Article with details. Judge Toal was the judge you were thinking of.
While no date has been set, the highest court in the Palmetto State will hear, and could reverse, a decision denying a second Murdaugh murder trial.
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Murdaugh's legal team now has 30 days from the order date to file their initial brief and legal arguments with the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court order did not set a date for this review hearing.
Murdaugh's defense team has already submitted more than a dozen legal filings and evidentiary exhibits to the S.C. Court of Appeals, including trial and hearing transcripts, a letter of protest from lead counsel Richard Harpootlian to Justice Toal, and an affidavit from one of the jurors selected during the 2023 double murder trial, identified as Juror Z, who claimed that she felt pressured into a guilty verdict.
Murdaugh, now a disbarred attorney serving state and federal sentences for scores of financial crimes he has confessed to, continues to deny that he played a role in the 2021 shootings of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh and is now asking the highest courts in South Carolina to review the rulings of the recent evidentiary hearing that resulted in
the denial of a new murder trial.
Alex Murdaugh speaks with defense attorney Dick Harpootlian during Murdaugh’s double murder trial at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, SC, on Monday, February 6, …
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JEFF BLAKE, JEFF BLAKE PHOTO
How did Murdaugh's case get to the Supreme Court's ears?
On July 10, Murdaugh's attorneys filed a "Motion for Certification Under Rule 204(b)" with the South Carolina Court of Appeals.
The motion asked the S.C. Supreme Court to certify this case for review by the Supreme Court itself before the S.C. Court of Appeals hears it. This action can be taken if a case meets certain legal standards, such as "significant public interest or a legal principle of major importance."
The motion contends that Murdaugh's case meets both, as it was internationally followed and involves a matter of great legal importance: should Murdaugh's appeals for a new trial be judged by state or federal legal standards.
Murdaugh's motion states, "This case concerns an issue of significant public interest and a legal principle of major importance warranting certification under Rule 204(b). The issue of significant public interest is whether the verdict returned after Mr. Murdaugh’s internationally televised murder trial should be overturned due to unprecedented jury tampering by a state official, the former Colleton County Clerk of Court. The legal principle of major importance is whether it is presumptively prejudicial for a state official to secretly advocate for a guilty verdict through ex parte contacts with jurors during the trial or whether a defendant, having proven the contacts occurred, must also somehow prove the verdict would have been different at a hypothetical trial in which the surreptitious advocacy did not occur."
Allegations against Becky Hill
Allegations of jury tampering, plagiarism, and ethics violations against now-resigned Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill followed Murdaugh's March 2023 double murder conviction in Colleton County.
In January 2024, former S.C. Chief Justice Jean Toal conducted a hearing on the jury tampering allegations against Hill. Toal, while stating that Hill's behavior was inappropriate and she was not a credible witness, used a South Carolina legal standard when she ruled that this behavior did not legally warrant a new murder trial for Murdaugh.
Toal's ruling was based on a legal precedent that Murdaugh must prove that Hill's actions, through statements she allegedly made to jurors, actually prejudiced the jurors and influenced the verdict, which she ruled he failed to prove.
Judge Jean Toal, former Supreme Court Justice, presided over an evidentiary hearting at the Richland County Courthouse on Tuesday Jan.16, 2024, involving jury tampering allegations …
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TRACY GLANTZ,
TGLANTZ@THESTATE.COM
Murdaugh then appealed her ruling to the S.C. Court of Appeals on April 11, where it has yet to be heard, citing that his case should be considered using alternative, less stringent legal standards typically used by federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.
Clerk of Court Hill called a 'wart' on legal system
Murdaugh's motion this week demands that the courts review Toal's ruling, calling former Clerk of Court Hill a "wart" on the S.C. legal system.
The motion describes Hill as an "elected state official in charge of managing juries engaging in deliberate jury tampering in a murder trial to secure a guilty verdict so she can make money selling books about it."
'Behind the Doors of Justice'
Not long after Murdaugh's six-week murder trial in the Spring of 2023, Hill published a
tell-all book, "Behind the Doors of Justice," which she later admitted that she plagiarized.
The motion further alleges that "Ms. Hill planned to publish a book from the beginning, that she wanted a guilty verdict to boost book sales, that she did engage in jury tampering advocating a guilty verdict, and she did subsequently publish the book for a profit of over $100,000."
Murdaugh attorneys: Jury tampering hearing appeal deserves to be heard
Murdaugh's attorneys argue that because of the shocking alleged actions of a public official, the public's high interest, and the question of proper legal standards involving disputes between state and federal standards, the jury tampering hearing appeal deserves to be heard by the state Supreme Court.
"Perhaps the Supreme Court would decide Ms. Hill’s egregious jury tampering does not present an attractive vehicle for changing the legal standard for a mistrial because common sense says that when an elected state official goes into the jury room during a murder trial to advocate for a guilty verdict because she wants to make money selling books about the guilty verdict, the result should be a mistrial."
Hill is now entangled in other controversies, including alleged ethics violations, and after resigning from office earlier this year, will be the
subject of an ethics hearing in December.
