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1:34

Chances are that four years ago you and

1:36

everyone else you worked with worked in the

1:38

same And

1:50

to get outside, load up on sunscreen

1:52

and podcast. Forecast more of

1:54

what you love with the Weather Channel app. Merry

2:01

Christmas and Happy Holidays from all

2:04

of us at Cup of Justice.

2:07

Before the holiday weekend kicked into

2:09

gear, Liz, Eric and I snuck

2:11

in a Cup of Justice episode.

2:13

We weren't able to get into

2:16

all of the crazy news that

2:18

happened in the past week. Specifically,

2:20

there is a lot more to

2:22

talk about when it comes to

2:24

Collington County's release of a year's

2:27

worth of Clerk of Court Becky

2:29

Hill's emails. I am sure we

2:31

will be talking more about

2:33

Becky's emails in the coming

2:35

weeks as we continue to

2:37

read them. Also, we are

2:39

told that there is going

2:42

to be a serious and

2:44

disturbing announcement from her co-author,

2:46

Neil Gordon, on Tuesday morning.

2:48

Today, we are focused on

2:50

the appointment of Justice Jean

2:52

Toll to hear Alec Murdoch's

2:54

motion for a new trial.

2:56

Eric has personal experience with

2:58

Justice Toll. Plus, we share

3:00

what our sources have been telling

3:02

us what our appointment might mean and

3:05

what we can expect to see in

3:07

the next two months. Like

3:09

we said in Tree Sunlight, we

3:11

are cautiously optimistic, but we are

3:14

also on guard. In this episode,

3:16

we will talk about the reckless

3:18

publication of more than 2,000 pages

3:20

worth of

3:23

emails from Becky Hill's county

3:25

email address and some of the

3:27

chaos that it has caused.

3:30

Not only did the fast and

3:32

furious publication of her emails result

3:34

in the needless and cruel harassment

3:36

of a special needs adult, someone

3:39

who is a friend of this

3:41

podcast. We discovered that Becky is

3:43

behind the defamatory lie that Liz

3:45

and I were kicked out of

3:48

the courtroom during Alec's murder trial.

3:50

I'm telling you. Last

3:52

week, we're the weird ones. But all

3:54

of this has opened our eyes

3:56

even more. Not only

3:58

does this hold Becky's saga show

4:00

how broken the system is both

4:03

through her egregious behavior and now

4:05

she is still being used for

4:08

Alex to get a new trial.

4:10

It shows how ruthless people can

4:12

be. That said, it's not

4:15

going to drag us down or stop

4:17

us. If anything, our drive

4:19

is even stronger and 2024 is going to

4:21

be a great year. Let's get into it.

4:28

All right, guys. Cups up. Cups

4:31

up. Cups up. Well,

4:33

what a way to... Roll

4:36

in the Christmas. Merry

4:40

Christmas to us. Oh man. Merry

4:44

Christmas. There's so much to talk about.

4:46

Mandy, I'm going to let you take the

4:48

lead on this because I

4:50

think I want to hear

4:52

what you want to do first here. Okay.

4:55

Well, let's talk about Judge

4:58

Toll. Let's talk about that first.

