Episode Details

Today the South Carolina Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Alex Murdaugh's appeal of his double murder conviction — and the questions from the bench landed almost entirely on the state. The hearing covered jury tampering and evidentiary errors, and on both fronts, prosecutor Creighton Waters faced sustained pressure he struggled to answer. On jury tampering, Justice James immediately asked about the egg juror affidavit that Justice Toal blocked from the evidentiary hearing. Chief Justice Kittredge noted Toal's order never addressed the claim that Becky Hill told jurors not to be fooled by Murdaugh's testimony and called the corroboration across multiple juror accounts "striking." Hill is now convicted of perjury, obstruction, and misconduct — a conviction that didn't exist when Toal ruled. Justice Few pressed Waters on how you describe someone as "not completely credible" when she's pled guilty to lying under oath. Harpootlian argued the legal standard itself was wrong — that Toal asked whether Hill changed the outcome instead of whether she violated Murdaugh's Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury. That's the constitutional question the justices will have to resolve. On the evidence, Kittredge told Waters that 404(b) is a rule of exclusion and said he couldn't identify a single piece of financial evidence the trial court excluded. 
He pressed on why emotional testimony from financial crime victims was put before a murder jury. Waters referenced the movie Fargo. Justice Few shut it down. Griffin reminded the court the state has no eyewitnesses, no murder weapons, and no biological transfer evidence from a close-range shotgun blast. Strip the financial testimony, and the evidentiary foundation shrinks fast. Criminal defense attorney Eric Faddis breaks down the hearing exchange by exchange — the tone from the bench, the moments the state lost ground, and what the justices' questions telegraph about the three possible outcomes. He assesses which result today's arguments most clearly favored and whether a federal Sixth Amendment appeal remains viable no matter what the state court decides. The court took the case under advisement. Sixty days.

#AlexMurdaugh #MurdaughAppeal #BeckyHill #SouthCarolinaSupremeCourt #CreightonWaters #DickHarpootlian #JuryTampering #EricFaddis #MurdaughTrial #HiddenKillers

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