Shealy is also actively practices criminal law in state and federal trial courts, including corporate and white collar criminal defense, and he represents clients in criminal and civil appeals in state and federal appellate courts.

From 1985-1987, he was an Assistant Solicitor (state prosecutor) in the Fifth Circuit Solicitor’s Office (Columbia, S.C.).  From 1988 – 1995, he served in the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office as an Assistant State Attorney General in the appeals division and as Section Chief of the Capital Litigation Unit.

He has argued over 200 cases before State appellate courts.  He also briefed and argued Yates v. Evatt, 500 U.S. 391 (1991) (a capital case). From 1995 – 2005, he served in the Department of Justice as an Assistant United States Attorney where he coordinated a statewide corporate/investor fraud task force and served on the organized crime and drug enforcement task force (OCDETF).

He was local counsel for the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice in the investigation and prosecution of suspected terrorists, Ali Seleh Kahlah al-Marri and Jose Padilla. In 2005, he received the “Director’s Appreciation Award” from the Department of Justice. From 1995-2011, he taught at the National Advocacy Center of the Department of Justice on narcotics investigation, federal criminal practice and national security.

Shealy was one of the attorneys who represented the family of George Stinney, Jr. in 2014. George Stinney, Jr. (age 14) was the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th century. Stinney was executed in South Carolina in June 1944 for murder. Stinney’s family struggled for years to clear his name, and in December 2014 a State Circuit Judge vacated Stinney’s 70-year-old conviction.

He was Of Counsel with the Finkel Law Firm LLC from October 2015 until July 2016. Prof. Shealy is also the co-author of three books Computer and Intellectual Property Crimes (2003), South Carolina Crimes: Elements and Defenses (2009), and Criminal Procedure for South Carolina Practitioners (2011). Professor Shealy’s article LOST IN D.C., concerning passage of the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty, was published in November 2012 by the Admiralty and Maritime Law Committee of the ABA Trial and Insurance Practice Section (TIPS). He has two articles: A Reasonable Doubt about “Reasonable Doubt,” 65 Okla. L. Rev. 225 (2013) and The Hunting of Man: Lies, Damn Lies, and Police Interrogations, 4 Univ. of Miami Race & Soc. Just. L. Rev. 21 (2014). 

Education

Shealy earned both his J.D. (1985) and B.A. (1981) degrees from the University of South Carolina.