SC judge denies new trial for convicted murderer Murdaugh after jury tampering claim

Convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh will not be granted a new trial based on allegations that jurors who found him guilty were improperly influenced by Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill.

South Carolina Judge Jean Toal issued the ruling following an all-day hearing Monday at the Richland County courthouse in which jurors were questioned, along with Hill herself.

“This case is unique in my 20 years of experience as a lawyer and 35 years experience as a judge,” Toal said. After reviewing all available cases, Toal said that she had not found a single one with facts that provided a clear precedent.

Ruling from the bench, the former South Carolina Supreme Court chief justice said while she did not find Hill to be entirely credible, it did not change her opinion. “I simply do not believe that the authority of our S.C. Supreme Court requires a new trial in a very lengthy trial such as this on the strength of some fleeting and foolish comments by a publicity-influenced clerk of court,” Toal said.

Murdaugh and his attorneys claimed that Hill, who became a minor celebrity widely loved by the media, lawyers, and trial watchers, made improper comments to jurors during Murdaugh’s trial in early 2023 because she believed that a guilty verdict would improve sales of a book she planned to write about the trial.

The former Hampton County lawyer was convicted last March of killing his wife and son in June 2021 at Moselle, the family’s Colleton County estate. Prosecutors argued during the trial that Murdaugh, who came from a prominent legal and political family, committed the murders to divert attention from his widespread financial problems.

In her closing remarks, Toal reaffirmed the words of Judge Clifton Newman, who oversaw Murdaugh’s trial: “The evidence was overwhelming and the jury verdict is not surprising.”

In a statement issued following Toal’s ruling, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said that the process vindicated the prosecution’s case. “After that thorough investigation, and a fair public hearing, it is clear that Alex Murdaugh’s convictions for the murders of Maggie and Paul are based solely upon the facts and evidence of the case. It is time to move on and forward.”

But Toal’s ruling offered Murdaugh’s attorneys a glimmer of hope. “We feel vindicated on the facts,” said attorney Jim Griffin at a press conference outside the courthouse. “The law is unsettled.” Following the hearing, the attorneys indicated that they intended to continue their appeals through state court and even into federal court.

Murdaugh was present in court wearing the orange uniform of a South Carolina Department of Corrections inmate. He was accompanied by his attorneys, Griffin, Dick Harpootlian, Phil Barber and Maggie Fox, who represented him at his trial. At the state’s table were many members of the prosecution team from last year’s trial, among them Assistant Attorney Generals Creighton Waters, John Meadors, Johnny James, Don Zelenka and Attorney General Alan Wilson

Monday’s hearing was the climax of a four-month long journey that began when Griffin and Harpootlian filed what many considered a bombshell motion on Sept. 5, 2023. The motion — which lawyers said was the result of “shoe leather” work, driving down dirt roads in Harpootlian’s Mercedes and knocking on jurors’ doors — accused Hill of making statements that included warning jurors to watch Murdaugh closely and not to believe his testimony.

Nine of the jurors questioned said they had not heard Hill make any statements. Of the three who testified they had heard something, just one, “Juror Z,” said it influenced her verdict.

The first to testify Monday, Juror Z said that she heard Hill instructing the jurors to watch Murdaugh “closely,” saying “look at his actions” and “look at his movements.”

“To me it felt like she made it seem like he was already guilty,” the juror told the court.

But testimony from Juror Z did not sway Toal. The judge had Juror Z read out loud an affidavit the juror signed that was submitted as part of the Murdaugh defense team’s motion. In it, Juror Z stated that she felt pressured by the other jurors to convict Murdaugh.

When questioned by Toal, the juror said the affidavit was accurate. In her ruling, Toal described the juror as “ambivalent in her testimony” and characterized pressure from other jurors as a “normal” part of the jury process.

On the stand Monday, Hill broadly denied making any statements that could have prejudiced the jury. Statements encouraging the jurors to pay attention were simply part of a “pep talk” she was giving tired jurors, Hill said, and she said that she had no incentive to push for a guilty verdict for her book, which she said eventually earned her and her co-author, Neil Gordon, around $100,000.

“It did not matter to me if it was guilty, not guilty or it was a mistrial,” Hill said. But on the stand, the first-time author admitted to plagiarizing an article from the BBC in her book as well as using unsupported assertions about the Murdaugh family.

Hill also said that many scenes were not entirely factual, but instead the result of artistic liberty. Cross-examined about a scene in her book in which she described making eye contact with jurors while visiting Moselle and coming to a shared understanding that Murdaugh was guilty, Hill said, “That was part of that poetic license that we write to make something more apparent.”

