Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:05] Hey, everybody, it's Lacey. And welcome to another episode of the Llamas podcast.
[00:00:10] Unfortunately, we are apart again this week. Lauren is actually in Vegas. She went to go see the Backstreet Boys at this at the Sphere.
[00:00:18] And I'm extremely jealous, but again, hopping on here to do another week's episode. But I really do hope we're back to normal very soon. Just with everything going on, it's been just very hectic.
[00:00:32] But today's episode, I'm actually going to cover a little bit of the appeal for Alec Murdoch. If you are from South Carolina, you probably know all the details there is to know about this case. And honestly, if you're not from South Carolina, you probably know just as much as we do. This has just been an national case that people have followed. It was live on Court tv.
[00:00:59] Just a brief synopsis.
[00:01:01] Murdoch was charged and convicted for murdering his wife and his son a few years ago here in South Carolina and Colleton County.
[00:01:12] He was sentenced to life in prison for those murders.
[00:01:17] There have, there's been an appeal, of course, which is common in murder cases, I would say, especially when there is a life sentence.
[00:01:25] And they held oral arguments this week on the case. So I just kind of want to walk through that procedurally, what that means.
[00:01:33] So an appeal is when an attorney believes there are errors of law made. An error of law means that the judge made mistakes. So that's what an appeal is going to cover. So if the attorney made mistakes, that's not going to be grounds for an appeal. Grounds for an appeal is when the judge made mistakes that affected the outcome of the case.
[00:01:57] So that is what Murdoch's attorneys have done. Have done. They have filed that appeal and raised all the mistakes that they believe that Judge Newman made during the course of the six week trial.
[00:02:13] The two biggest errors that they talked about in the oral arguments are the issues with the clerk of court, Becky Hill.
[00:02:22] And I'll come back to those. As well as allowing the financial crimes in as motive for the murders. And like I said, I'll come back to that. So once a trial is lost, every defendant has the right to an appeal.
[00:02:35] There's not always grounds for appeal. To be honest, I've read transcripts before where I did not find that the judge made any errors of law.
[00:02:43] Where I felt that, you know, what came into, came in as evidence, should have come in as evidence. What was kept out should have been kept out.
[00:02:51] So sometimes there are not grounds for an appeal.
[00:02:54] Here I definitely think there were grounds for appeal, and the strongest being the two I just mentioned, an oral argument goes in, is just precisely that. It's when the attorneys get to go and argue personally in person in front of the panel. And here is our Supreme Court. So this appeal went straight to the Supreme Court.
[00:03:15] And that is because of our rules here in South Carolina.
[00:03:19] So they, the justices that sit on the panel for the Supreme Court, they get to kind of determine how much time each party gets.
[00:03:28] So they set out a time limit. You're notified well in advance of how they are going to structure the oral arguments.
[00:03:35] I had my first oral argument for the Court of Appeals a few months back. I think it was end of last year and I think mine was 10, 10, 5. So I filed the appeal. So I went First, I had 10 minutes, the state had 10 minutes, and then I had a five minute rebuttal.
[00:03:54] During that oral argument, the, the judges can interject at any time and throw any question at you. It could be a question on case law, what you think the, the rule is and why the rule applies here.
[00:04:08] Anything and everything can be thrown at an attorney here. The justices did decide to allow the first five minutes without interruption. I really liked that structure. I thought it gave the attorneys a way to set the organization of their argument. And I felt like it flowed really well with allowing that five minutes. So I really liked that when I was watching it, that they allowed both sides five minutes without interrupting with questions.
[00:04:40] But they had the oral arguments. Dick Carpoolian was the trial attorney for ALEC Murdoch and attorney Waters or the Attorney General's Office, Creighton Waters. He was there to argue for the state. So it was the same attorneys that you saw if you watched it on tv.
[00:05:01] And so I really felt Dick Carpoolian did a very good job opening up the oral arguments.
[00:05:09] When he was talking about being in, he discussed being in that room and upholding the Constitution and that he really didn't know exactly what he was promising when he made that oath when becoming an attorney. And I think that's true for a lot of us. And he was talking about, but you know, amendments are important. The First Amendment supported the Second Amendment, support it. But nothing is more important than the right, nothing is more important than the right to a fair trial. And I wholeheartedly agree with that. And so I thought he started off very strong, just laying that foundation. Of course that's stuff that the justices know, but I just think it drew you in and just helped lay the foundation for the arguments he was going to make.
