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The truth is, no one wants a new trial except the defendant and his legal team. Murdaugh’s two convictions for the slayings of his wife, Maggie, and his youngest son, Paul, were the result of a six-week trial, countless witnesses, reams of evidence and a nearly airtight prosecution by the state of South Carolina. A retrial would be costly to taxpayers (again). Victims and families would have to suffer through another rehash of their worst nightmares. And lead prosecutor Creighton Waters, dubbed the “AI of lawyers” by a television producer, isn’t going to get worse at his job.
Moreover, for the murders to have been committed by someone other than Murdaugh, the killer or killers would have had approximately four minutes to materialize at the family dog kennels, toting two long guns exactly like the two owned by Murdaugh, shoot the mother and son and then disappear, apparently forever. Unlike Murdaugh, who was demonstrably present at the time.
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Even so, everyone deserves a fair trial, right?
Did the 12 jurors, without taking notes, fully follow and absorb the six weeks of mind-bending minutiae that Waters delivered — including his down-to-the-second ticktock of the crime — before delivering their verdict in just three hours? Or were they influenced by Hill, as the defense has alleged in a 65-page affidavit? Among its allegations was that Hill spoke to jurors about the case during the trial and that she drove one juror home after court. She also made some damning admissions in a book she co-authored, and allegedly told jurors they would have to reach a verdict by 10 p.m. or spend the night in a hotel.
Allegedly, too, Hill told the smokers among the jurors that they couldn’t take a cigarette break until they reached a verdict. I can tell you this from my long-ago years of smoking: I’d have convicted Snow White for stealing apples and sleeping on the job after one hour without a smoke.
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Under oath, the demure, pearl-stranded Hill denied all of the above. But she was, at least in some instances, lying. The genteel Toal more charitably said that Hill was not “entirely credible.” In fact, four jurors, including an alternate juror, said that during the trial Hill urged jurors to not be fooled by the defense, to “watch his actions” and to “watch him closely,” referring to Murdaugh.
Only one juror, known as “Juror Z,” testified to both hearing Hill’s comments and being influenced by them. “To me it felt like she made it seem like he was already guilty,” she said on the witness stand.
The defense must have struggled to stifle cheers at this, until the prosecution pointed out that Juror Z had said different things in two separate affidavits. In the first, she said she felt pressured by other jurors. In the second, signed Monday morning before the hearing, she claimed she had been influenced by Hill.
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Hill also testified that she had never spoken to the so-called Egg Lady juror, whom Hill was instrumental in getting dismissed from the jury. Toal quickly corrected the witness on this, pointing to a hearing in which presiding Judge Clifton Newman “expressed unhappiness with your talking to the juror before he had a chance to.”
Egg Lady (so named because she once brought eggs to the jury room) apparently wasn’t convinced of Murdaugh’s guilt and reportedly said so to two people outside the courtroom. Newman told her she might have done nothing wrong before gently sending her home with her eggs.
In her book, to which Toal referred several times, Hill committed unpardonable sins — fabricating, embellishing and even plagiarizing. If ever there was a tale that needed no embellishment, the Murdaugh story is it. Hill explained her author’s crimes as “poetic ease,” which would “make the story better.” Toal concluded that Hill decided to write the book long before the trial began and that she was “attracted to the siren call of celebrity.”
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The defense viewed the book as evidence of Hill’s motive in both tampering with the jury and orchestrating Egg Lady’s dismissal. The theory here is that Hill needed a guilty verdict to sell the book — which is plausible given testimony from Barnwell County Clerk of Court Rhonda McElveen, who assisted Hill throughout the trial. McElveen, whose deadpan delivery could bring mirth to the merciless, testified that Hill had spoken to her several times about writing a book together: “She needed a lake house and I wanted to retire,” she quipped.
McElveen, who did not work on the book, said she told Hill that a guilty verdict would make it more marketable. She also testified that Hill did give a juror a ride home and that she had scolded her for it. “Don’t tell me you gave a juror a ride home,” McElveen recalled saying to Hill the next morning. “I did,” Hill reportedly said, “but I had a bailiff with me.”
