When Alex Murdaugh, the once-influential South Carolina lawyer, was convicted in March of murdering his spouse and youthful son, the decision was extensively seen as a rebuke of corruption in a authorized system that Mr. Murdaugh had bent to his profit for years.
Now, Mr. Murdaugh’s legal professionals say that he’s a sufferer of a corrupt judicial course of, and are searching for a brand new trial and an F.B.I. investigation. In an explosive courtroom submitting on Tuesday, they declare that the clerk of courtroom had a sequence of inappropriate conversations with jurors and dedicated different misconduct throughout his trial.
Among the claims are that the clerk, Rebecca Hill, instructed jurors to not be “fooled by” Mr. Murdaugh’s tearful testimony; that she had personal conversations with the jury forewoman, together with one in a courthouse restroom; and that she fabricated a narrative a couple of Facebook publish by one other juror’s ex-husband in an effort to have that juror eliminated.
Ms. Hill didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark.
The state legal professional basic, Alan Wilson, stated he was reviewing Mr. Murdaugh’s movement and would reply “through the legal process.”
One juror stated in an affidavit filed with the movement that at first of deliberations, Ms. Hill instructed jurors that “this shouldn’t take us long.” Mr. Murdaugh’s legal professionals stated that Ms. Hill instructed the six people who smoke on the jury that they might not take a smoke break till after they reached a verdict.
The trial lasted practically six weeks, however the jury deliberated for less than three hours on March 2 earlier than convicting Mr. Murdaugh, the scion of a authorized household within the state’s Lowcountry area, of two counts of homicide. The choose listening to the case sentenced him the subsequent day to life in jail. Mr. Murdaugh’s legal professionals promised an enchantment.
The legal professionals have additionally requested the U.S. legal professional in South Carolina to have the F.B.I. examine whether or not Ms. Hill violated Mr. Murdaugh’s constitutional rights by depriving him of a trial by an neutral jury.
“The clerk of court is the person that makes sure the jury gets their food,” Dick Harpootlian, one in every of Mr. Murdaugh’s legal professionals, stated at a news convention on Tuesday. “They’re not someone that ever should talk to them about the case. I’ve never had it happen.”
Ms. Hill is the clerk of courtroom for Colleton County, S.C., the place the trial was held. It is an elected place, liable for a spread of administrative issues within the county courts, together with managing jury logistics. The job is distinct from that of a choose’s regulation clerk. Ms. Hill was elected in 2020; her time period ends subsequent yr.
Since the decision was handed up, Ms. Hill has saved an unusually excessive profile for a courtroom official. Immediately after she learn the decision aloud within the courtroom — which was proven reside on tv — she stood on the second-floor balcony of the courthouse along with her canine as prosecutors held a news convention under.
A couple of days later, when the lead prosecutor on the case, Creighton Waters, posted a video on Twitter, now generally known as X, of himself taking part in the guitar, Ms. Hill replied with three coronary heart emojis and the remark, “Your biggest fan in Colleton County!”
In July, Ms. Hill and a co-author, Neil Gordon, printed a e book of her firsthand account of the trial, a transfer that raised eyebrows amongst some authorized observers. Mr. Murdaugh’s legal professionals stated that after Ms. Hill printed the e book and started selling it, they heard from some jurors who felt uncomfortable about her habits.
Some passages in Ms. Hill and Mr. Gordon’s e book are cited within the movement filed by Mr. Murdaugh’s legal professionals, who argue that Ms. Hill might have pushed jurors towards a conviction with a purpose to get herself a e book deal and appearances within the media. One passage from the e book says that whereas she was chaperoning jurors on a go to to the crime scene as a part of the trial, she and the jurors and regulation enforcement officers who have been current “had an epiphany and shared our thoughts with our eyes.”
“At that moment,” she wrote, “many of us standing there knew. I knew and they knew that Alex was guilty.”
Bruce A. Green, a regulation professor at Fordham University who makes a speciality of prison regulation and ethics, stated he had by no means earlier than heard of a clerk of courtroom publishing a e book a couple of trial during which she was concerned. Professor Green stated that the actions alleged in Mr. Murdaugh’s movement wouldn’t have been applicable, and would most likely result in a factual inquiry by a choose.
“If it really happened, it would really be improper,” he stated.
He famous that jurors weren’t supposed to debate a case even with each other earlier than formal deliberations started, not to mention focus on it with a clerk. “It’s a pretty incendiary allegation,” he stated.
Mr. Murdaugh, who gave two days of dramatic testimony throughout his trial, has maintained that he’s harmless of the deadly shootings of his youthful son, Paul, and spouse, Maggie, who have been killed in June 2021.
Source: www.nytimes.com