5:01

Because a lot went down this week,

5:03

but I still think the most important

5:05

thing is that Alex now has

5:09

a new judge assigned to his murder

5:12

case and motions related to

5:14

it. And

5:17

the biggest decision probably in

5:20

South Carolina judicial history in

5:22

a very, very long time

5:24

is going to come down

5:26

to Justice

5:29

Jean Toll. And we've done a

5:31

lot of research and Eric knows

5:34

Jean Toll. A lot of people who I

5:36

know have been telling me very random things

5:40

about Jean Toll and you two, a

5:42

lot of lawyers are

5:44

extremely familiar with her. She is 80

5:46

years old and has been around a

5:48

long time. I think

5:50

it's fascinating that we

5:53

have this person that was

5:55

already such a huge piece of

5:57

South Carolina history because she's... started

6:00

in the state house in the 70s

6:02

and was the first female

6:04

Supreme Court justice in the year 2000. And

6:07

1988 actually, Mandy,

6:10

she was the first Chief Justice

6:12

in 2000. Yes, correct. 1988, she

6:15

was the first Supreme Court justice ever

6:18

and the only female, right? No, there

6:20

was one that served with her afterward

6:22

and then when she was gone, that was it. Which is

6:25

pathetic, by the way, by

6:28

this time in history, it is

6:30

really, really sad and I'm just

6:32

going to make this comment about

6:34

feminism and it is really sad

6:36

how much the feminist movement has

6:38

just delayed or stopped entirely and

6:41

some and in some cases gone

6:43

backwards. This

6:45

woman was in the state house in

6:47

the 70s and the state house has

6:49

not gotten any better as far as

6:52

equality with women or caring about women's

6:54

issues. It is not improved whatsoever. So

6:56

that aside, what is

6:58

interesting about Jean Toll is that I

7:01

think the most interesting thing that I

7:03

found out about her through

7:05

a lot of conversations was a lot

7:07

of people say that she does what

7:10

she wants and she is hard to

7:12

predict. And so that makes this a

7:14

lot even more interesting. She also has

7:16

a long history with Dick and a

7:18

long history with pretty much anyone who

7:20

has had a career

7:22

in the legal community in South Carolina,

7:24

it seems like. Everybody has a story

7:26

about this woman. Liz,

7:28

what was the most important

7:31

thing that we learned about Justice Toll this week? First,

7:34

I want to note that when you started

7:36

talking about Jean Toll, I had forgotten that

7:38

that happened this week. That's

7:41

how long this week has already been. I totally

7:43

forgot that we haven't known that for weeks. One

7:46

thing I want to note, we didn't say this in, I don't

7:48

think we said this in the episode of True Sunlight, but we

7:51

had gotten word that this

7:54

was going to happen possibly.

7:57

And then, you know, it

8:00

seemed like it had pulled back a little. I don't

8:03

know, do you guys remember me texting you a couple weeks ago? Yeah,

8:05

two weeks ago. Yeah, something

8:07

like that. Because we started to hear

8:10

that. And we were we

8:12

had mixed feelings on it. I know, Eric,

8:14

you'll talk in a second about your feelings

8:16

on the matter. But from everything that we've

8:18

been told, so

8:20

far, people

8:22

are seeing this as like, generally a good

8:25

sign or a signal from the Supreme

8:27

Court that they want this buttoned up

8:29

fast. And it seems like what

8:32

we're hearing today is that there was a phone

8:34

call between which Eric, you'll talk about between

8:36

the AG's office, the defense and

8:38

Jean toll or Judge toll, I guess

8:40

we should call her Judge toll. Justice.

8:44

Justice toll. Justice toll. Justice

8:46

toll. Okay. As long as you are a

8:48

former Supreme Court, you were called Justice. Okay,

8:51

we will get that right in next episode.

8:53

I was saying Judge because she is not

8:56

a Supreme Court judge. Yeah, it's not

8:58

going to be a good. But yeah,

9:00

so Justice toll. You know, it

9:02

looks like it might be a

9:04

sign that she

9:06

is going to put

9:09

a bow on this, I guess is the nicest

9:11

way to say and to deal with it swiftly

9:14

and fairly and but

9:16

like Mandy said that, you know, from what we're

9:18

also hearing is she's incredibly unpredictable. So but

9:21

I will say that even though she has a

9:23

reputation on the one hand of perhaps maybe

9:25

being a part of the good old boy system, maybe

9:27

because she had to be she

9:30

also has a reputation and just just from

9:32

the news clippings that we read over the

9:34

past week of surprising

9:37

people who were who would

9:40

think that they were her friend or would think that

9:42

they would get some sort of beneficial treatment because they

9:44

were her friend or because she thought she liked them

9:46

or something like that, you know, so it

9:50

sounds like she can be rather no nonsense. So

9:52

I'm very cautiously optimistic

9:54

about this. Eric, why don't you tell

9:57

us about your experience with

9:59

Justice toll. And your reaction and your immediate

10:01

reaction. Yeah, your immediate reaction to hearing that

10:03

it was going to be her. I didn't

10:05

like it. She

10:09

is an incredible powerhouse

10:11

intellect, probably the

10:13

smartest of any Supreme Court justice our

10:15

state has ever had. It

10:19

is true that she was in the

10:21

legislator first, and then she jumped immediately

10:23

to the Supreme Court. She

10:25

wasn't an appellate court judge. She went straight from the

10:27

legislature. She

10:30

has a political background,

10:32

so sometimes politics, I

10:35

believe, infects some

10:38

of her decision-making as

10:41

opposed to just pure jurist. She is,

10:43

though, without question, smarter than

10:45

anybody in any courtroom, probably still is

10:47

even at 80 years old. My

10:51

problem with Justice Toll is

10:54

her, sometimes her

10:56

demeanor. You

10:59

know, when you see a justice,

11:01

a judge like Judge

11:04

Newman, who is very reserved

11:06

and measured and doesn't humiliate

11:09

or dress down litigants, Justice

11:13

Toll is an old-time judge

11:16

and judges differently than judges

11:18

do today. She

11:21

owns her courtroom. She

11:23

pees on every coroner in that courtroom. It's

11:25

hers. And you know

11:27

it when you walk in there, and if you're

11:31

on the winning side, it's great.

11:33

If you're on the losing side,

11:35

you get excoriated and you can

11:37

be humiliated. I

11:39

think she has a tendency to beat down litigants

11:41

more than she should. Of course, I have a

11:45

little bit of bias because of the

11:47

in-rate bland decision that she did involving

11:49

my partner and me in

11:52

reversing a lower court judge who held

11:54

our behavior to be commendable and in

11:56

the highest professional standards of

11:58

our rules of preference. professional conduct, I

12:02

just think that she

12:05

was handed this because I think

12:07

Justice Beatty decided that I don't want to put this

12:09

burden on any other circuit court

12:11

judge to have to take this

12:14

kind of heat either for keeping

12:17

the verdicts preserved or reversing it

12:19

for a new trial. She

12:21

doesn't care what anybody thinks about her.