[00:05:51] Because I do think the two grounds for appeal that they're really focusing on here really affected the fairness of this trial. And as he mentioned, he even talked about the Aaron Burr case, which is a very long time ago. If you watch the Hamilton the Musical, you know how long ago that case was.
[00:06:06] They even talked about that, that case, and how even Aaron Burr, even though he's terrible, he was afforded the right to a fair trial. Everybody get it. That no matter how heinous the crimes are, no matter how much you hate Alec Murdoch, he is entitled to a fair trial.
[00:06:22] So he. The first big issue, of course, that they talked about was Becky Hill. If you have followed the Murdoch case, you know that Becky Hill made statements to a certain amount of jurors that may or may not have influenced the verdict of the case. And that's kind of what the court of appeals is determining now.
[00:06:43] So once it came forward that she had made statements to the jurors, before we even got to the appellate level, Murdoch's attorney did file a motion for a new trial, which is the proper thing to do in the situation. I have done the same.
[00:06:58] And he did bring up allegations of jury tampering.
[00:07:02] Now, that motion for a new trial was actually heard in front of former Chief justice on our Supreme Court, Jean Toll.
[00:07:10] And what the court was kind of saying today is they kind of struggled with justice. Former Justice Jean Toles, like picking and choosing which parts of jurors testimonies were credible or not.
[00:07:24] So there are several statements made by Becky Hill can go follow some details, but she would say, like, oh, make sure you're paying close attention. Watch his body movement. And she made comments about, oh, he's going to testify. This hardly happens with the defendant. And at some point, I, I don't know how many jurors she made the comment to, but she said, now is the defense's time and they're going to try to trick you. You know, make sure you're watching, because they're going to try to trick you, like something like that, along those lines, or is what she told juror or jurors, which is completely improper and inappropriate. I think both attorneys acknowledged that what Becky Hill did was wrong, was extremely wrong.
[00:08:07] The difference is the defense side.
[00:08:10] So attorney Dick Hart Pootlian is arguing that that did influence the verdict of the case, and therefore Murdoch did not get a fair trial and he should be ordered a new trial by the Supreme Court. And the state's argument is that this, these things came back much after the verdict, and it was so minimal with the amount of evidence, it did not affect the verdict. And therefore he got a fair trial and maybe biased. You can say it, take it for what it's worth. I am a defense lawyer. I've been one for 10 years plus.
[00:08:42] But I really do, like I said, you get a different. I really do think that affected it.
[00:08:49] I think it was Justice Few said in the oral arguments that we. That in the courtroom, you had such a great professional, intelligent attorney general. You had the same thing on the defense side. You had the same thing in a judge, and you had a rogue clerk in the back roaming the hallways.
[00:09:09] I think they made a good point, too, saying that Becky Hill was the one that interacted with the juries, the jurors, the most. She was one that led them to the jury box, led them out. She was the one that they saw the most out of everybody in a closer relationship than the lawyers.
[00:09:26] And even Justice Few even said, just called her flat out a liar. I mean, they were saying that she was untruthful, she was not credible. And justice is like, let's call it what it is, she's a liar.
[00:09:39] So, yeah, so they. They went through that. That the improper comments that she made to the jury, I felt like they were really on the defensive side that this was improper and had major concerns about the fairness of the trial because of what Becky Hill did.
[00:10:00] I don't believe that they like that. Justice Toll, when she had the motion for a new trial, like I mentioned, she was picking and choosing which parts she believed to be credible from the jury.
[00:10:12] So basically, like, they had certain jurors testify, they had one affidavit. She found certain pieces like, oh, I believe this juror when they say this, but I don't believe them when they say that. I don't think they really like that either the juror was credible and you believed their statement, or you did not believe their statement and did not find them credible. It really appeared to me they didn't like that she pick and chose when denying the motion for a new trial.
[00:10:38] So that was the first big issue that they discussed. And like I said, I really felt like they just hit Creighton Waters with a ton of questions on the issues with that.
