How a County Clerk Upended the Alex Murdaugh Case | Case by Case

0:00Hello, listeners. Today, we are sharing an episode of our new 48 Hours series, Case by Case. Each week, the 48 Hours team breaks down the biggest true crime stories unfolding right now. In this episode, we explore the latest development in the Alec Murdoch case, a story that the 48 Hours team has covered extensively over the years. For more deep dives into cases like these, subscribe to Case by Case wherever you get your podcasts. I've been trying to make my everyday style feel a bit more effortless lately. Just focusing on pieces that are easy to reach for, easy to style, and don't require a lot of thinking in the morning.

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2:11I'm 48 Hours correspondent Anne-Marie Green, and this is Case by Case. There was dramatic news this week about one of the most high-profile murder cases in years. On Wednesday, the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned the 2023 convictions and consecutive life sentences of Alec Murdoch for the murders of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, in 2021. Now, Murdoch, who had been a prominent and wealthy attorney in the state, will be granted a new trial after the court found that his original trial was marred by the, quote, improper influence of Colton County clerk Rebecca Hill. Hill actually read out the jury's verdict in that original trial.

2:57Guilty verdict signed by the four lady. Three to twenty three. The state Supreme Court's unanimous ruling this week found that Rebecca Hill, known as Becky, quote, placed her fingers on the scales of justice by attacking Murdoch's credibility to the jurors. Here's one of those jurors who was asked about Hill at a 2024 hearing. Was your verdict influenced in any way by the communications of the clerk of court in this case? Yes, ma 'am. And how was it influenced?

3:37To me, it felt like she made it seem like he was already guilty. But another juror told NBC on Wednesday that she never felt Hill was trying to push an agenda or push her to a certain verdict. Maggie and Paul Murdoch were shot and killed on the Murdoch family estate. Murdoch testified in his own defense and has continued to maintain his innocence. He did plead guilty to financial crimes. Here to discuss the latest developments in the Murdoch case is University of South Carolina School of Law professor Colin Miller. Colin, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. So first off, we're going to start off with just how unusual is this to have a conviction overturned because of the behavior of a clerk at the courthouse?

4:29It is exceedingly rare. I'm currently working on a wrongful conviction case out of North Carolina. The jury in that case was hung. And while they were hung, the bailiff for the judge told the jury, the judge in this case doesn't accept a hung jury. And so we're currently appealing. And I looked across the country for cases where comments by a court official led to a conviction being reversed. I only found one case at a Tennessee where the jury was also hung and a bailiff made inappropriate comments to the jury. So this almost never happens across the country. This is interesting. In response to the ruling, South Carolina's attorney general said that the clerk's conduct was inappropriate, but it was ultimately harmless.

5:17And some of the jurors sort of spoke about whether or not they were influenced. But what's your take on that? My take is the focus of the attorney general was the evidence presented at trial, which he was convinced made a compelling case for guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In my mind, the state Supreme Court correctly focused upon the inappropriate nature of a court official telling the jury, watch his demeanor while he testifies. Don't let the prosecution be defeated by kind of the lies of the defense. And so the whole goal of the American criminal justice system is a jury of someone's peers impartially deciding the case.

5:59And I think the focus by the court on the inappropriate nature of this was absolutely the correct way to go. Anyone who's interested in true crime knows about this case. Why do you think so many people are interested in the saga of the Murdochs? I think there's two parts of it. One, this is something we used to see historically. we don't see as much now. And that is a very powerful big fish family in a small town here in Colleton County in South Carolina. And they ruled the roost for decades in terms of government, private business, et cetera. And so there's that part of it. And then second, there's this whole family dynamic, this kind of Southern Gothic feel, almost out of a William Faulkner novel, where you have all these strange relations and crimes committed by this family.

6:47and this question of whether it was a smoke and mirrors attempt by Alec to misdirect from his own crimes to commit these murders. And so all of that, the salacious nature and the power imbalance in this county, I think, makes for much watch TV and must listen podcasts. Absolutely. I think if you were to write the tale of them, you would say it was too unbelievable. just to remind people he did plead guilty Alex Murdoch did plead guilty to financial charges he was charged there was an array of charges defrauding victims to the tune of 12 million dollars so he pled guilty to these financial charges and that's why he's actually not going to be released even though this murder conviction had been overturned he's currently serving concurrent state and federal sentences of 27 and 40 years for those charges.

7:41But Murdoch has also maintained that he never killed his wife and he never killed his son. What's important to know before we move forward about where things are right now, what's important to know about the original murder trial in 2023? The state would say the most critical piece of evidence was this. Alec Murdoch claimed at the time of the murders, he was with his mother, who I believe is suffering from dementia. Shortly before the murders, the son, Paul, had done a Snapchat recording and the prosecution argued to the jury that Alec's voice was on that Snapchat recording at the family compound by the dog kennels where these murders took place.

