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Efforts to accommodate the travel plans of the former foreperson of the Colleton County, South Carolina jury that found Alex Murdaugh guilty of murdering his wife and son devolved into ferocious First Amendment wrangling on Friday morning at the Richland County courthouse in downtown Columbia, S.C.
The end result? A quasi-voluntary media embargo of the juror’s testimony … the first formal responses to seismic jury tampering allegations.
Murdaugh was found guilty last winter of murdering his wife, 52-year-old Maggie Murdaugh, and younger son – 22-year-old Paul Murdaugh – on the family’s hunting property near Islandton, S.C. on the evening of June 7, 2021. He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison. Murdaugh is now appealing those convictions, but that process is on hold as his attorneys – led by Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin – seek a new trial on the basis of the alleged jury tampering.
An evidentiary hearing into these allegations is set to commence on Monday (January 29, 2024). All of the jurors at South Carolina’s ‘Trial of the Century’ have been summoned to testify at that proceeding, but the former foreperson – rumored to be a longtime friend of former Colleton County clerk of court Becky Hill – was unavailable to attend on that date due to what the court described as a previously scheduled “bible study” vacation.
Accordingly, all parties consented to allow this juror – No. 826 – to appear on Friday to give their testimony.
Simple, right? Not at all, as it happened …
Prior to attending the hearing, our media outlet was told – in a departure from the rules established at a public status conference held earlier this month – that no publicly available feed of the proceedings would be provided and that cell phones and computers would not be allowed inside the courtroom.
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Moments before the hearing began, former S.C. chief justice Jean Toal – who has been tasked with presiding over these proceedings – addressed members of the media with an extraordinary request aimed at curtailing their reporting.
Citing the “unprecedented” nature of the case, Toal asked all media outlets covering the hearing to refrain from reporting on the question-and-answer portion of the foreperson’s testimony until court convened next week – and to refrain from publishing any information whatsoever about the juror’s gender.
Toal referred to this as an “embargo” of the juror’s testimony.
According to Toal, her objective in requesting this embargo was to keep the other Murdaugh jurors – whom she indicated have been following this case “assiduously” – from being prejudiced by news reports. She also requested (but did not order) the foreperson’s attorney – lawyer/ podcaster Eric Bland – to refrain from sharing details about his client’s testimony with the other four Murdaugh jurors he represents.
How is such a request enforceable given Bland has attorney-client privilege with the other jurors?
Good question …
Earlier this month, Bland questioned Toal’s temperament and integrity after she was tapped to handle this case.
Will he honor her request?
More importantly, will the media?
(Click to View)
Seeing as Toal’s request clearly sought the prior restraint of publication of information, it is prima facie unconstitutional – and thereby unenforceable. However, in a good faith effort to assist the court in preserving the integrity of these proceedings, our media outlet will abide by her embargo request and refrain from reporting on the specific questions Toal posed to the juror – whom she christened “Juror X.”
Similarly, we will honor her embargo request as it relates to the juror’s answers to those questions.
I will admit to considerable consternation in accommodating the court on this matter, however I do understand Toal’s logic in wanting to shield the other jurors from any potential bias as it relates to the foreperson’s testimony – and given Toal’s prior commitment to transparency in this case, I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Two quick caveats, however:
First, multiple media outlets (including this one) have previously reported that the juror who testified on Friday was the foreperson of the panel. Accordingly, that toothpaste cannot be put back in the tube. Similarly, multiple media outlets (including this one) have previously referenced the juror’s gender. That bell cannot be unrung.
Second, prior to Friday’s secretive hearing convening, Harpootlian submitted a letter to the court raising questions about several of the proposed questions – and other objections regarding limitations imposed on the defense as it prepares to question Hill under oath regarding her alleged tampering with the jury.
“This is an American adversarial proceeding in a trial court, not a European inquisitorial proceeding conducted by an investigating magistrate,” Harpootlian wrote in the letter, which was posted to the S.C. supreme court’s website.
(Click to View)
In court, Harpootlian reiterated concerns about an alleged lack of independence on the part of the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) and prosecutors in the office of attorney general Alan Wilson – concerns I raised in an article published two days ago.
