A South Carolina judge on Monday denied Alex Murdaugh’s bid for a new trial over claims a court clerk tampered with the jury that convicted him of murder last year.
Former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Toal, who took over the case last month, ruled against him after an evidentiary hearing into allegations that Colleton County court clerk Becky Hill’s comments swayed the 12-person jury to convict Murdaugh, a verdict that resulted in the disgraced former lawyer’s life sentence. During the Monday hearing, only one juror testified that the comments made by Hill influenced her opinion about Murdaugh and her decision to convict him.
“To me, it felt like she made it seem like he was already guilty,” Juror Z said.
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While Toal did not agree that the jury was tainted, she did not hesitate to slam the court clerk, whom she said was “attracted to the siren call of celebrity” even before the trial.
The decision means Murdaugh will not get a do-over for what’s been dubbed the “trial of the century,” a shocking twist in the made-for-TV saga of the once-powerful Lowcountry family. After the hearing, Murdaugh's defense team said they will appeal Toal's decision and believe they will eventually get a new trial.
The other jurors testified on Monday that they were not influenced by Hill. Two other jurors, however, did confirm that they heard the court clerk tell the jury to watch Murdaugh when he took the stand during the murder trial. An alternate juror, who was removed from the trial before deliberations, also testified that she heard Hill warn the jury not to “be swayed” by Murdaugh’s testimony.
Prosecutors argued that Murdaugh’s defense teams' arguments did not meet the legal standard for a new trial and that Hill denied the allegations. While on the stand, Hill denied making comments to influence jurors’ opinions, taking a juror home after court, or telling a fellow court clerk that a Murdaugh guilty verdict would boost sales of her future book.
“I did not have a conversation with any juror about anything related to this case,” Hill said.
Barnwell County court clerk Rhonda McElveen, who helped Hill during the trial, testified that the two discussed writing a book about the Murdaugh trial “because she needed a lake house and I needed to retire.” Hill also brought up several times that a guilty verdict in the trial would “sell more books,” she said.
McElveen said that during the trial she confronted Hill after hearing she had taken a juror home after court. “She said, ‘I did. But we didn’t talk about the case and [the bailiff] Mr. Bill was with me,’” McElveen said Hill responded.
The allegations against the clerk have since spurred two separate state probes into Hill, an ethics complaint about her alleged misuse of her office, and halted book sales of her memoir after she admitted to plagiarism.
Hill’s attorneys said following the trial that they agreed with the ruling, writing in a statement that “any interaction she had with jurors in no way influenced their collective decision on the facts of the case.”
“We agree with Justice Toal’s finding that the Colleton County jurors selected for this very complicated and lengthy trial were consummate professionals and operated within the instructions of the court,” Hill’s attorneys, Justin Bamberg and Will Lewis, said. “We thank them for their service.”
Murdaugh has long maintained that he was wrongfully convicted for murdering his wife, Maggie, and his son, Paul, at their family’s hunting estate in June 2021. Since being convicted, Murdaugh has pleaded guilty to state and federal crimes for stealing millions from his law firm and clients.
He has also admitted that he arranged his own botched attempted murder to secure a life insurance payment for his surviving son.
“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 on the facts and evidence in the case,” South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said in a statement after Toal's ruling.
“He will spend the rest of his life behind bars because he was found guilty. It is time to move on from Alex Murdaugh.”
