. Few was voted Circuit Court Judge in 2000 and re-elected in 2006 for a term ending in 2012. He previously practiced law privately in Greenville from 1989 until 2000 and clerked for Federal Judge G. Ross Anderson in 1988-89.