Throughout her testimony, Hill mostly maintained the gracious demeanor that she was well-known for during the trial at the Colleton County Courthouse. But during questioning, some of Hill’s less direct answers appeared to frustrate Toal. At one point Toal instructed her to answer Harpootlian directly and Toal appeared to grow frustrated at Hill’s confusing answers about her role in the dismissal of a juror known as the “egg lady.”

In a surprise move, Toal, who had been resistant to letting anyone other than the 12 jurors testify, allowed the defense to put forward an alternate juror and Barnwell Clerk of Court Rhonda McElveen to impeach Hill’s testimony.

McElveen, who assisted Hill throughout the trial, said that she remembered Hill talking about writing a book early in the trial and saying that she wanted to retire and buy a lake house. On the stand and in previous statements, Hill had said that the idea to write a book didn’t come to her until after the trial.

“When the evidence was coming forth that it looked like he might be guilty she made a comment that a guilty verdict might be better to sell books,” McElveen said.

One morning, Hill also admitted to her that she had driven a juror home, accompanied by her head of security. But Hill insisted that she did not talk about the case during the drive, McElveen said. None of these incidents rose to the level of concern that she felt like she needed to alert the judge, McElveen said.

Hill had testified on Monday that she had not driven a juror home.

McElveen’s testimony was one of several moments during the day when the balance of the hearing appeared to shift back and forth despite what many assumed to be a losing case for the defense, pre-determined by Toal’s reading of legal precedent.

In pre-trial proceedings, Toal had stated that she intended to base her ruling on precedent drawn from a case known as South Carolina v. Green, which requires the defense to prove that not only were there inappropriate contacts with the jurors but that those statements also influenced their verdict.

In contrast, the defense repeatedly urged Toal to adopt the precedent outlined in Remmer v. United States, a federal case. In Remmer, the U.S. Supreme Court found that making inappropriate statements to the jury was presumed to be prejudicial and it was up to the state to prove they were not.

But jurors overwhelmingly testified that they had neither heard any statements about the case from Hill nor had their verdict been influenced by her.

A wrench was thrown into the hearing early Monday, after the testimony of the first juror, when it was discovered that some jurors, while waiting for their turn to be questioned, were watching the proceedings being live streamed by CourtTV on their cellphones from the jury room.

Toal had earlier ordered a bailiff to accompany the jurors. “Why there was not a bailiff in the jury room, I do not know,” she said.

After a brief recess, Toal continued with questioning the jurors, with the added inquiries of whether they had been watching the live stream on their phone and whether it would affect their testimony.

For the most part they spoke little, responding with “yes ma’am,” or “no, your honor” to her questions. In addition to Juror Z, only Juror X, who testified Friday, and Juror P recalled Hill making statements making statements about Murdaugh’s demeanor. On the stand, Juror P said he recalled Hill saying “watch his body language,” but told the court that it did not affect his verdict.

During closing arguments, prosecutor Waters and Griffin, a defense attorney, focused on whether the jurors’ testimony had met the standards for jury tampering.

Dismissing McElveen as a “red herring,” Waters, the lead prosecutor in the Murdaugh murder trial, spoke of the jurors in glowing terms. They “were not here to reward friends or punish enemies,” said Waters, and as a group “they were strong and clear this verdict was fair.”

But Griffin was adamant that the defense had met the high standard set by the court to prove that Hill had tampered with the jury. The testimony of “Juror Z” alone was enough to prove prejudice, they argued.

“Did it affect your finding of guilty in this case? She said ‘yes.’ That’s prejudice, your honor,” Griffin said.

In giving her ruling, Toal said she found Hill “not completely credible” and believed that “Mrs. Hill was attracted by the siren call of celebrity.”

“I find that (Hill) stated to the clerk of court, Rhonda McElveen, and others her desire for a guilty verdict because it would sell books. She made comments about Murdaugh’s demeanor as he testified, and she made some of those comments before he testified to at least one and maybe other jurors,” Toal said. The judge also said that she believed Hill had planned to write her book as early as the November before the trial.

However, the judge said, the defense did not prove that those comments had actually prejudiced any jurors to deliver a guilty verdict.

“Did Clerk of Court Hill’s comments have any impact on the verdict of the jury? I find that the answer to this question is ‘no,’” Toal said. “Each member of this jury took their involuntary assignment very seriously. They obeyed the instructions of the court. They obeyed their oath. These good and decent citizens of Colleton County stood to their duty and rendered their verdict without fear or favor. It was a difficult task.”

Despite harsh words from Toal about their client, attorneys for Hill, Will Lewis and state Rep. Justin Bamberg, D-Bamberg, portrayed Monday’s hearing as a win for their client, writing, “Justice Toal described Becky Hill’s alleged comments at the center of Murdaugh’s defense counsel’s argument as ‘fleeting’ and that any interaction she had with jurors in no way influenced their collective decision on the facts of the case.”