[00:10:54] And they. It really, to me, seemed like they had big concerns over the fairness of the trial because of Becky Hill and what she did.
[00:11:03] The other thing, of course, is the financial crimes.
[00:11:07] So he has pled guilty and he's been convicted clearly from that plea of stealing millions of dollars from prior cl.
[00:11:17] And we all, any attorney watching, knew that this was going to be an Issue on appeal. During the whole trial, watching it, we knew this was going to be the biggest issue on appeal until we found out about the Becky Hill stuff.
[00:11:30] So that was what the state introduced as motive. We have rules of evidence that we have to follow. And it's, you know, sometimes the defense and the prosecutors disagree on that rule, whether something should come in as evidence and what should not. And the judge gets to determine whether it comes in. Some things is relevancy. You know, is this piece of evidence relevant? That's one thing that a judge looks at here. The rule that's going to apply is it, were the financial crimes more prejudicial than probative?
[00:12:01] And what that means is, are they more hurtful or helpful?
[00:12:05] And so really, just trying to balance the fairness of letting something in.
[00:12:10] Um, so here, the financial crimes, they introduced that as motive as to what led to the murders. And again, I think the justices really had concerns over what was allowed in with the financial crimes. They really struggled with how that was a motive.
[00:12:27] And one justice said that they just had a lot of difficulty tying together the financial crimes to the murders. They didn't really get the link.
[00:12:36] In addition, I think they were saying that even if they came in, it kind of felt like they were saying that the state took it too far and went into more of a victim impact and trying to make the jury feel bad for these people and hate Murdoch, which is just not appropriate. Victim impact cannot come in during the trial phase. It can come in during the sentencing phase, but not the trial phase. And so that was another thing. That, of course, was the issue on appeal, the second big one that we all knew was coming. And it did, to me, seem like the justices were really concerned about how far the financial crimes went. I don't know if they're going to come back and say that none of it should have come in at all, or that maybe it should have been more limited in its use by the state when it was coming in, and that it went too far. So all of that, those are the big issues with oral arguments. I'm very curious in how it's going to come out. I did not watch the whole trial.
[00:13:44] I'm too busy with two kids, my. My practice of my own, and running my own business. It's just not something I had time to do, so I missed a good bit. Of course, I know the. The big highlights, but in just. I'm just such a nerd for the law. It's these appellate issues that I'm really interested in. So I'm just very as to what the Supreme Court justices are going to do.
[00:14:09] My friend Laurie Murray lawyer Lori plugging her for her TikTok.
[00:14:15] She came out and she said that she would be shocked if he didn't get a new trial. She would put money on the fact that he is going to get a new trial. After watching these oral arguments, I think I saw something from Aaron Bailey that she kind of felt the same way, that it seemed like a slam dunk that they were going to give Murdoch a new trial.
[00:14:34] I kind of felt the same way with how they threw question after question to the two Attorney Waters now my mother in law, I must say she felt like Hartpoolian did not do a very good job. She felt he was stammering. She felt like the state had stronger arguments. And so I don't know where she leans. I didn't finish that conversation. But I know that she kind of felt differently than us. So I'm curious what Yalls thoughts are. If you watch the oral argument, if you didn't and you're listening to my summary, let me know what you think you know about these issues or if you have questions about appeals or something like hit us up and let us know. So I don't know how long it's going to be.
[00:15:18] Clearly they are going to go back and review everything, review the case law, review what was said during the oral arguments, discuss with each other and then they will take a vote and then they will draft a decision with the ruling. So that could take a few months, that could take a few weeks. It just really depends. So there's no time frame on it, but as soon as I get it and am able to read it, I'll definitely give an update on what happens. So keep following us for any updates on the Murdoch trial and I that wraps up this week's episode. Again, I hope and Lauren are back together next week, but if not we will be. It's just a matter of scheduling and everything that happened with the storm and stuff on Lauren's side. And my son has just had some extra appointments and stuff, which he typically does at the beginning of the year. So it just might be crazy at the beginning of the year for us in the future.
[00:16:12] But I hope everybody has a nice and safe weekend and we will see you next week. Thank you.
