COLUMBIA, SC — A South Carolina judge ruled Tuesday that all 12 jurors from Alex Murdaugh’s murder trial will have to testify at his coming jury tampering hearing.
The three-day evidentiary hearing to determine whether Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill tampered with the jury, which is scheduled to begin Jan. 29, could pave the way for Murdaugh — who is serving two consecutive life sentences for the murder of his wife, Maggie, and their son Paul — to get a new trial.
Murdaugh’s defense lawyer, Dick Harpootlian, alleged at the hearing that Hill was motivated to pressure jurors to deliver a guilty verdict to boost sales for a book she was planning to publish about the case.
Former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Toal — who took over legal actions involving Murdaugh’s appeal last month after the trial’s judge, Clifton Newman, agreed to step down — ruled Tuesday that Hill would be required to testify but warned Harpootlian about the scope of the defense’s questioning.
“This is not the trial of Becky Hill,” Toal said.
Hill submitted a signed affidavit in November denying all claims made by the defense, but the defense will now have the opportunity to question her in open court.
“I did not tell the jury ‘not to be fooled’ by evidence presented by Mr. Murdaugh’s attorneys,” Hill said, defending her actions. “I did not instruct the jury to ‘watch him closely.’ I did not instruct the jury to ‘look at his actions.’ I did not instruct the jury to ‘look at his movements.’”
Hill is a co-author of the book “Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders,” published in July. It details Hill’s experience overseeing such a major trial and her family’s history with the Murdaughs, whose family patriarchs had wielded power as the top prosecutor in South Carolina’s coastal Lowcountry.
Hill is under investigation in connection with ethics complaints, and last month she apologized for plagiarism in her book.
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