Judge denies Murdaugh’s motion for new trial

The attorneys representing the clerk of court at the center of Alex Murdaugh’s motion for a new trial said they agree with the judge’s finding.

Murdaugh’s lawyers alleged Rebecca “Becky” Hill, who was the Colleton County, South Carolina, clerk of court, made inappropriate comments to the jury during the murder trial last year.

While Justice Jean Toal found that Hill did make remarks to jurors, it did not influence the verdict. She called Hill’s comments “fleeting and foolish.”

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson also praised the judge’s decision to deny a new trial, saying Murdaugh’s convictions “are based solely on the facts and evidence in the case.”

“He will spend the rest of his life behind bars because he was found guilty. It is time to move on from Alex Murdaugh,” Wilson said in a statement.

Alex Murdaugh, left, confers with Phil Barber during a judicial hearing at the Richland County Judicial Center in Columbia, South Carolina, on Monday, January 29.

Alex Murdaugh was convicted of killing his wife and son. Despite the lack of direct evidence, early last year the prosecution spent weeks outlining how Murdaugh had the motive, means and opportunity to commit the murders.

The case hinged on circumstantial evidence: Proving Murdaugh was at the crime scene that night and that he lied to investigators, and painting him as a fraudster who killed his family in a desperate bid to distract the investigations into his actions.

Motive

A series of witnesses accused Murdaugh of extensive financial wrongdoing at his namesake law firm and presented evidence that he lied to nearly everyone around him in a yearslong fraud. A “day of reckoning” was coming from several different angles, so he killed his family to distract and delay those financial investigations, the prosecution argued.

Two investigations in particular that could have exposed Murdaugh’s wrongdoing were coming to a head at the time of the killings.

For one, the chief financial officer of his law firm testified she had confronted Murdaugh about missing funds on the morning of June 7, 2021, hours before the killings. After the murders, the internal investigation into the funds took a backseat.

Second, Murdaugh was facing a lawsuit from the family of Mallory Beach, a 19-year-old who was killed in February 2019 when a boat, owned by Murdaugh and allegedly driven by Paul, crashed. A hearing in that civil case was scheduled for June 10, 2021, and had the potential to reveal his financial problems, prosecutors argued.

Means 

Maggie was killed by a Blackout rifle and Paul was killed by a shotgun, prosecutor Creighton Waters said, adding that both were family weapons. Testimony from a weapons expert proved that Blackout rifle bullet casings discovered near Maggie’s body matched casings found on other parts of the family’s property.

Waters noted this weapon went missing and Murdaugh could not account for it.

Paul Murdaugh was killed by shots from a shotgun, one of Paul’s “favorite guns,” Waters said. Investigators determined that the two shells that killed Paul had “class characteristics” that were similar to a 12-gauge shotgun. Waters added that Alex Murdaugh had this shotgun with him on the night of the killings and that “Maggie’s DNA and blood” were found on the receiver of the gun.

Opportunity

One of the prosecution’s most compelling pieces of evidence was recorded audio that it said placed Murdaugh at the crime scene on the night of the murders. The video focuses on one of their dogs and appears to have been recorded at the kennels at their family home in Islandton, South Carolina. Three different voices can be heard in the background of the video, and family friends identified those voices as those of Paul, Maggie and Alex Murdaugh.

A video was filmed on Paul’s phone starting at 8:44 p.m. on June 7, 2021, just minutes before Paul and Maggie were shot dead, according to Lt. David Britton Dove, a supervisor in the computer crimes center at the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.

Murdaugh’s presence there contradicted his original claim to investigators that he was not at the kennels that night, prosecutors said.

Murdaugh “told anyone who would listen he was never there,” the prosecution said in opening statements. “The evidence will show that he was there. He was at the murder scene with the two victims.”

Murdaugh later admitted to lying, testifying during the trial that he misled law enforcement because of addiction-induced paranoia.

Defense attorney Dick Harpootlian speaks with Judge Jean Toal during a judicial hearing at the Richland County Judicial Center in Columbia, South Carolina, on Monday.