I wonder what they talked about in the car. Cookie recipes?
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A few minutes before 5 p.m. on Monday, Toal announced a 15-minute break while she considered her ruling. At 5:14, she emerged to read a statement that seemed too comprehensive to have been written so quickly. The defense will surely note this on appeal.
I confess to some unease with Toal’s decision, a feeling similar to what I (and others) experienced when the jury took only about three hours to convict Murdaugh last year. I wonder why the clerk’s dissembling doesn’t impeach her credibility across the board. When four of 13 jurors confirm what the defense claims, isn’t that tampering?
It would have been enough under a different Supreme Court ruling, had Toal followed it instead of Green. In Remmer v. United States, which predates South Carolina v. Green, the court ruled that any inappropriate communication with jurors is presumed to be prejudicial. Under Remmer, it would be up to the state to prove that Hill’s communications were not.
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If we take nothing else from this latest chapter in the Murdaugh saga, it is that our judicial system needs significant updating to deal with social media and to make juror instructions ironclad. Jurors need to be instructed early, clearly and repeatedly that they are not to access any media or talk to anyone, or face being charged with contempt of court.
I believe in Murdaugh’s guilt, but I also believe that Hill engaged in jury tampering. She might not have persuaded the jurors in this case, but she contributed to circumstances that give us reasonable pause when we turn to the courts for justice, further undermining public faith in what is still the best judicial system in the world. She deserves more than shame.
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COLUMBIA, S.C. — No one really expected Judge Jean Toal to grant convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh a new trial based on allegations of jury tampering by Rebecca Hill, the Colleton County clerk of court. Toal had already made clear in a prehearing that she would make her decision based on a federal ruling in South Carolina v. Green; the defense would have to prove not only that there was interference with the jury but also that the jurors were influenced by it.
At a hearing on Monday at the Richland County courthouse, Toal repeated her intention to draw from that precedent. She alone would pose a few narrowly defined questions to the 12 jurors who convicted Murdaugh of murder last March: Did they stand by their verdict? Was it based only on evidence, testimony and law? Did Hill talk to the jurors about the case? Were they influenced by what she said?
Toal would also question Hill under oath.
Before I begin the near-impossible task of reducing this saga to a few hundred words, allow me to summarize my preliminary conclusions from the hearing: There was jury tampering. Hill is a liar. No one who bet on Monday’s ruling lost money.
The truth is, no one wants a new trial except the defendant and his legal team. Murdaugh’s two convictions for the slayings of his wife, Maggie, and his youngest son, Paul, were the result of a six-week trial, countless witnesses, reams of evidence and a nearly airtight prosecution by the state of South Carolina. A retrial would be costly to taxpayers (again). Victims and families would have to suffer through another rehash of their worst nightmares. And lead prosecutor Creighton Waters, dubbed the “AI of lawyers” by a television producer, isn’t going to get worse at his job.
Moreover, for the murders to have been committed by someone other than Murdaugh, the killer or killers would have had approximately four minutes to materialize at the family dog kennels, toting two long guns exactly like the two owned by Murdaugh, shoot the mother and son and then disappear, apparently forever. Unlike Murdaugh, who was demonstrably present at the time.
Even so, everyone deserves a fair trial, right?
Did the 12 jurors, without taking notes, fully follow and absorb the six weeks of mind-bending minutiae that Waters delivered — including his down-to-the-second ticktock of the crime — before delivering their verdict in just three hours? Or were they influenced by Hill, as the defense has alleged in a 65-page affidavit? Among its allegations was that Hill spoke to jurors about the case during the trial and that she drove one juror home after court. She also made some damning admissions in a book she co-authored, and allegedly told jurors they would have to reach a verdict by 10 p.m. or spend the night in a hotel.
Allegedly, too, Hill told the smokers among the jurors that they couldn’t take a cigarette break until they reached a verdict. I can tell you this from my long-ago years of smoking: I’d have convicted Snow White for stealing apples and sleeping on the job after one hour without a smoke.