12:23

Are you saying that because of perhaps

12:26

her age and her status that that

12:28

makes her free of? She

12:31

has friends sometimes to reward and enemies

12:33

to punish, or she has friends to

12:36

punish and enemies to reward. You know,

12:38

like you said, she is completely unpredictable.

12:41

I worry about her temperament. I

12:44

worry about what procedures are going to

12:47

be put in place, the fact that there was

12:49

a status conference. And,

12:52

you know, I represent four jurors, and I wasn't

12:54

even told of that status conference. And

12:56

I believe that my

12:59

jurors have the right to legal

13:01

representation in any type

13:03

of proceeding dealing with Alex

13:05

Myrtle's verdict, where they're going

13:07

to have their verdicts questioned.

13:12

You know, we'll have to wait and see.

13:14

She runs a rocket docket. This will be really

13:16

quick. She – you

13:18

know, when you walk into her court, she

13:21

will have read every single thing. This

13:23

is not a judge that doesn't read

13:26

everything or only reads cliff notes, or

13:29

her law clerks do a little executive

13:31

summary for her. She reads every single

13:33

thing, and she is

13:35

a very lively vocal

13:38

judge that will challenge you. So she isn't

13:40

reserved like Newman. Newman

13:44

didn't ask a lot of questions when arguments

13:46

are made. He lets the parties make the

13:48

arguments. It's – she conducts

13:50

a courtroom like you would in an appellate courtroom,

13:52

where you start to open your mouth, and she'll

13:54

jump right in and ask you a question. I

13:58

want you to go here. You want to go here. I

14:00

want to take you here. She

14:02

is a very activist type of judge

14:06

and she's been able to make that smooth

14:08

transition from being an appellate court judge justice

14:12

to a trial court judge.

14:14

And she's handling some extremely

14:16

complicated things like the asbestos class

14:18

actions that are taking place in

14:20

our state. She's

14:23

fully capable of it. I

14:26

just am not a big fan of her temperament. So

14:29

a couple things about

14:31

Justice Toll that we

14:33

learned this week. One

14:37

is that while she

14:39

is very smart and I would say

14:42

well respected considering her... I

14:47

mean there's a lot of... It's

14:49

just really hard with somebody like

14:51

that because I know that the

14:53

world that she really had

14:56

to carve her own path in a

14:58

world that was completely against her. So

15:00

I can understand her temperament being the

15:02

way that it was because I'm sure

15:04

that... And

15:06

I also question if like I saw

15:09

a lot of articles about her temperament

15:11

and her cursing and the

15:13

way that she conducts herself in court and

15:15

I just was looking at those articles from

15:17

like you know the 80s and 90s and

15:19

wondering well let's say I wonder how many

15:22

male judges are written about in this way

15:24

and I just think because she was a

15:26

woman people expected her to be a lot

15:28

more polite, a lot more reserved

15:31

and she didn't play that way.