“They continue to interview jurors,” Harpootlian said. “There’s no Chinese wall, no ethical barrier. SLED was the original investigating agency, they were the prosecutors (on the Murdaugh case).”
Lead prosecutor Creighton Waters fired back that SLED and the attorney general’s office had conducted the jury tampering investigation “with independence and integrity,” claiming all involved were told to simply “gather the facts – good, bad and ugly.”
Harpootlian also revealed in court that Hill is alleged to have made additional comments to jurors beyond the ones initially alleged in the defense’s bombshell motion from last September. Specifically, Harpootlian stated Hill told jurors it “looks like the defendant is going to testify today – this is an epic day” and then drew their attention to the fact it was “rare for a defendant to testify.”
Prior to court convening, reporter Angenette Levy of Law & Crime posted on X that Hill allegedly “had conversations” with the foreperson the night before the verdict about the “length of deliberations.”
“This is the juror we heard Becky Hill was having conversations with the night before the verdict about length of deliberations,” Levy posted, adding that Hill subsequently “told me there would be a verdict ‘tomorrow.'”
“I asked her what she thought would happen, we wanted to plan for a possible weekend deliberation,” Levy continued. “She said twice ‘tomorrow.'”
That’s consistent with Hill’s emails (.jpg) to a Law & Crime producer about the timing of jury deliberations and the possibility that jurors would have to deliberate through the weekend of March 4-5, 2023.
“I don’t think the judge will have to make a decision on that,” Hill emailed the producer.
Out of respect for the former chief justice’s embargo, we will wait until the convening of Monday’s hearing to relate whether the former jury foreperson who appeared in court on Friday was asked about these alleged communications and, if so, what answers were provided.
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THE LETTER …
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina and before that he was a bass guitarist and dive bar bouncer. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven (soon to be eight) children.
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19 comments
Doesn’t really sound a whole lot like “madness and chaos” to me…
A simple request, agreed to by all concerned. HarmBo’s normal attempt to subvert real justice aside, this sounds like just a normal day in trial court.
A normal day in trial court? This case has been anything but a normal day in trial court from the start.
Eric, is that you?
“Normal” day in trial court …… hhhhmmmmm. There has YET to be a ‘normal’ day in this whole thing from where I sit. Full disclosure – I’m not an attorney. I was gob-smacked to read a ‘tweet’ this AM that a juror was to be questioned TODAY – now I know why – a “bible study retreat”. How long has this been known to the court? And when were media outlets notified?
Having read this piece, I’ll be interested to see if/when/who springs the first leak of info. It’s inconceivable that this juror’s testimony will remain under wraps until Monday. I applaud in advance any source who is able to honor Judge Toal’s request.
Almost 72 hours is a LLLOOONNGGG time for zipped lips.
So, the Judge-Clifton-Newman-appointed forelady (Juror 826) is represented by Eric Bland and has a “Bible study” vacation!
When the camera panned on her, she pretty much looked like Becky Hill herself. Birds of a feather!
Too bad that juror did not go on a “Bible SELF-study” of what the Bible says about taking the Lord’s name in vain and about bearing false witness against one’s neighbor.
In the SLED-provided chart of juror interviews, Juror 826, 530 and 572, are the ONLY ONES who answer “NO” to all three questions. Are Jurors 530 and 572 represented by Eric Bland, too?
I should be an easy matter to find out what Craig Moyer’s juror number is. He is the one who was falling over himself giving as many media interviews as he could to the effect that Alex Murdaugh (“AM”) was only producing snot ON DEMAND, not crying real tears out of his eyes.
People, that is MEDICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.
AND it is in the introduction (the non-plagiarized part, that is) of Becky Hill’s book.
One of my brilliant quotables is that words have fingerprints.
Becky Hill’s words’ fingerprints are on Craig Moyers’ media interviews.
Why is all that being swept under the rug?
Judge Toal was correct in issuing a media embargo on today’s proceedings. The test of trustworthy new sources is their ability to keep their mouths shut when specifically asked to do so by a presiding judge for OBVIOUS reasons and under very trying and unusual circumstances.
