COLUMBIA, S.C. — A judge Monday denied convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh a new trial after a daylong evidentiary hearing that centered on allegations that a court clerk had tampered with the jury and tainted the verdict.
Judge Jean Toal made the ruling after hearing testimony from all 12 jurors in Murdaugh's trial and the Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill.
Toal said Murdaugh had to show that the clerk had made an improper comment and that it influenced the jury. She found that Hill is "not completely credible as a witness" and was lured "by the siren call of celebrity," but that the jurors were not persuaded by her actions.
"I simply do not believe that our South Carolina Supreme Court requires a new trial in a very lengthy trial on the strength of some fleeting and foolish comments by a publicity-seeking clerk of court," Toal said.
Hill had denied in her testimony that she tampered with the jury for financial gain or any other reason.
"I did not have a conversation with any juror about any topic related to this case," Hill said.
In an earlier exchange with Toal in which Hill was questioned about the "literary license" she took in her book about the trial, which was released about four months after it ended, Hill said, "It didn't matter to me if it was guilty, not guilty or mistrial."
Hill said she made only about $100,000 from sales of her self-published book, which she shared with a co-author, and that "Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders" is no longer being sold after it was revealed last month that she had plagiarized a passage in it from a BBC News article.
Following Hill's testimony, Rhonda McElveen, the court clerk of Barnwell County who assisted her during Murdaugh's trial, gave testimony that conflicted with Hill's, including that Hill "made a comment that a guilty verdict would be better to sell books."
Murdaugh, 55, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and flanked by his attorneys, was among the spectators in the packed courtroom in the Richland County Judicial Center in Columbia, bringing renewed attention to the high-profile case.
His lawyers told reporters after Toal's ruling that they would appeal the decision.
"We feel vindicated on the facts," lawyer Jim Griffin said of the judge's questioning Hill's trustworthiness. "'There's an innocent man here who was wrongly convicted' — we didn't expect her to say that."
Murdaugh, a once-prominent personal injury lawyer, was found guilty in the 2021 fatal shootings of his wife and son at their Colleton County estate.
As part of the evidentiary hearing, Toal focused on Hill's and former jurors' testimony to determine whether Murdaugh's appeal for a new trial should be granted based on jury tampering allegations raised by his defense.
The evidentiary hearing began with Toal individually questioning 11 of the 12 jurors about whether Hill influenced the guilty verdict against Murdaugh. One juror was questioned on Friday because of a scheduling conflict.
On Monday, all of the jurors except for one denied that Hill's communications weighed into how they came to their unanimous decision.
But one juror, referred to as Juror Z, initially said in an affidavit in August that Hill told the jury before Murdaugh testified at his trial "not to be fooled" by Murdaugh, "which I understood to mean Mr. Murdaugh would lie when he testified."
The juror also said Hill instructed the jury "to watch him closely," referring to Murdaugh, and she engaged in other behavior the juror found questionable.
"I had questions about Mr. Murdaugh's guilt but voted guilty because I felt pressured by other jurors," the juror, whose name was redacted, wrote.
But in her testimony during the evidentiary hearing, Juror Z — the first among her peers to testify Monday — responded "yes" when Toal asked whether Hill influenced her verdict.
"To me, it felt like she made it seem like he was already guilty," the juror said, adding that it did affect her finding of guilt.
The difference between her testimony and her affidavit led Toal to later call Juror Z back to the witness stand. Toal went through each statement in her affidavit and asked her if she stood by her words, which the juror agreed.
That inconsistency took a backseat in the proceedings when a bailiff then informed Toal that some of the jurors had access to their cellphones in a back room and had watched Juror Z's testimony on their phones via Court TV's live feed.
Toal had previously decided the jurors should not be allowed to discuss the case while they waited to testify. The breach led the judge to ask the other jurors during their testimony whether if they had watched Juror Z, and if so, whether it would influence their responses. None said it would.
Only one of the jurors corroborated a claim made by Juror Z that Hill said during the trial to "watch his body language," in reference to Murdaugh.
In his closing argument, Creighton Waters, chief prosecutor of the state attorney general's office, highlighted that 11 of the 12 jurors testified not feeling pressured by Hill because it was "the product of honest deliberation," and that Juror Z said she was influenced by the other jurors before giving inconsistent testimony.
"The other 11 jurors were credible and strong and clear with your honor," Waters said.
Griffin argued that Hill is not a credible witness after she had "extraneous contact" with jurors and at least one said it influenced her verdict.
"Ms. Hill is not credible," Griffin said in his closing argument. "She's talking about her book and taking a literary license to lie. Her testimony should not be credited."
The hearing appeared to be a long shot for Murdaugh’s defense team, which had the burden of proof in showing Hill was engaged in jury tampering. Toal did not permit the defense to cross-examine the jurors.
Murdaugh, the son of a powerful legal family in the Lowcountry, was punished with two consecutive life sentences without parole in the deaths of his wife, Margaret, and their youngest son, Paul, 22. Prosecutors said he killed them to gain sympathy and distract from years of financial fraud involving his clients.
His legal team's motion for a new trial accuses Hill of pressuring jurors, who deliberated less than three hours to find Murdaugh guilty, to reach a verdict.
Regardless of what happens with his murder appeal, Murdaugh will remain in prison. In November, he was sentenced to 27 years behind bars after pleading guilty to 22 counts of financial crimes against his clients, and the time will run concurrently as his federal sentence for similar financial crimes that he pleaded guilty to in September.
Juliette Arcodia and Haylee Barber reported from Columbia and Erik Ortiz from New York.
