COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) is investigating Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill ahead of the upcoming status conference.
On Friday afternoon, News19 contacted SLED, which said there are no new updates as they continue two investigations. The first is regarding her alleged interactions with the jury during the Alex Murdaugh double murder trial, SLED tells us—the second deals with allegations that she used her elected position for personal gain when writing a book.
"This is a very bizarre situation because usually this happens during the trial or right at the end of the trial," lawyer Pete Strom said regarding the allegations related to the first claim, perpetuated by defense attorneys Jim Griffin and Dick Harpootlian. "They're doing anything they can to try to get this case reversed. And if you have the smallest hole, you try to drive a truck through it, and that's what Dick and Jim are doing here. They've got an issue. It's a significant issue, and they're pushing as hard as they can, and that's what they should be for their client."
Strom is also a former assistant solicitor. He's not involved in this case, but he did speak with News 19 to help us better understand the investigations from a legal perspective, first concerning the defense's claim that Hill had inappropriate communication with the jury by cautioning them ahead of Murdaugh's testimony.
"If you're Jim and Dick, you stand up and say, 'All I need to prove was there was a court official who had a communication with the jury, and that's enough and that can't be tolerated. New trial. End of story, doesn't matter whether there was any materiality to it. Whether there was an impact," Strom explained. "The state would say, 'No, the standard is you've got to prove that it impacted the juror."
Strom says a case in the South Carolina Court of Appeals had a three-judge panel. As Strom explains, one of the judges agreed that a public official commenting on trial proceedings to the jury was enough for a retrial. Strom said another judge wrote a concurring opinion, citing the statement as material. The third judge disagreed with the others, Strom says.
"While it was two to one, the second one of the two didn't exactly say what the first one said. So, there's some room for interpretation there," Strom said. "And again, that was Court of Appeals in South Carolina, and our Supreme Court is our ultimate arbiter in South Carolina."
Chief Justice Jean Toal will ultimately oversee this evidentiary hearing regarding the alleged misconduct.
"I think what Judge Toal is gonna do is she's going to have a hearing, and a lot of it will be public, but she probably will call some of these jurors back then do what they call 'in camera,' where there's a court reporter, and everything is taken down, the lawyers are there, but the jurors, their confidentiality is protected at some level, and she's going to ask them those questions," Strom said. 'What'd you hear? What did Miss Hill say to you? What else did she say? What else? Was there anything else she said?' Okay, now she said all that. Did y'all talk about it? Did it impact your decision?' And that's what she's going to be listening for."
"If every one of them says that and they say that that was their verdict and her comment didn't impact that, then Judge Toal has got to make a hard decision as to whether or not she grants a new trial. Courts don't like to reverse juries," he added. "A lot of work and time has gone into this case. The other side, the defendant's got a right to a fair trial. I haven't seen anything yet that convinces me that there's going to be a new trial. I haven't seen it all. I've read what's been reported, I get the legal arguments, but one word one way or the other during this evidentiary hearing would change my mind."
The second investigation involves Hill's book: "Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders," which she co-authored with journalist Neil Gordon.
"When I sat down with Becky for the very first time, I said, 'There's two things I want to make sure that doesn't happen. I don't want to get you fired. And I don't want to cause an appeal based upon something that is contained in our book.' And I don't know if it was a premonition," Gordon said. "It was certainly a concern, and that's why we went to the Ethics Commission, and that's why we spoke to a media attorney, and that's why we had editors just to try to be extra careful, and unfortunately, there's a lot of trouble ahead. And we're not sure what's going to happen."
Gordon said he and Hill decided to stop publication of the book when he realized the preface had been plagiarized in late December.
Gordon says he realized that the section had been taken from a reporter's email when he was reading through over 2,100 pages of Hill's emails sent between Jan. 1, 2023, and Dec. 11, 2023, which he obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
"I was understandably upset and frustrated. I still don't understand why," Gordon said. "And it's, it's caused us to stop sales of 'Behind the Doors of Justice,' which will affect our family, you know, in the coming months and years because we had hoped that that would be a bit of a legacy. But we'll always have new projects ahead."
While Gordon said they unpublished the book on Amazon, about 900 remaining copies were distributed. Gordon said he and his wife will donate their portion of the proceeds earned after discovering plagiarism to an organization in the Lowcountry.
A statement released on Dec. 26 by Hill's attorney, Justin Bamberg, said she is "deeply remorseful" about the alleged plagiarism.
"The pressures of developing additional content under tight time deadlines resulted in Ms. Hill taking material written by BBC reporter Holly Honderich and submitting it to her co-author Neil Gordon as if it were her own words," the statement said. "Ms. Hill accepts full responsibility for this unfortunate lapse in judgment and has personally reached out to Ms. Honderich to express her sincere apologies."
Gordon said he forgives Hill.
"I'm disappointed, but things are bigger than a book, and love the sinner, hate the sin," Gordon shared. "That's all I can say."
Unrelated to the plagiarism, SLED is investigating whether Hill improperly used her position as clerk of court by writing and selling her book.
"It's all about the details. It smells horrible. But I've read some accounts where she was seeking legal advice about what she could do and what she couldn't do. And my recollection was it was a really good lawyer who was giving her advice. That's a defense in a case. So it's never a good idea for a public official to try to make money either directly or indirectly off their job. It just doesn't look good at the end of the day," Strom said.
"The plagiarism piece of this where she's admitted that she misappropriated other people's words, kindly said, that certainly impacts her credibility. But in this case, in the Murdaugh case, in the new trial case, I don't think her credibility is really an issue because it's a question of what she said and what they heard. So she can give her version," he added. "There are 12 other people and an alternate that all can be called to testify in front of Justice Toal and asked what she said. So it isn't going to be her word against one other person. It's going to be a lot of testimony one way or the other."
Strom said the two SLED investigations are unlikely to impact each other.
News19 contacted Hill's lawyer, Bamberg, for a statement, but he said she didn't.
On Tuesday, Justice Toal will preside over a pre-trial hearing at the Richland County Judicial Center ahead of the evidentiary hearing set for Jan. 29. This comes after Judge Clifton Newman, who presided over the double murder trial, recused himself.
"I thought Judge Newman just did a phenomenal job. I mean, I thought he did a civics lesson for the world on how a jury trial should be conducted," Strom said. "Justice Toal is a different person. She is not as calming as Judge Newman, but good God she's smart."
"And she doesn't have to read their briefs because she knows the law. She is a walking law encyclopedia. And she's going to do what she thinks is right and what the law is in South Carolina, and I think, at the end of the day, there'll be people who don't like what she does or says one way or the other," he added.
Strom said he believes Newman and Toal are the "two best people in our judiciary to handle these two cases."
Strom predicts Hill will take the stand to testify.
"For her to now take the fifth at this point, would be pretty fruitless and look really bad and create some presumptions against her truthfulness, some legal things that could cause some problems, so I expect she'll testify," Strom said. "I think, when this thing is over with, that's probably the end of that."
"Whether she'll get prosecuted or not, I don't know enough about the details, but clearly, there are things like misconduct in office. And this conduct would probably fit into that," he added. "How do I think this thing plays out? I think it either plays out with her retiring, resigning, going away, or getting prosecuted for something like misconduct in office, pleads guilty, resigns from office, pays a fine, maybe an ethics violation. I don't know all the details, but historically, that's how a case like this will resolve itself."
For continued coverage of the status conference and the evidentiary hearing, see WLTX's ongoing coverage.