The article headline implies chaos and intrigue … surely you jest, Will.
The REAL “test of trustworthy new [sic] sources” is the release of the Pentagon Papers.
The press does not exist to cover up for the lies of the powerful while innocent people die in unnecessary and unwinnable wars.
The press exists to shed light on abuses of power.
These “trying and unusual circumstances” are the creation of Becky (“Boo”) Hill and of the Prosecution team which enlisted Boo’s “southern” sugariness to lead a media-hungry jury into a flat-earth verdict.
1. The time of death can be determined by the coroner-without-a-thermometer putting his hand in the victim’s armpit.
2. People die when the batteries on their cell phones do.
3. People can produce snot on demand without shedding one real tear.
4. When tripped, human beings fall backward like card-board cut-outs, no righting reflexes, no anything.
5. A prominent lawyer whose even more prominent father was dying and did die three days later needed to kill his beloved wife and younger son to gain some more sympathy.
6. A real murderer with law-enforcement experience rushes back to the dead bodies instead of spending the night in his father’s empty bed comforting his agitated Alzheimer mother and leaving the bodies to be discovered in the morning by some farm hand who becomes the prime suspect instead.
These six points are A SAMPLE of the nonsense the jury had to believe to reach a guilty verdict.
Is it any wonder that jury had to be tampered with to buy that flat-earth nonsense and reach its flat-earth verdict?
The verdict to convict was the correct one. Murdaugh will never be free again.
What’s it like living in your world, Zero IQ?
A world where the earth is not flat and where people do not die as soon the batteries on their cell phones do, you mean?
Of course it was chaos in court if Murdaugh and the clowns representing him were present.
I’m sorry but how did the defense attorneys allow the most important part (IMO) of their 6th amendment due process violation argument to get lost in the swamp of the SC justice system?!?! Alex Murdaugh had (like all other defendants should have) the right to be aware of and cross examine any adverse witnesses giving testimony against him to the jury!!!! Becky Hill is alleged to have given substantive testimony and prejudicial guidance to jury members (behind closed doors) AGAINST the defendant, and not in open court!!!! Who cares if the jurors considered or were swayed by her prejudicial illegal comments?!?! ITS NOT ALLOWED!!! PERIOD!!! It’s a violation of law people!!! It’s a DUE PROCESS STRUCTURAL VIOLATION!!!! Helloooo!!! She has to be punished and there has to be a new trial!!! The next clerk of court or bailiff MIGHT SUCCEED!!! Who cares what these jurors opinions are now? They’ve all been tainted beyond repair at this point! Plus the burden of whether outside influence from an elected official cannot be placed on them to determine because that burden should have never existed in the first place. This defendant was denied the right of cross examination of hidden witnesses against him. Hope yall are okay with clerks and bailiffs doing this to you and/or your loved ones facing any sort of trial in S.C. because jury tampering is welcomed and sanctioned in your state.
Lizzie0714, it seems you are not from South Carolina; or, if you are, you now live somewhere safe from its system.
It’s all about sex and money in South Carolina; that is how they keep score BECAUSE THEY WERE NEVER TAUGHT that there are more important and SATISFYING things in life, like the true joy of selflessness, the real “high” of beatiful art and useful inventions, and the unshakable strength of true faith.
To complete the unholy trinity of sex and money is the pride in lying and getting away with it.
South Carolina’s Supreme Court controls lawyer licensing and lawyer discipline and also lobbies the General Assembly to increase the number of judges and to raise their salaries.
And the Attorney General, who participated in this travesty of the decade, not “trial of the century,” controls hundreds of million of dollars in what he farms out to private lawyers for what he calls “complex litigation,” which is really not “complex” at all.
All those lucky few lawyers have to do is sign their names on behalf of South Carolina on national mega-billion settlements like the opioid cases, the insulin-pricing settlement, etc. All the work is really done by the first OTHER state which starts the nationwide lawsuit; and the other states just join.
What does this have with Alex Murdaugh (“AM”) and his wrongful two-murder conviction?