8:26And so for this state, this was the critical piece of evidence showing he lied about his location. And in fact, he was at the scene of the crime shortly before the murders. Right. And that's the defense argues that that's actually pretty weak. And I don't think they ever found the murder weapon or anything, anything like that. And so the defense does appeal. And what they claim is that the county clerk of court tampered with the jury. What I should ask you is, of course, what does the county clerk do? Yeah, the county clerk, they're kind of the command center of the courtroom. They are managing what's going on.

9:10Subpoenas being sent out so witnesses can appear. Reading the verdict, which Becky Hill did in this case. managing the jury is doing all of the administrative duties that help the courtroom run. So in that role, is it conceivable that you would chit chat with the jury? You would have like some sort of casual conversation or is that normally not done at all? Normally not done at all, other than giving them their marching orders, right? So anything administrative, fair game for communications between the clerk and the jurors. Beyond that, anything having to do with the evidence, the testimony, the parties, strictly forbidden.

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11:52So can we talk a little bit about, though, what the clerk is accused of saying, right? There's several different instances when Alec Murdoch is going to testify. She says something like, oh, this is going to be epic, something along those lines. And she says, I don't know if she says it to all the jurors, but she says, watch his body language. What could she be inferring and why could that be problematic? Yeah. And so in addition to the comments you mentioned, another juror said a comment about don't let the defense fool you. And so I think in combination with the comments on demeanor and behavior, I think at least some jurors interpreted that to mean his body language is going to show the lies across his forehead.

12:42And it's going to show the defense is smoke and mirrors. And this is a guilty man trying to prove his innocence to you. And that, according to the defense and the state Supreme Court, likely led to the jury not being impartial and assessing his testimony. And I think the defense also suggested that Hill, the clerk, had an ulterior motive, right? She was planning on writing a book, but she did. Absolutely. And so their claim by the defense is she was incentivized to grease the wheels on a guilty verdict because that would allow her to publish this book, which she did and profit from it. Of course, she denies this, but that was absolutely the allegation by the defense.

13:25Right. So the defense presented their allegations in September of 2023. At first, it looked like it was going to be an uphill battle for the defense. In early 2024, a state judge set a very high bar for evidence that Hill tampered with the jury and then ruled that the defense couldn't prove that anything Hill had done had actually influenced the jury or prejudiced the jury in any way. But then over the course of the next year, a lot came to light about Hill's actions. And this is when we're really learning the details. What did we learn about some of what Hill, not what she said, but something that she did that really caused her, I guess, caused the focus to sort of zoom in on her?

14:11She inappropriately shared photos connected to the crime, disclosed information that was supposed to remain under seal. and to the point you raised earlier, when this first judge heard the case, this was interesting, actually, the former Chief Justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court, Jean Toll, and it was found that she lied during her testimony before Justice Toll regarding how she had handled the evidence when, in fact, she had improperly leaked this and presented it to the public when it was supposed to remain under seal. She showed a member of the media, I think, right, and then lied about it, so then there's perjury.

14:53as well. She eventually pleaded guilty to those charges, the charges obstruction of justice and perjury for lying, as well as two counts of misconduct in office and taking bonuses and promoting through her public office a book that she wrote on the trial. All of these charges were felonies. She did plead guilty. She apologized for her behavior. We should also tell listeners what happened with this book. Becky Hill apparently said in kind of a casual conversation to somebody in the courthouse that she hopes that there's a guilty verdict because it would be really good for her book sales. So she did write the book.

15:30It's called Behind the Doors of Justice, The Murdoch Murders. But she was hoping to maybe use the proceeds to buy a lake house, she said. Probably not going to happen. Becky Hill's book was pulled from publication after her co-author discovered that she actually plagiarized portions of the text. Have you come across many clerks who've written books about the trials they have worked? Never. There's been a few judges who have handled high profile cases who have written about it. I've never heard of a bailiff for a clerk of court doing so. It's not a good look for the clerk, but it doesn't necessarily prove that she tampered with the jury.

16:07Right. There was a hearing earlier this year. I want to play some of what they argued. This is Murdoch's defense attorney. His name is Dick Harputlian. So this matter we're discussing this morning, a fair trial, a jury not poisoned by outside influences, I would submit to you is 51 years ago as I stood there, I did not realize what I was swearing to do, but I do today. And that is to defend Alec Murdoch's right to a fair trial. And I've got to admit in the 51 years since then, I've never seen a factual pattern like this where the clerk of court, where the clerk of court sets out to influence the verdict, to get a guilty verdict for financial gain.