15:34

But at the same time and we do have to bring this up

15:36

she has a checkered past specifically

15:38

with a two hit and

15:40

run situations

15:43

where a lot of... She

15:46

was believed to be drinking in both

15:48

situations with the... One

15:52

of them she was believed to be drinking. The

15:54

airport one she... There was nothing about... Yeah,

15:57

it's just that there was one where she admitted

15:59

to drinking. Can you re-say

16:01

that? Yes, there was one

16:04

of the incidents she was

16:06

believed to be drinking and admitted to in

16:08

the police report but

16:10

left the scene and she also was

16:13

off and on. It

16:17

sounds like has been friends slash

16:19

enemies with Dick Harputlian and it

16:22

does concern me too that Dick

16:24

Harputlian said in the August 2022

16:26

hearing regarding the Murdoch murders trial

16:31

Dick specifically named Jean Toll

16:33

as somebody to handle discovery

16:35

and he said what about

16:37

Justice Toll and that to

16:40

me sounds like Dick Harputlian would only say

16:43

that if he thought that Justice Toll was

16:45

on her side but I mean who knows this

16:47

is going to be a major wild card and the

16:49

other thing that I've heard about her I hear

16:52

that right out of the gate it's going

16:54

to be very obvious of what she's going

16:56

to decide. She does not

16:59

hold back on her opinions about anything so

17:01

right out of the gate we will

17:03

be able to tell if she's on Dick's

17:06

side or not and

17:08

that will be very interesting. It's

17:10

interesting that her lawyer for a lot of her past problems

17:13

whether it was with the accidents

17:23

or some of

17:25

her judicial issues

17:27

was Cam Lewis who

17:29

is best friends with Dick Harputlian

17:31

was before he died with

17:34

Dick Harputlian's best friend and Becky Hill's

17:37

lawyer is Will Lewis who

17:39

is Cam's son

17:42

and so it's just so incestuous

17:45

and I'm not saying that in a

17:48

negative way it's just incestuous

17:50

it's just too much close

17:53

relationships all the way around it

17:55

just seems like you were

17:57

retreading the same players all the

18:00

time, you know what I'm saying? That's

18:02

because you have to. I think in

18:04

the way that South Carolina is structured,

18:06

there's like maybe what like 15

18:11

to 25 lawyers who really

18:13

are at the heart of all

18:15

the action, not just with

18:17

the Murdock case but with things

18:20

that happen in the legislature. So

18:23

that it's hard to

18:25

extract yourself from that when especially when

18:27

like lawyer legislators are holding on to their

18:29

power so strongly, it's never going to

18:32

get fixed unless I mean like that's really the

18:34

first block in getting that fixed that you know

18:36

if we want it, there's 2500

18:38

lawyers in South Carolina, right? Like something like that. So

18:41

why do we only know about you know 50

18:43

like we keep hearing about the same 25 lawyers,

18:46

not even what is it 10 that we're doing about 20?

18:49

Yeah, 20 times. Yeah, it's the same. But

18:52

I think it's funny

18:54

that you used that phrase earlier that

18:57

she pees on her

18:59

territory because that's how Dick fancies himself

19:01

as somebody comes into court and he

19:03

literally used that phrase in an article

19:05

that we constantly quote

19:07

from I think it was like whistle blowers

19:09

weekly or something. That

19:12

was something that he prides himself on.

19:14

So it almost feels like we're going

19:16

to be watching Dick meet his

19:19

match. Yeah,

19:21

the Titans. Yeah and

19:24

I'm happy to hear Eric

19:26

that she reads everything. I

19:28

think that that's necessary for

19:31

us to get if our

19:33

position which it is is we don't think

19:35

that Alec deserves a new trial. We

19:37

don't think it anything that we've seen so

19:39

far has merited that. The

19:42

way you get to that opinion I believe

19:45

is through having read everything

19:47

and understanding the accusations

19:49

that Dick and Jim are making within

19:52

the context of bringing

19:55

context to it because standing

19:57

on its own obviously we can see

19:59

it from the media, you read

20:01

their original motion

20:03

to the appeals court when they first

20:06

lodged these accusations about jury

20:08

tampering. And naturally, you come

20:10

away from reading that and you're like, oh my God.

20:13

But once you start to insert the context

20:15

and clarify some of the misleading statements that

20:17

they have in there with the truth, you

20:20

start to see that this whole thing

20:22

falls apart. There's actually

20:24

literally no scaffolding to it. So

20:28

in order to get there, she's going to need to

20:30

read everything. And that is so encouraging to me. So

20:32

I'm really happy to hear that despite.

