In March, disbarred South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences after a jury found him guilty yesterday of the 2021 slayings of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh, his wife and son. Murdoch, who already faced life in prison for his financial crimes and who is a compulsive liar, was convicted despite an extremely weak case in which the prosecution barely proved necessary elements of the crime. The only motive for his murdering his family the state could come up with was that he did it to was to take attention away from his other offenses. Okaaaaay…

Here is what I wrote about the case after the trial…

“Reviewing the astoundingly thin evidence, I do not understand why the trial judge didn’t throw out the jury’s verdict and declare Murdaugh acquitted because there was not enough to convict him beyond a reasonable doubt as a matter of law. There wasn’t. This was an example of a jury convicting a defendant of murder because they decided he was a bad guy and there were no other suspects. Alex Murdaugh lied repeatedly regarding the deaths of his wife and son and he was undeniably a thief and a sociopath—but prosecutors couldn’t and didn’t present much more than theories about whether he was the killer. Judges are understandably, reluctant to over-ride juries, but in this case it was necessary. If the Trump Deranged reasoning that the conclusion that someone is just an untrustworthy bounder is sufficient to assume guilt of criminal activity is becoming a cultural norm, our justice system is approaching a crisis, if it isn’t in one already.

The news yesterday suggests that the jury verdict may have another explanation.

Murdaugh’s lawyers are seeking a new trial and an F.B.I. investigation because the clerk of court appears to have engaged in jury tampering. The defense filings allege that the clerk, Rebecca Hill, told jurors not to be “fooled by” Murdaugh’s testimony; that she had multiple conversations with the jury forewoman, and that she fabricated a story about a Facebook post by another juror’s ex-husband in an effort to have that juror removed. (The last is reminiscent of the movie “Runaway Jury,” which I found completely implausible. I may owe Gene Hack,am and Dustin Hoffman an apology…) A juror said in an affidavit in the filing that. Hill told jurors that “this shouldn’t take us long” when they began deliberations. Indeed it didn’t: the trial lasted nearly six weeks, but it took the jury only three hours on March 2 before to convict Murdaugh on the sparse evidence presented. Clearly, Henry Fonda was not on that jury. Hill also reportedly told the six smokers on the jury that they couldn’t have cigarette break until they reached a verdict.

But wait! There’s more!

A few days after the double murder verdicts, the lead prosecutor on the case, Creighton Waters, posted a video on Twitter showing himself playing the guitar. Hill replied with three heart emojis and the comment, “Your biggest fan in Colleton County!” Then, in July, Hill’s name was on a “true crime” book featuring her “I was there!” account of the sensational trial. One passage stated that while she was taking jurors on a visit to the crime scene as part of the trial, everyone involved in the tour “had an epiphany and shared our thoughts with our eyes.” “At that moment,” she wrote, “many of us standing there knew. I knew and they knew that Alex was guilty.”

Whether or not Murdough is a family annihilator, such interference by the court clerk, who has contact with the jury on such administrative matters as arranging meals, would be an egregious breach of his Constitutional rights to fair trial. Jurors can’t discuss a case with each another before the trial is over and their deliberations begin. For the court clerk to communicate her opinion to them in any way is unethical.