Under oath, the demure, pearl-stranded Hill denied all of the above. But she was, at least in some instances, lying. The genteel Toal more charitably said that Hill was not “entirely credible.” In fact, four jurors, including an alternate juror, said that during the trial Hill urged jurors to not be fooled by the defense, to “watch his actions” and to “watch him closely,” referring to Murdaugh.
Only one juror, known as “Juror Z,” testified to both hearing Hill’s comments and being influenced by them. “To me it felt like she made it seem like he was already guilty,” she said on the witness stand.
The defense must have struggled to stifle cheers at this, until the prosecution pointed out that Juror Z had said different things in two separate affidavits. In the first, she said she felt pressured by other jurors. In the second, signed Monday morning before the hearing, she claimed she had been influenced by Hill.
Hill also testified that she had never spoken to the so-called Egg Lady juror, whom Hill was instrumental in getting dismissed from the jury. Toal quickly corrected the witness on this, pointing to a hearing in which presiding Judge Clifton Newman “expressed unhappiness with your talking to the juror before he had a chance to.”
Egg Lady (so named because she once brought eggs to the jury room) apparently wasn’t convinced of Murdaugh’s guilt and reportedly said so to two people outside the courtroom. Newman told her she might have done nothing wrong before gently sending her home with her eggs.
In her book, to which Toal referred several times, Hill committed unpardonable sins — fabricating, embellishing and even plagiarizing. If ever there was a tale that needed no embellishment, the Murdaugh story is it. Hill explained her author’s crimes as “poetic ease,” which would “make the story better.” Toal concluded that Hill decided to write the book long before the trial began and that she was “attracted to the siren call of celebrity.”
The defense viewed the book as evidence of Hill’s motive in both tampering with the jury and orchestrating Egg Lady’s dismissal. The theory here is that Hill needed a guilty verdict to sell the book — which is plausible given testimony from Barnwell County Clerk of Court Rhonda McElveen, who assisted Hill throughout the trial. McElveen, whose deadpan delivery could bring mirth to the merciless, testified that Hill had spoken to her several times about writing a book together: “She needed a lake house and I wanted to retire,” she quipped.
McElveen, who did not work on the book, said she told Hill that a guilty verdict would make it more marketable. She also testified that Hill did give a juror a ride home and that she had scolded her for it. “Don’t tell me you gave a juror a ride home,” McElveen recalled saying to Hill the next morning. “I did,” Hill reportedly said, “but I had a bailiff with me.”
I wonder what they talked about in the car. Cookie recipes?
A few minutes before 5 p.m. on Monday, Toal announced a 15-minute break while she considered her ruling. At 5:14, she emerged to read a statement that seemed too comprehensive to have been written so quickly. The defense will surely note this on appeal.
I confess to some unease with Toal’s decision, a feeling similar to what I (and others) experienced when the jury took only about three hours to convict Murdaugh last year. I wonder why the clerk’s dissembling doesn’t impeach her credibility across the board. When four of 13 jurors confirm what the defense claims, isn’t that tampering?
It would have been enough under a different Supreme Court ruling, had Toal followed it instead of Green. In Remmer v. United States, which predates South Carolina v. Green, the court ruled that any inappropriate communication with jurors is presumed to be prejudicial. Under Remmer, it would be up to the state to prove that Hill’s communications were not.
If we take nothing else from this latest chapter in the Murdaugh saga, it is that our judicial system needs significant updating to deal with social media and to make juror instructions ironclad. Jurors need to be instructed early, clearly and repeatedly that they are not to access any media or talk to anyone, or face being charged with contempt of court.
I believe in Murdaugh’s guilt, but I also believe that Hill engaged in jury tampering. She might not have persuaded the jurors in this case, but she contributed to circumstances that give us reasonable pause when we turn to the courts for justice, further undermining public faith in what is still the best judicial system in the world. She deserves more than shame.
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