20:34

And as far as her hit and runs, like we

20:36

should note that they happened a long time ago. And

20:42

she did the right thing for

20:44

what it seems like other than like they didn't give

20:46

her a breathalyzer or anything. She reported herself to

20:48

the bar. She

20:50

admitted, I guess, to drinking and that it

20:53

could have affected, I guess, her hitting

20:55

the car. And then additionally, in

20:57

the second crash, which happened a couple of years after

21:00

the first one, she came back to

21:02

the scene. She said

21:04

she thought that she saw no damage, but she ended up,

21:07

you know, she got ticketed in both

21:09

cases and paid her fines

21:11

or whatever. So I just want to note that

21:13

not to say that it's a good look,

21:15

because especially when we know that a

21:17

certain judge named Judge Carmen Mullen

21:20

is well known in Beaufort County

21:22

as being a menace

21:24

to the road. She is a fast

21:26

driver and she, you know,

21:30

gets pulled out. She's known among the law enforcement

21:32

is getting pulled over a lot. So

21:34

for her speedy driving. And

21:38

we'll be right back. How

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23:17

And if you're looking for more,

23:20

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23:22

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23:25

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23:27

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23:29

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23:32

48 hours on the Wondree

23:34

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23:36

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23:38

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23:46

She also was a part of ruling

23:50

against having cell phones in

23:52

the courtroom. Not for media,

23:54

just for civilians. For civilians,

23:57

right. So, it's

23:59

up in the air. that but Eric

24:01

let's talk about how we

24:06

are a certain thou who shall not

24:08

be on

24:36

Wednesday if there were any upcoming hearings

24:44

and the AG's office said no and the fact that

24:46

they split this in the Friday before Christmas is just

24:48

not a good look. So Eric what can you tell

24:50

us about this hearing? First I want

24:53

to tell you that there is something good

24:55

about justice toll even though you know there's

24:57

some things that I don't like about her

24:59

she was instrumental in amending rule 41 in

25:01

our rules of civil procedure to

25:03

say we can't have secret settlements anymore

25:05

that affect the public interest which was

25:07

a huge huge rule that was put

25:10

in place because you know in civil

25:12

cases defendants want to pay money so

25:14

that they can keep everything that was

25:16

alleged in a lawsuit under wraps and

25:19

judges will not approve a settlement

25:22

if they feel that the issues involved

25:24

in the case go beyond the parties

25:26

themselves and have a public interest effect

25:28

and I think that's a good thing

25:30

it's what we talk about in true

25:32

sunlight all the time and why you

25:34

guys started Luna Shark sunlight

25:37

sunlight sunlight so that is something

25:39

that was I think a

25:41

really good development that she was instrumental in

25:44

putting in effect in our rules of procedure.

25:48

Yes there was a status conference it

25:50

wasn't a live status conference it was

25:52

a phone status conference and

25:54

that's old school judging most

25:56

new school judging is they want

25:58

a status conference to be an

26:00

open court, put it on the record,

26:04

where there's a court reporter. Old-school

26:06

judging is status conferences back in

26:09

chambers where there's no court reporter

26:11

and, you know, there's

26:13

a collegial exchange between

26:15

the judge and the litigants

26:18

for phone calls, which often don't

26:20

have court reporters. Evidently,

26:22

there was an introductory phone

26:24

call that she wanted to make because,

26:27

you know, she hits the ground running, she

26:29

runs a rocket docket. It's not going to

26:32

be, well, we'll set a hearing in March,

26:34

then we'll brief it in April, and the

26:36

decisions will be in the summer. I'm telling

26:38

you, we're going to know where everybody stands,

26:40

like, by February in this case. Derek,

26:43

how much do we need to

26:45

worry about Dick's legislative immunity? I

26:49

think we have to worry a lot about it. He

26:52

certainly wants these hearings to go play.

26:54

So when it behooves Dick, he's going

26:56

to participate in any hearing that,

26:59

you know, behooves him. He's not going to

27:01

want to wait until the summer to have

27:03

the motion for a new trial heard. So

27:06

I think his goal

27:08

is to have

27:10

this case reversed and then scheduled for a

27:13

trial in the fall. And Mandy, you've talked

27:15

about it. Like, if he's going to get

27:17

a new trial, let's throw it into 2027 or 2028

27:19

and let all these other people who

27:22

are sitting in jail that didn't have

27:24

their day in court, and

27:27

all these counties are from the grand

27:29

jury, statewide grand jury, let them get

27:31

their time. Why should Alex keep jumping

27:33

to the front of the line? He's

27:35

had enough of deference given

27:37

to him and his lawyers. So

27:41

I don't think the legislative immunity is going to

27:43

be an issue on any of the pretrial hearings.

27:45

I think it's going to be an issue on

27:48

scheduling a trial. Now, she

27:50

had a status conference. I was told,

27:53

I spoke to Creighton Waters, and he told

27:55

me that, you know, nothing was set in

27:57

stone. He expects that there'll be another. status

28:00

type conference, whether it's going to be

28:02

a hearing or a phone call in

28:04

early January. And that's when the parameters

28:07

are going to be set. But I

28:09

said to Creighton, look, I represent four

28:11

jurors. If somebody is going

28:14

to be setting parameters regarding what discovery

28:16

is going to take place or who's

28:18

going to have to testify, whether it's

28:20

in court or out of court, I

28:23

want to be a part of that. I want to

28:25

be weighing in on the record regarding my clients. Now,

28:28

Creighton said that the law

28:30

says that the courts have to choose

28:33

the least restrictive means to

28:36

get at jurors who already have served

28:39

if there's a post-trial jury issue. So

28:41

he said that he believes that

28:43

Justice Toll will be following that

28:45

law to make this as narrow

28:48

and restrictive as possible. Remember, from Dick's

28:50

press conference, he wanted it as broad

28:53

as possible. I wanted to pose every

28:55

one of these jurors. I want to

28:57

subpoena their phone records. I want to

29:00

subpoena their texts and their emails. I'm

29:02

not sure she's going to do that. I

29:05

know that the AG will not advocate for

29:07

that. But I told Creighton that I

29:09

would like to write Justice Toll and tell

29:12

her, hey, there are other people that have

29:14

an interest in what is

29:16

going on from a legal

29:18

standpoint, not just the

29:20

defense and the prosecution. And he said, there will

29:22

come a time where you will do that. He

29:25

said, it's just not now. I

29:27

think we should probably be clear

29:29

to people because I think we can get

29:31

kind of confused here. So what Justice Toll

29:33

has to decide is whether or not Dick

29:36

and Jim, whether or not there should be

29:39

an evidentiary hearing. Correct. That's the

29:41

first hurdle. No. There's

29:44

going to be an evidentiary hearing. It's

29:46

what leads up to that evidentiary hearing.