You see, in one of those so-called “complex litigations,” South Carolina’s Attorney General gave $68 million to just two law firms: one of his retired long-time employee Ken Woodington; and the other of Jean Hoefer Toal’s brother’s law firm, Willoughby and Hoefer.
And who is representing the Public Interest Foundation which argues that those $68 million belong to the South Carolina treasury, not the private pockets of Alan Wilson’s friends? None other than Jim Griffin.
BTW, Alan Wilson had practiced privately with Willoughby and Hoefer. Perhaps he still has some retirement account with that law firm.
Will Jean Toal sell the Constitution and her conscience for $34 million for her brother’s law firm? Heck, yes, yes, yes!
She did it for votes, ironically from the far right, when she was challenged for reelection in 1996.
I was PERSONALLY at the home of one of the most idiotic and failed lawyers in South Carolina when his phone rang. That lawyer is so failed he does not have an office but “practices” out of his home; but he has connections to the Greenville far right. The phone call was from Jean Toal, who was one year behind that lawyer in law school and knows him well. That lawyer told me he responed, “Jean, you’ve got to get the right-to-life people behind you.”
BTW, Jean Toal’s lawyer in that re-election battle was the late and truly honorable Camden Lewis, father of Becky Hill’s lawyer, Will Lewis.
The Greenville far right are anti-Catholic; but they are not politically stupid. So, they supported Jean Toal’s re-election.
That lawyer who connected Jean Toal to the Greenville far right is so pathetic that, in one trial within hearing of the jury, he threatened to slap his client and prevented his client from testifying in rebuttal by shouting, again within hearing of the jury, “What do you want to testify about? You’ve already killed yourself before the jury.” The jury of course convicted that lawyer’s client.
When that client tried to get post-conviction-relief (which may be an avenue left for AM) based, among other things, on that lawyer’s shocking comportment before the jury, Jean Toal dismissed that ground as “patently meritless.”
Covered the money. Where does sex come into this? From the Strom Thurmond’s statutory rape of his family’s teen-age maid with whom he fathered the bi-racial Esse Mae (Thurmond) Washington, whom he kept hidden with hush “disbursements” mediated by Strom’s late bankruptcy judge nephew.
How does that affect affect South Carolina’s judicial system? At least four Article III judges had served in Strom Thurmond’s office, knew of his hidden out-of-wedlock bi-racial daughter, and were rewarded for their dutiful silence with federal judgeships.
That is the mentality of South Carolina judges. Those people who claim to be the smartest on earth are too stupid to know that the most important thing they can bequeath their descendants is not money but strength of character.
Jean Toal knows the constitutional problems with AM’s wrongful convictions; but she will overlook them in return for the $34 million for her brother’s law firm.
Wait and see.
This!!! Exactly! ?
I’m sorry to the 11 other jurors who are not Craig Moyer and didn’t have a bunch of secret friends willing to pay your full salaries for the 6-7 weeks this trial lasted. I’m sorry to the 11 other jurors that didn’t get paid for their guilty verdict that some of the juror attorneys (EB) claim they are so hard up and hell bent on upholding! Yall actually did have to sacrifice financial peril for nearly 2 months just to stick it to Alex “finally!” But…. It didn’t have to be that way. Well at least not a sacrifice for that long…. One of you could have/should have gone ahead and told on Becky when y’all saw her acting inappropriate with the foreperson. Could have been a mistrial pretty quick if someone would’ve stepped up and done the right thing. Have any of you kept up with the missing mom of 5 murder case? Those jurors are diming each other out left and right and the bailiff too! They don’t discriminate on who they tattle on. Anywho, is it just me or does anyone else find it creepy when you hear how hard up these jurors are about making sure their verdict stands and Alex receives life in prison??? Personally I would be burdened for life if I ever had to serve on a jury where the state did so little to prove their circumstantial case and law enforcement committed perjury to get the indictment. The thought of being upset that I didn’t get to send someone to prison for 2 life sentences is soooo creepy to me! Like what’s wrong with humanity? Get over yourselves! It’s not the end of the world for a defendant to get a fair trial. Seriously, y’all will be fiiine. Maybe Craig will introduce you to his benefactors.
