Despite scrutiny of Mullen over 2017 police audio, officials say SC lacks teeth to discipline

A Beaufort County deputy’s 2017 dashcam recording of a dispute in an upscale Hilton Head community has drawn fresh attention to a South Carolina judge at the heart of the Alex Murdaugh saga.

But lawmakers and attorneys have suggested that the judge is unlikely to face consequences for the recording and any judicial investigation would be shielded from the public.

“They’re going to take him to the jail, then I am going to tell the magistrate not to give him a bond, then I am going to have to hold him there,” Judge Carmen Mullen said on a dashcam recording captured from a sheriff’s deputy’s car, released to media outlets through a public records request

On the recording, the 14th Circuit Court judge can be heard musing about ways she can expedite the arrest of Ernest “Ernie” Lotito.

Mullen has maintained that her actions on the night of Dec. 12, 2017, were motivated by concern for Lotito, a former attorney accused of harassing the homeowner he was staying with during a mental health crisis.

But the half hour-long recording has undercut Mullen’s previous claims that a law enforcement incident report released to the public did not accurately portray the events in 2017.

It has also raised questions about whether Mullen, who presided over the settlement case involving the estate of Gloria Satterfield, the Murdaughs’ longtime housekeeper who died after a fall in 2018, will face scrutiny by either the state Legislature when she is up for reelection in 2027 or the judiciary’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel.

In a statement emailed to news outlets on Oct. 19, 2022, Mullen denied the incident report’s assertion that she tried to use her position to get a Lotito arrested on the night of Dec. 12, 2017.

The existence of the report documenting the incident was first reported by reporter Liz Farrell on the podcast “Cup of Justice,” which she co-hosts with Columbia attorney Eric Bland.

At the time, Lotito was staying at a home belonging to Regan Renaud in the Port Royal Plantation community on Hillton Head. Mullen became involved in the situation after Letito, who had been briefly employed by her husband, refused to leave Renaud’s home.

“I’m about to cry, you have no idea,” Regan could be heard telling deputies as she described Letito’s erratic behavior, including discussing her daughter’s underwear and running up her energy bill by leaving the doors to her home wide open and turning on fans.

Mullen was passing by but stopped. Approaching a sheriff’s deputy, Mullen can be heard saying that the officers would have to “take him in.”

“I don’t think you have a choice,” she said. “I am not sure what you can charge him with right now, but you’ve got to get rid of him. He can’t keep harassing her.”

Mullen can be heard explaining that Letito was a ”really bright” lawyer with a serious mental illness that could best be managed in jail.

“He’s a sweetheart at the jail,” Mullen said. “The funny thing is, they love him. All the jailers, they laugh. I say any problems? They say, ‘No, no, no, no,’ because they medicate him while he’s there. They force medicate him.”

The judge went on to brainstorm ways that Letito could be legally arrested.

Mullen said that Lotito had been arrested in the past when he was purposefully driven to the Kangaroo Express, a gas station on Robert Smalls Parkway, where he had a no-trespass notice.

When deputies said there was nothing they could do that night to get Lotito off the property since he did not have a no-trespass notice at the home, Mullen asked whether they could draw up a warrant for breach of contract after claiming he had used Renaud’s credit cards without her consent. Deputies said they would have to get a judge to sign off on it.

“I mean, I could sign a warrant,” Mullen said. “I sign them all the time.”

As the conversation continued, deputies could be heard on the recording growing uncomfortable at Mullen’s persistence.

“This is getting to the point where a supervisor needs to be out here,” a deputy could be heard saying. “Mullen is wanting to make stuff up to get him arrested.”

In reference to those allegations, Mullen said in her Oct. 19 statement that she only got involved in the situation to make sure police were aware that Lotito was mentally ill so that “they would not hurt him.”

“The allegation that I was somehow abusing my power as a judge, trying to have Ernie arrested for no reason, is ridiculous,” Mullen said in her statement. “We were simply trying to help him.“

Scrutiny limited for SC judges

The incident has once again put Mullen’s conduct under the spotlight.

Questions about her fitness have been raised ever since it was revealed that Mullen made unusual rulings favoring disgraced ex-attorney Murdaugh, who currently sits in the Richland County jail facing numerous financial-related charges and murder charges in the shooting deaths of his wife and youngest son.

But despite the scrutiny, there are few mechanisms for sanctioning a sitting judge in South Carolina.

Circuit court judges like Mullen are elected by the General Assembly — along with Virginia, South Carolina is just one of two states where legislators, not voters, elect judges — after being reviewed by the Judicial Merit Selection Committee, which includes state legislators. The judges then serve for six years.

Mullen was first elected to the court in 2006. She was most recently reelected by the legislature in 2021.

“We don’t have any authority unless (the judge is) in front of us,” said House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, who sits on the judicial vetting committee.

The selection committee doesn’t even have the power to call a judge before them except when they are running for office, Rutherford said.

Other members of the judicial merit selection committee did not respond to The State’s request for comment.

In February 2022, South Carolina 1st Circuit Solicitor David Pascoe filed a complaint with the Office of Disciplinary Counsel alleging that Mullen signed off on a settlement in a case where the heirs of deceased Murdaugh housekeeper Satterfield were due to get millions of dollars, knowing the settlement would be hidden from public view.

As a circuit court judge, Mullen’s conduct is governed by the South Carolina code of judicial conduct, which charges judges with upholding high standards of independence, impartiality and faithfulness to the law. Under South Carolina law, it is considered misconduct for a lawyer or judge to perform acts “prejudicial to the administration of justice.”

The Office of Disciplinary Counsel investigates complaints against judges and lawyers in South Carolina, but a 2019 investigation by ProPublica and the Post and Courier revealed that no judges in South Carolina had ever been publicly punished following an investigation.

“There is now sworn testimony establishing that Judge Mullen signed the Satterfield order on May 13, 2019, knowing it would not be filed (in the public record) to prevent the litigants in the Mallory Beach matter from learning about Mr. Murdaugh’s insurance coverage and his settlement with the Satterfield estate,” Pascoe’s letter states

Mallory Beach’s death in 2019 in a boat crash, allegedly caused by Murdaugh’s son Paul, led to scrutiny of the Murdaugh legal empire and accusations that he stole settlement money from clients, including Satterfield’s family.

However, the disciplinary counsel has been active in sanctioning attorneys who break the rules.

In July, former Greenville Assistant Solicitor Jeffrey Phillips was suspended from the practice of law after he was found to have texted with a juror. Phillips self-reported his communications, according to Upstate-based television station WSPA.

“It’s necessary for public official to be held to a higher standard,” Pascoe said. “That was appropriate and I’m glad they did it.”

When asked whether Mullen should have to answer to the disciplinary counsel, Pascoe said that he had “no comment about the judge.”

“That’s the South Carolina Supreme Court’s job, not David Pascoe’s,” he said.