17:03So, Colin, I think the last line there, you know, where he says, you know, a clerk of court sets out to influence the verdict to get a guilty verdict for financial gain is kind of like the crux of their argument. She did this for the money. She did this to sell a book. But there needs to be proof that the jury was actually influenced. It's one thing, I think, to have loose talk, but it's another thing for the jury to say that affected the outcome of the case, which I think is a little harder to prove. But then this week, the Supreme Court handed down its unanimous ruling overturning the convictions.

17:43What did the Supreme Court find? Yeah, and this is critical to the point you just raised, which is to say Justice Toll found the defense had not proven the comments by Becky Hill influence the jury. The state Supreme Court, and they correctly applied Supreme Court precedent. They found if a court official makes inappropriate comments to the jury, our baseline presumption is that that improperly influenced the jury and facilitated a guilty verdict. And it is up to the state to rebut that presumption and prove it didn't influence the jury. And so by shifting that presumption pursuant to precedent, I think the state Supreme Court correctly found that presumption was not rebutted.

18:31And we have every reason to believe this had influence in the jury.

18:43So then there's another layer as well, right? In addition to the findings about how the clerk of court allegedly tried to influence the jury. The justices also came to some conclusions about the original judge in the trial and whether or not that judge had allowed a fair trial. Can you tell us more about that ruling? So what we had here, as you noted earlier, was a litany of financial crimes that Alec Murdoch committed. He fell behind, accrued debts, and stole money from his clients. And the state's theory was because he had fallen into debt and committed these crimes, these killings were kind of a Wizard of Oz scenario.

19:28Don't look behind the curtain, shifting the attention somewhere else. And at trial, the judge openly allowed very detailed evidence about all these financial crimes to come in. And the theory was we're not proving that Alec Murdoch is a bad guy, we're showing the motive for the killings in this case. And the state Supreme Court unanimously said, look, we're reversing based upon the comments by Becky Hill. But for the retrial, at a minimum, you should limit that character evidence. And some of the justice even said it shouldn't come in at all. So then what happens now? We're talking about a retrial all the way back to square one.

20:13I suppose if there's evidence, all new evidence can come up, whether it's for the prosecution side or the defense's side. Absolutely. And it's interesting because if we look to the first trial, the defense was all about telling the jury there's an absence of evidence of guilt. You noted earlier the firearms weren't found. It was all about saying we can't prove Alec Murdoch's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. If in fact they do have evidence of an alternate suspect or affirmative evidence of innocence, that could be a game changer. But of course, they're keeping it close to the vest and we're not sure whether they're just posturing or whether they actually have something.

20:53Yeah, they certainly spoke like they were enthusiastically looking forward to a retrial. Like any good defense attorney would do. But I mean, to go back now and start all over again, And it has to be a challenge for the prosecution or or is it more of a challenge for the defense? For my research, it's more of a challenge to the defense. I published an article a couple of years ago called Standby Judges in the Florida State Law Review. And I did extensive research on what happens when there is a reversal and we have a retrial. And it's interesting because going into a first trial, the defense actually knows a lot more about the prosecution case.

21:34case than the prosecution knows about the defense case. And so the studies and the numbers I've seen all show the prosecution tends to fare better on a retrial than the defense. There are some advantages to the defense, but overall prosecution is the major beneficiary. So in this case, though, we're talking about an incredibly high profile case. How difficult is it going to be to hold a new trial with a jury that has not seen or heard anything about this case I mean, it's been everywhere. It's sort of a cottage industry talking about it. There have been countless podcasts, documentaries, even scripted drama.

22:15Yeah. And so two things have been discussed. One is actually shipping in jurors from out of Colleton County into that county to hear the case. And the second is transferring the case out of Colleton County to another area in South Carolina. But beyond that, to your question, and there's a lot of controversy around this, the Supreme Court has said we don't require ignorance by jurors coming into a trial. Generally, if jurors say, I've heard some things about this case, but I can set aside what I've heard and decide the case solely based upon the evidence in the courtroom, usually we take the jurors at their word.

22:52In this case, given the publicity you mentioned, that might be more difficult to accept than in most cases. I mean, as you look at how this continues to unfold, I mean, what is the lesson to be learned here? The lesson to be learned here, I think, is I would like to say this is the exception rather than the rule. The overwhelming majority of court officials take their jobs seriously. They're not seeking financial gain and they are dutifully performing in a way we expect them to do so. So unfortunately, in this case, we had a rogue clerk of court and perhaps based upon wanting financial gain, she took matters into her own hands and she made comments that arguably led to the jury being influenced.

23:39And so I think this speaks both to the respect we have for court officials as well as thankfully seeing the system correct itself when we had a rogue clerk acting improperly. So there's a really strong likelihood, Colin, that I will be talking to you again about the Murdoch case because we could be looking at a retrial in our future. Thank you so much for your insight. And thank you, everyone else, for listening. Thanks so much. And you can follow Case by Case wherever you get your podcasts and be sure to tell us what cases you are following.

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