Lizzie0714, don’t be sorry for the other 11 jurors (except Juror 630); they were in it for the publicity, too, and probably got upset, not because Becky Hill wrote her book, but because she did not CUT THEM IN on it.
It is the same with Gloria Satterfield’s estate (represented by none other than ever-bluffing Eric Bland [“EBEB”]): they are not morally outraged that Alex Murdaugh (“AM”) scammed the insurance companies with that fabrication about the dogs tripping Gloria 24 days before she died (in hospital and from a heart attack caused by her chronic diabetes, not her COINCIDENTAL fall at Moselle); they are outraged only because AM kept all the loot to himself.
Frankly, a more likely motive scenario is that the real killers of Paul and Maggie are members of Gloria Satterfield’s estate. They could have discovered that AM had kept all the loot to himself and started bugging him for their cut. AM MIGHT HAVE responded, “if you don’t bug off, Paul and Maggie will testify that there were no dogs and the whole thing is an insurance scam; and neither you nor I will get any money out of this. Let it be and I’ll take care of you later.”
Once the possibility that Paul and Maggie could blow the insurance scam out was said outloud, the Satterfield estate could not let Paul or Maggie live.
Heck, that estate is the most likely to have had their hands on Paul’s stolen guns. Gloria plausibly spoke to her relatives of Paul’s careless ways.
That is why Randy wrote that AM knows more than he is telling.
Perhaps AM does not come out with this, even after admitting to the insurance scam, because it is too painful for him that his scam caused Paul and Maggie’s deaths without AM being the shooter.
As things now stand, the Satterfield estate has recovered $7.5 million because a 52 year-old chronic diabetic died of a heart attack as do hundreds of thousands of Americans every year and do not recover a dime.
Those $7.5 million are at risk if the real killers of Paul and Maggie are revealed. Graig’s INDIRECT benefactors may have been the Satterfield estate.
Now they will kill ME.
I pray YOU are safe enough from them.
Something else to remind everyone that it is always about real human beings, not about paper case titles in law books.
This may interest everyone, specially lawyers who have children and grandchildren; or it may interest no one because the culture is WAY too ingrained by now, which would be very frightening.
Here it is, because I am always the one who goes back and reads the whole thing, as I did with Becky Hill’s whole book when no one else apparently had.
With lawyers talking about “the Remmer presumption” against “the Green holding,” I went back and read the WHOLE record on appeal of the Green case; and that record on appeal all but few pages of the 600+-page trial transcript of State [of South Carolina] v. Fabian LaMicheal Rashaad Green.
To get something out of the way, what the bailiff said there to a juror is light years different from what Becky Hill said to the Murdaugh jurors. Still, South Carolina’s supreme court said the bailiff’s comments were clearly improper AND bailiffs should be better trained.
Apparently no one listened to that last comment because, even the fact that it was made speaks AGAINST South Carolina’s court system.
And not only because a long-time bailiff did not know to not make such an improper comment; but also because South Carolina’s Supreme Court is totally failing its administrative duties EVEN THOUGH it arrogates to itself more administrative POWERS than other state courts of last resorts.
Who did Justice Kittredge expect to train South Carolina’s bailiffs? The tooth fairy?
In his EXTREME hypocrisy, John Williamson Kittredge ups and drags someone for a five-hour hearing before South Carolina’s ENTIRE supreme court on stupid contempt-of-court charges. Kittredge claimed he has a God-given duty to keep South Carolina’s system orderly; and apparently he had no confidence in trial judges to do that but had to drag his colleagues on the supreme court to a five-hour hearing no one saw any reason for.
YET, when Kittredge himself finds a South Carolina court bailiff made an imporper comment to the jury and that all South Carolina court bailiffs should be better trained, Kittredge did not lift a finger to initiate or organize such training for South Carolina’s courts’ bailiffs.
Maybe if Kittredge had put some of the court’s time where its mouth is and AT THE TIME OF THE GREEN DECISION also organized training for bailiffs (and clerks of court) about what to NOT talk to jurors about, this whole Alex Murdaugh and Becky Hill fiasco would not have existed.
