A retired South Carolina chief justice will hear arguments later this month on whether the Colleton County court clerk tampered with the jury in disgraced lawyer Alex Murdaugh’s double murder trial last year.
Murdaugh was convicted of the shooting deaths of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, and sentenced to consecutive life sentences. He has also been sentenced to decades in prison after pleading guilty to dozens of financial fraud charges.
State Supreme Court Chief Justice Donald W. Beatty named retired Chief Justice Jean Hoefer Toal, who served that post from 1988 to 2000, to oversee Murdaugh’s motion for a new trial after the trial judge, Circuit Court Judge Clifton Newman, recused himself and requested that a new judge be assigned.
Beatty decided to take the matter out of Colleton County entirely, he said, “[b]ecause Defendant’s motion for a new trial contains allegations related to the conduct of the Colleton County Clerk of Court.”
Murdaugh’s defense attorneys argue that the clerk, Rebecca Hill, made inappropriate comments to jurors during the lengthy trial and that she was pushing for a guilty verdict because she was writing a book about the trial.
The self-published book was recently “unpublished” after it was found that a portion of it was plagiarized.
The defense contends that Hill regularly counseled jurors not to be “misled” by the defense’s case or “‘fooled by’ Murdaugh’s testimony in his own defense.” They say they intend to call at least one juror to testify about Hill’s activities, but prosecutors say that the one juror who has so far talked with the defense was dismissed from the jury and did not even deliberate.
Jurors who did deliberate have reported that Hill did not influence them, and the state attorney general, Alan Wilson, filed a response to the defense motion noting that much of what the defense claims was said by Hill was actually said by prosecutors in their opening statements and closing arguments.
Included in Wilson’s filing was a sworn affidavit from Hill denying the allegations of defense attorney’s Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin.
The hearing on the matter is scheduled for January 29, the Greenville News reports. Both sides have filed further motions in recent days in preparation for the hearing.
A status conference is also scheduled prior to this hearing, on January 16.
See more of CrimeOnline’s coverage of the tribulations of Alex Murdaugh.
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[Featured image: Alex Murdaugh reacts as he addresses the court during his sentencing for stealing from 18 clients, Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2023, at the Beaufort County Courthouse in Beaufort, S.C. (Andrew J. Whitaker/The Post And Courier via AP, Pool)]
