WINNSBORO – The trial of a Fairfield Central High School football coach, arrested and charged on Dec. 6 for simple possession of marijuana, was postponed last week after his attorney requested a jury trial.
Doward Keith Harvin, an attorney in Hemmingway representing David Nathaniel Toney, requested the jury trial prior to the scheduled Jan. 9 hearing in Fairfield County Magistrate’s Court. A new date had not been set for Toney at press time.
Toney was stopped by the S.C. Highway Patrol (SCHP) on Highway 34 near I-77 on Dec. 6 while en route to the state championship football game between Fairfield Central and Dillon. According to the Highway Patrol, Toney was clocked traveling 67 in the 55 MPH zone. The arresting Trooper in the case reported a “strong odor of marijuana” emanating from Toney’s 2008 Chrysler Aspen. The trooper asked Toney if there was any marijuana in the vehicle, to which Toney replied that he “hoped not,” the report states.
When the trooper asked a second time about the marijuana, Toney reportedly said that he had “a little bag,” and retrieved a clear plastic bag of marijuana from the center console of the vehicle and handed it over to the patrolman.
A search of the car turned up a marijuana cigarette inside a cup that was sitting in the center console, as well as “numerous burnt marijuana cigarettes inside the same cup,” the report states.
A search of public records shows this to be the third time Toney was charged with simple possession of marijuana. During a traffic stop in Columbia on Dec. 21, 2006, a Richland County Sheriff’s deputy found a partially burned marijuana cigarette and a small bag of marijuana in Toney’s car. On May 17, 2007, Toney was stopped in Calhoun County, where a deputy also found marijuana in the car. Toney was convicted in both cases (see the Jan. 10 edition of The Voice).