29:48

Dick wants to be able to

29:50

have as much discovery so

29:53

that when he walks into that hearing,

29:55

he's going to know what juror 165

29:58

says and juror 238. The

30:00

state says, no, no, no, no, no, this is a

30:03

hearing that's conducted by the court, not

30:06

by the parties. That's the difference. Dick

30:08

wants to run the show. Justice

30:11

Toll, we're hopeful, is going to be the

30:13

one that runs the show. But couldn't

30:15

Justice Toll decide that I

30:18

have heard your arguments on both sides, and so

30:20

far, what's been – because what's the point of

30:22

the motions, right? The motions are to show you

30:24

the full – the

30:26

360 on the argument, like Dick

30:29

and Jim's best argument along with the

30:31

state's best argument. Couldn't she

30:33

read those and decide, I've seen enough. I

30:36

don't think that there's cause because –

30:38

The answer is technically yes. The answer

30:40

is no. Sometimes

30:43

judges do make a decision on the

30:45

briefs. Remember, Judge Gergel did that a

30:47

lot of times on the post-trial motion.

30:49

You remember Russell Heath. He

30:51

said no. He did it on the briefing. In

30:54

this particular case, because of the public

30:56

importance of this, I don't believe that's

30:59

going to happen. There's going to be

31:01

oral arguments. Remember, this is the most

31:03

important case maybe in our state's

31:05

history. It's going to go

31:08

down as one of the top three

31:10

legal cases in our state's history. I

31:12

think it has to be open. I

31:15

think it has to be fair. But

31:17

I also worry about, is

31:20

this going to be a decision that

31:23

is guided by a judge as

31:25

opposed to the evidence? That's what

31:27

concerns me because she runs her

31:29

courtroom and

31:31

makes up her mind quickly. Like Mandy

31:33

says, you'll know right out of the

31:35

get-go where she's going, what she's feeling.

31:37

And that's what concerns

31:39

me. I think I

31:42

want everybody to present their evidence,

31:44

and then there should be a

31:46

reasoned decision. I don't want anybody

31:48

jumping to such early conclusions. Well,

31:50

I guess I feel like I can relate to

31:53

her if she does have an early conclusion because

31:55

once you've read everything, and once

31:57

you've seen the full scope of how – Dick

32:00

and Jim have conducted themselves and just sort

32:02

of like the fruitlessness of some of their

32:04

arguments. Not to say that every single one

32:06

of them was trickery, but certainly quite a

32:08

number of them

32:10

were, you know, based on

32:13

hyperbole and overstatement and

32:15

a lack of context and a truncation

32:17

of facts. I don't

32:20

have a problem. I mean, I just, I guess I have to trust that

32:23

anyone who would read, because I think a lot

32:25

of these people may be online or what have

32:27

you, they're not reading the full scope of things

32:29

the way Mandy and I are. And

32:32

therefore, like, I can guess I can kind of

32:34

understand their opinion if you're just basing it on

32:36

headlines or like the Quick Take or the TikToks

32:39

or whatever you're watching or going on YouTube or

32:41

whatever it is to get your news. But

32:44

once you've read the full scope of the whole thing,

32:46

I feel like it's, I mean, I think that's a

32:48

good sign. So I go back

32:50

to that, I think. Yeah, it's a wild

32:53

card. And what I'm excited about too is

32:55

I've seen a couple people say that if

32:57

Dick is out of line, she would be

32:59

one to call him out. So it's going

33:01

to be very, very interesting. If she does

33:04

that, or if she lets him get away

33:06

with things, that will be extremely telling too.

33:08

So I'm, I'm

33:11

cautiously optimistic. You

33:13

will not see the same Dick. It's

33:15

not a flamboyant Dick. You cannot be

33:18

flamboyant in front of Justice Jean Tull.

33:20

There's no theater in her courtroom. It's

33:22

her theater, you understand. She's the

33:24

one that will put the theater on.

33:26

If you are bombastic

33:29

or you're disrespectful or

33:32

you interrupt, she will

33:35

dress, she can chew

33:37

your ass better than

33:39

any judge I've ever seen in my

33:41

life. It's that simple. And

33:43

that's great. Like, so you're saying basically

33:46

that if Justice Tull were

33:48

in the room when Dick pointed his automatic

33:50

weapon at the prosecution. Great.

33:53

Well, hopefully she, hopefully she sees that

33:55

in her, in her stack of papers.

