Weldon Boyd claims judge got it wrong in denying immunity in Scott Spivey’s death
A North Myrtle Beach restaurant owner involved in a deadly road rage shooting is asking a judge to reconsider his denial of a Stand Your Ground defense, saying that the judge got it wrong.
Weldon Boyd is one of two men who shot and killed Scott Spivey on Sept. 9, 2023, on Camp Swamp Road in the Longs area of Horry County.
Both Boyd and Kenneth “Bradley” Williams, have claimed self-defense in the shooting, but after a four-day hearing earlier this year in a civil case against the friends, Judge Eugene Griffith Jr. denied both Boyd and Williams immunity under the state’s Stand Your Ground law.
Boyd and Williams have not been criminally charged after the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office ruled that the shooting fell under the state’s Protection of Persons and Property Act, more commonly known as Stand Your Ground.
The response to Griffith’s ruling was filed on June 3, 2026, by Boyd’s attorney Kenneth Moss. In the filing, Boyd contends that evidence shows that the events of that day were “initiated entirely” by Spivey. It claims that Griffith signed an order, which was issued on March 11, “riddled with blatant misstatements of fact.”
“Defendant moves to strike findings related to scene manipulation, the characterization of the pursuit as a reign of terror, an unlawful act, the sequence of shooting, and the inflammatory interpretations of post-incident communications,” the filing said.
Boyd is asking the court to revise and correct findings that are not supported by “evidentiary record or that constitute an abuse of discretion.” The filing claims that the judge signed his order “without independent deliberation and verification against the trial transcript and evidence.”
Griffith made his decision on the fourth day of the February trial, stopping final statements by the plaintiff before issuing his ruling. Griffith said before the ruling that Boyd had no credibility and that the phone calls recorded days after the shooting were telling.
Two weeks later, Griffith also denied Williams, who was a passenger in Boyd’s vehicle, immunity.
Boyd claims in signing the order, the judge failed to identify any specific unlawful act committed by Boyd, “invents” a narrative that the defendants moved Boyd’s truck after the shooting to manipulate the scene, Boyd’s intentions in following Spivey, the ignoring of live rounds in Spivey’s truck, eyewitness accounts and that Spivey posed no immediate threat once he stopped his vehicle in front of Boyd.
Boyd contacted emergency dispatchers and remained on the line for eight minutes, narrating Spivey’s erratic movements to expedite a police response and remove a dangerous individual from the public roadways, the filing says.
The filing also clarifies that Boyd’s phone calls days after the shooting in which he tells Williams that they should get teardrop tattoos and celebrate the fact that they shot and killed Spivey was post-incident trauma responses by Boyd. Boyd claims the order “weaponizes” the responses, despite Boyd testifying that he was in a state of shock, trauma and panic following the shooting and saying that he used “dark humor” as a coping mechanism.
“At the conclusion of this exhaustive hearing, the Court issued a ruling from the bench denying immunity without the benefit of prepared notes or rigorous legal analysis,” the filing said. “The rapid succession of these events strongly suggests the Court, perhaps burdened by a heavy docket or simply inattentive to the tedious details of the record, essentially rubber-stamped the Plaintiff’s highly partisan draft without independent deliberation or verification against the evidentiary record.”
What happened in the case
Unless the judge changes his order, both Boyd and Williams will have to face the wrongful death lawsuit filed by Spivey’s family in the shooting of the 33-year-old Tabor City, North Carolina, man. The trial for the case has not been set.
During the February Stand Your Ground hearing, the two men’s testimonies were similar as they recounted how Spivey drove close to Boyd’s vehicle, pointed a gun at Williams and then began driving erratically as he travelled along the highway. Boyd said that Spivey eventually ran him off the road, and he pointed his weapon at other drivers, which prompted him to call 911 to seek help from police to get Spivey off the road.
Eventually both vehicles ended up on Camp Swamp Road in the Longs area where a gun battle ensued and Spivey was shot dead.