Attorneys for Alex Murdaugh believe the next step will be the Court of Appeals after Justice Jean Toal denied Murdaugh’s request for a new trial on Monday.

“We go from here to Court of Appeals, then South Carolina Supreme Court – and then federal court,” Murdaugh attorney Dick Harpootlian told CNN.

Harpootlian said he believes the process to get back to the Court of Appeals will take about a month.

“It’s either going to be decided, in my opinion, in our favor in the appellate court or five years down the road in federal court unless they change the federal law,” said Murdaugh attorney Jim Griffin following the evidentiary hearing. 

From left, Judge Jean Toal speaks with defense attorneys Jim Griffin and Dick Harpootlian before a judicial hearing at the Richland County Judicial Center in Columbia, South Carolina, on Monday.

A South Carolina judge said the court clerk was “attracted by the siren call of celebrity” around the murder trial of Alex Murdaugh last year.

Justice Jean Toal on Monday denied Murdaugh’s motion for a new trial.

Murdaugh and his lawyers alleged that Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca “Becky” Hill was inappropriately discussing the case with jurors and pressuring them to conclude deliberations quickly.

Toal said she found that Hill was “not completely credible as a witness” and that the clerk of the court wanted to write a book about the Murdaugh trial as early as November 2022, before the proceedings began.

The judge said Hill expressed to other people that she wanted a guilty verdict because it would sell more books.

Toal said Hill made comments to “one, maybe more” jurors, though she ultimately found that the remarks did not influence the jury.

“I simply do not believe that the authority of our South Carolina 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 courts,” Toal said.

Alex Murdaugh is brought out into the courtroom during a hearing at the Richland County Judicial Center in Columbia, South Carolina, on Monday.

Judge Jean Toal has denied Alex Murdaugh’s motion for a new trial.

She ruled that statements made by Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca “Becky” Hill did not influence the decision of the verdict in the murder trial of Murdaugh.

Toal said she read the entire transcript of the previous murder trial and studied all of the authorities cited in the proceedings. She also researched case law for this circumstance.

The judge said Murdaugh needed to prove two things: first, that the clerk made improper comments to members of the jury, and second, that the comments influenced the jurors to convict him.

“Did Clerk of Court Hill’s comments have impact on the verdict of the jury? I find that the answer to this question is no,” Toal said.

Judge Jean Toal talks to the court during the Alex Murdaugh jury-tampering hearing at the Richland County Judicial Center on Monday in Columbia, South Carolina.

Judge Jean Toal is expected to make a ruling from the bench Monday afternoon in the evidentiary hearing to decide whether Alex Murdaugh should receive a new murder trial.

Murdaugh’s attorneys allege the clerk of court for Colleton County, South Carolina, tampered with the jury that last year found him guilty of murdering his wife and son.

Murdaugh and his attorneys allege Rebecca “Becky” Hill inappropriately discussed the case with jurors, pressured them to conclude deliberations quickly and provided false information to the judge about a juror who was ultimately dismissed. Hill did this, Murdaugh’s defense team claims, “to secure for herself a book deal and media appearances that would not happen in the event of a mistrial.”

During her testimony on Monday, Hill denied attempting to influence the jury during the trial. 

Murdaugh’s murder convictions could be thrown out and he could receive a new trial if Toal finds that Hill tampered with the jury. 

A South Carolina judge questioned several jurors on Monday from Alex Murdaugh’s murder trial conducted last year about potential judicial misconduct.

One of the jurors who found Murdaugh guilty of murdering his wife and 22-year-old son testified that comments made by the Colleton County, South Carolina, clerk of court influenced her verdict – an allegation which is key to Murdaugh’s quest for a new trial.

But every other juror questioned as part of an evidentiary hearing testified their verdicts were not influenced by the clerk, Rebecca “Becky” Hill, who’s been accused by Murdaugh and his attorneys of inappropriately discussing the case with jurors and pressuring them to conclude deliberations quickly.

Hill has denied the allegations, and she did so again while testifying at the hearing Monday afternoon.