33:57

She wouldn't tolerate him with fake

34:00

bean comment and the and the bag

34:02

of the phone in the bag. She

34:04

wouldn't have tolerated what makes you special

34:07

agent whirly. She would have stopped the

34:09

trial and said Mr. Harpoo in one

34:11

more crack like that and you're gonna be

34:14

held in contempt. You're making me like

34:16

her, Eric. You're making me like her. And

34:18

yeah, I'm right. She sounds

34:20

like our kind of people. Real

34:22

quick, though, do you either of you know what

34:24

her relationship, if any, is with Judge Newman? It

34:27

seems like they attended a lot of the same

34:29

like high profile events for

34:31

like President Obama and such. So I'm just

34:33

wondering because I know there's an element here

34:36

from what my sources are told me is

34:39

that Chief Justice

34:41

Beatty really wants to

34:43

put an end to this. Is he sick of the nonsense

34:46

with the Murdoch's? He's sick of the, you

34:49

know, just the state being made a fool of and

34:52

he does not appreciate how

34:55

Dick and Jim have thrown Judge

34:57

Newman under the bus the way they did. So,

35:00

yeah, sorry.

35:02

And it costs the state

35:04

over five hundred thousand dollars.

35:06

I mean, think about that

35:09

and think about having to do that again

35:11

and how what a colossal

35:13

failure that would be. I

35:16

mean, I don't

35:19

want to think about it, but it is

35:22

important to note that that will also be

35:24

on their minds. And it's going to be

35:26

a big decision. So I'm excited real quick

35:28

about the money, though. I

35:30

think I'm saying to say about that.

35:33

Oh, sorry. This is all just to say, like, you

35:35

know, I feel like when we

35:38

have these discussions, like, let's

35:40

just remove Murdoch from this as reporters. We

35:42

would always leave open the possibility of like

35:44

maybe there was cherry tampering and maybe that's

35:46

what they'll discover and maybe this will end

35:48

up with a new trial. And if so,

35:50

you know, that's just we're not

35:52

saying it here because of like,

35:55

again, going back to the scope of what we've

35:57

read, the people that we're talking to, like, there's

35:59

not. it's

38:00

very rare for

38:03

a clerk of court for a

38:05

news outlet to ever care about

38:07

a clerk of courts emails to

38:10

this extent and it's extremely rare

38:12

to publish every single one of

38:14

them without hardly any redactions. It

38:16

best found one redaction which was

38:18

very interesting which happens to black

38:21

out several names of College and

38:23

County employees who got a raise

38:25

this year which ha why

38:27

would you redact

38:29

that and you didn't redact lots

38:32

of private citizens contact

38:34

information lots of things

38:36

were problematic throughout that entire FOIA

38:39

and they decided to

38:41

redact their probably they

38:44

were protected it looked like they

38:46

were protecting their own

38:48

information. I am

38:50

very upset about a lot of this

38:52

so I'm trying to you know keep

38:55

my anger and keep my

38:57

cool here. What are you angry about

38:59

Mandy? Tell me give it to me straight

39:01

Rocky. I think what I'm most angry about and

39:04

Liz and I had a very long

39:06

conversation about this yesterday is that we

39:08

are both so tired of giving people

39:11

the benefit of the doubt included

39:14

in this story and seeing

39:16

them through

39:19

a lens of being

39:22

a good person and wanting

39:25

wanting them to be good and

39:27

I'm tired of being disappointed by

39:29

people I'm tired of being betrayed

39:31

I'm tired of just

39:33

being lied to I'm tired

39:35

of this year

39:39

we all

39:42

three of us have been you know

39:44

stabbed in the back many times and

39:46

that's been a very hard thing to

39:48

handle and the emails first

39:55

of all I want to say this nothing

39:58

to do with jury tampering in those two 2000

40:00

pages. We've seen

40:02

nothing. So that's, we have to

40:05

be clear about this. It's a good thing. Which

40:07

is a good thing. Good thing. It's a good thing

40:09

and we have to keep focused on that.

40:12

The bad thing is that

40:14

they make Becky look horrible.

40:18

Becky made Becky look horrible, Mandy? Becky

40:21

made Becky look horrible. They

40:23

tell the story of a very... What do you

40:25

mean by that? I don't understand. I don't understand. I

40:27

think we're maybe beating around the bush a

40:29

little bit here. There's a couple

40:31

of things happening. One is

40:33

obviously there's some piece of this that we're a

40:36

little self-interested in which would be that it turns

40:38

out, and Eric, I don't know if you remember

40:40

this, but there was a lie going around during

40:42

the trial that said that Mandy and I had

40:44

been barred from the courtroom, that we had been

40:47

booted from the courtroom. I

40:50

thought that this was a rumor that was

40:52

just being perpetuated by people that have

40:54

been jealous

40:56

of us in the past or threatened by our

40:58

success or what have you, because

41:01

it seemed to be coming from those camps. But

41:03

what it turns out is the perpetrator

41:05

of that lie was Becky. There's

41:07

an email in there from

41:10

Thad Moore with a post in courier where

41:12

he actually did his due diligence and tried

41:14

to get to the bottom of the rumor

41:16

and asked Becky, hey, is it true that

41:18

two reporters have lost their courtroom privileges? Which

41:21

I do take issue with the word

41:23

privileges because it's an open forum. It's

41:25

a public space, so there's

41:27

no privilege in actually being in the court. You just

41:29

have to obey those judge's orders. But that

41:32

said, he did his due diligence and tried

41:35

to get to the bottom of it. She

41:37

offered him an equivocal answer and said, well,

41:39

they're not here, so it must be true.