Believe it or not, that is not what I set out to write about; but, God willing and FITS permitting, there is the next comment.
Stay tuned.
And here is one of the other points I wanted to make about “the Green case.”
I summarize the facts of “the Green case” for those who do not want, or do not know how, to read South Carolina’s two appellate courts’ opinions in the case.
An 18-year-old Edwin Diaz went missing on Mother’s day 2016; three weeks later, his bones were found wrapped in a burned blanket in some woods next to his car. Edwin’s emails and FaceBook were accessed by his father; and law enforcement searched a house where a Karina Galarza lived with her mother, sister and brother and with Karina’s new boyfriend, Fabian Rashaad Green. Edwin’s blood was found in that house and Karina Galarza LATER pled to voluntary manslaughter and is serving 18 years. But Green went to trial; and his cousin testified against him to the effect that Green had bludgeoned Edwin with a hammer.
Green’s family would sometimes point to the jurors in the hall way during breaks. Some jurors expressed concern to the bailiffs; and one juror asked one of the bailiffs what would happen if the jury could not reach a verdict. The bailiff responded that the judge will give the jury what is called an “Allen charge” and “make them stay” to deliberate some more.
That is ALL that bailiff said to one juror. South Carolina’s supreme court found the bailiff’s contact with a juror improper but found it did not affect the verdict and let that guilty verdict stand.
Part of the Prosecution’s evidence at trial was two years’ worth of texts between Karina Galarza and Edwin Diaz to prove that Karina conspired with Fabian Green to lure Edwin Diaz to his death location.
The texts are heart-breaking and frightening at the same time. They have everything from sexting to social contagion, to a girl wanting to sit at the jocks’ table but being told she was not pretty enough.
Those young people, the “future” of our country, never talked about studies or even hobbies. It was all about sex, sex which led to murder.
The moral of the story is: get your children and grandchildren off the phones and into hobbies and studies.
Now the haters, the idiot cannibals, will come out in force gloating and celebrating.
It is not as if Jean Toal was really at loss where to look for law after she found AS FACTS that Becky Hill is a non-credible state actor who made prejudicial and improper comments to at least one juror.
All Jean Toal had to do was to look at all the jurisprudence of suppression of improperly seized evidence and the societal purpose behind “when the constable fumbles, the criminal walks,” meaning even true evidence needs to be suppressed to DETER violations of the Fourth Amendment by law enforcement.
Indeed, none other than Jean Toal’s “friend,” John Williamson Kittredge, said it to students whom South Carolina’s Supreme Court itself tries to “enlighten” on the law and on civics: there is truth and there is fairness. And sometimes fairness requires suppression of true evidence.
BTW, Kittredge is the author of Green and wrote that clerks of court should train bailiffs to not make comments like that made by the bailiff in Green.
Too bad Kittredge never asked himself, who trains the clerks of court to not make inappropriate comments themselves?
As I expected, Jean Toal started with the result she wanted to reach and manipulated the law to reach it.
Neither Remmer nor Green ever said the trial judge needs to look at the weight of the evidence supporting the conviction.
Further, it is circular thinking: if the evidence was weighed by an admittely tainted jury, then the fact that said tainted jury held the weight of the evidence sufficient to support a conviction prevents the court from vacating the product of that tainted jury’s decision.
It is another version of Holmes v. South Carolina where a unanimous U.S. Supreme Cout reversed Jean Toal’s own decision that if the Prosecution presents a strong enough case of the defendant’s guilt, then the defendant does not get to present evidence of third-party guilt.
I pray Jean Toal reconsiders.
Stay strong Alex Murdaugh! God will not forget you.
A new trial would not have been a waste of money. The real waste of money is the state’s bringing the murder case against Alex Murdaugh (“AM”) in the first place.
AM is innocent OF THE MURDERS; the Prosecution knew it; that is why they asked Becky Hill to tamper with the jury to get a wrongful conviction and that is why they are now protecting Becky Hill no matter what wrongs she does.
Indeed, the judge’s own ruling is a sophistacated way of saying EXACTLY that: the system will forgive everything you do, however bad, so long as you help getting “the bad guy” framed.