Episode Details

Juror Z had doubts about guilt. She said so under oath. She said the Clerk of Court’s comments made her feel like Murdaugh was already guilty before deliberations started. Former Chief Justice Toal heard that testimony and found it not credible. The Supreme Court disagreed — and reversed everything.

Eric Fadds provides a detailed legal breakdown of the unanimous ruling. The court adopted the Fourth Circuit’s three-step Cheek framework, making it the governing standard for jury tampering claims in South Carolina. Under that framework, once Murdaugh cleared the low bar of showing Hill’s comments were more than innocuous, prejudice was presumed and the State bore the heavy burden of proving the verdict wasn’t affected. The court found the State failed.

Fadds explains Toal’s specific errors — the reversed burden, the Rule 606(b) violation, the selective credibility findings — and addresses how the court went around Toal’s evidentiary limitations by independently crediting testimony from Juror 785 and the alternate juror that Toal had either excluded or ignored.

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