State v. Oxner

I respectfully dissent. To my mind, issue preservation should be no bar to the judge’s erroneous ruling on subject matter jurisdiction. Our case law is clear that a judge’s erroneous assumption of jurisdiction, be it an explicit finding of jurisdiction or assumed jurisdiction, may be raised at any time on appeal and addressed de novo by the appellate court without regard to our customary issue preservation requirements. See In re November I, 2008 Bluffton Town Council Election, 385 S.C. 632, 637, 686 S.E.2d 683, 686 (2009) (“Issues related to subject matter jurisdiction may be raised at any…