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by WILL FOLKS
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The high-stakes, high-profile appeal of South Carolina’s ‘Trial of the Century‘ – the 2023 double homicide convictions of disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh – was heard before the Palmetto State’s highest court this week.
The five justices – chief justice John Kittredge and associates John Few, George C. James Jr., Garrison Hill and Letitia Verdin – absolutely unloaded on state prosecutors, with most of their fire trained on alleged jury tampering by former Colleton County clerk of court Becky Hill.
Justices extensively challenged prosecutors’ contention that Hill’s tampering was “harmless” – that it was comprised merely of a few “fleeting” remarks. Instead, they suggested her comments to jurors may have been so egregious as to warrant a new trial irrespective of whether Murdaugh’s attorneys were required to prove it prejudiced the outcome.
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Justices also focused significant attention on the controversial eleventh hour dismissal from the panel of Myra Crosby – the so-called “egg juror” – whose apparently orchestrated ousting was decisive in securing the guilty verdicts against Murdaugh.
Jenn Wood, who has led our Murdaugh coverage from the very beginning, joined me in discussing the appeal hearing detonations in detail this week…
To watch the full appeal hearing for yourself, click here… and to read Jenn’s incredibly insightful review of the hearing, click here.
In our next segment, lead investigative reporter Andy Fancher detailed his exclusive work (here and here) on South Carolina’s ever-expanding proximity to the Epstein Files.
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Andy is continuing to pore through millions of pages of documents – which, incidentally, happen to be the subject of ongoing deletion and modification in the aftermath of their release.
Talk about a moving target… in fact, Fancher had to piece together several key source documents to file one of his reports as they were being removed and/or modified while we were investigating.
Finally, Dylan Nolan joined me to discuss the Epstein fallout on South Carolina politics – especially its emergence as a key issue in the Palmetto State’s Republican gubernatorial primary.
As always, a big ‘thank you’ to everyone who watched this week’s program. Remember, your support enables everything we do at FITSNews. The lights, the cameras, the accountability… all of it is a direct result of your subscriptions. If you value the sort of independent, unapologetic coverage we provide – please help us out and consider subscribing today!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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