41:42

And from what we've gathered just

41:45

in various bits of information that have come

41:47

to us, that

41:50

she continued to perpetuate that lie and

41:52

even went so far as to correct

41:55

Jay Bender, who is a First Amendment

41:57

attorney. He is an attorney to. And

44:00

I was mocked on something else that

44:02

was false, but... Becky said that you

44:04

had been reprimanded, Eric, for taking a

44:06

picture in the courtroom. Because it's

44:09

insane. It

44:11

did not happen. The point I'm trying

44:13

to make is people may say, oh,

44:16

you guys are being petty because you're

44:18

trying to, you know, change

44:20

the narrative here. And it's such a

44:23

small picky-yoon issue. It's not. This

44:25

is a major issue. This is credibility.

44:28

You guys are journalists. I'm a lawyer.

44:30

I know how to behave. Okay.

44:33

Yes. At a break, I had a

44:35

selfie taken with my wife and Creighton,

44:38

but not during court and nobody

44:40

ever reprimanded me. And,

44:42

you know, a lie runs so fast

44:44

before truth can even wake up and

44:46

opens its eyes. And it just

44:48

makes us look bad. And it's not petty that

44:51

we're bringing this up. It's a, it's a... It

44:53

doesn't make us, it makes, it does not make

44:55

us look better because I think that we've held

44:57

our own very strongly throughout this whole thing. I

45:00

don't think that people have lost faith. I think

45:02

that the people who perpetrate the lie were trying

45:04

to make us look bad in the hopes of,

45:07

you know, lowering our status or our importance

45:09

in this exactly. They knock us down. Knock

45:11

us down. And one thing I really want

45:14

to say here, I mean, this lie was

45:16

perpetrated up and I mean, they're probably still

45:18

talking about it on Twitter. I literally had

45:21

to remove myself from Twitter yesterday because I

45:23

was getting so angry. And when I'm angry,

45:25

I just need to not

45:27

be on the Internet. And I've

45:29

learned to do that in the last few years. Good for me.

45:32

Pat on the back. I,

45:36

they were perpetuating this lie up

45:38

until yesterday in the lie that

45:40

they know is completely untrue, a

45:42

lie that hurts us. And

45:45

what was making me mad was seeing

45:48

specific tweets saying that

45:50

we are liars, saying

45:53

because we lied about being kicked out

45:55

of the courtroom, we are lying about

45:57

everything else. And.

46:00

That is where I have a

46:02

major problem and that is where

46:04

I get extremely defensive because again

46:06

the credibility that we have built

46:08

in these last two years,

46:11

four years since this

46:13

investigation began is our

46:16

most value. It is what makes us...

46:19

It's your currency. It's our

46:21

currency and it's what made our two

46:23

of our podcasts number one in the

46:25

world by the way. It

46:27

is what makes us so far above

46:30

all of these people that were so

46:32

petty and all of these reporters who

46:34

were perpetuating this lie and were laughing

46:36

with Becky Hill about ha-ha. They

46:38

were in little huddles saying, ha-ha, Mandy and Liz

46:41

got kicked out of the courtroom and

46:45

I'm hurt by it. I'm disgusted by

46:47

it and again I

46:50

want people to know if reporters perpetuate

46:52

this lie that they know to be

46:54

untrue, they're going to do that with

46:56

other things. I

46:58

also want to say again this is

47:01

really hard and I have realized throughout

47:03

this story that a lot of this

47:06

has just become incredibly personal and intertwined

47:08

with our own lives. I

47:12

didn't change my mind entirely on

47:14

Becky. I think we've

47:17

known in the last few weeks that

47:20

Becky is likely going to get into trouble and

47:23

that Becky played fast and

47:25

loose with the rules as

47:29

a clerk of court and with her position.

47:33

I thought that she was more

47:35

naive and more had a

47:38

good heart than I do now. I

47:41

think that that's been my biggest change

47:44

of let down and

47:46

I think the other thing that I

47:50

saw with those emails is seeing that

47:54

how much Becky really values

47:56

everybody loving her and being

47:58

the popular one. and you

48:00

can tell that she is constantly

48:02

stirring the pot with everybody that

48:05

she's emailing and she wants to

48:07

be an important person and she

48:09

wants to be somebody that everybody

48:11

likes. And by the way, she

48:13

is the one that emailed David

48:15

several days after jury selection

48:17

and said, you

48:19

two can have another media pass. We

48:21

have a record of that. Becky knows

48:23

that we were not kicked out of

48:25

the courtroom and she still perpetuated that

48:27

lie because the other

48:30

reporters hate us so much and

48:32

she knew that she could get

48:34

on their good side by stirring

48:36

the pot. An elected official cannot

48:38

do that. An elected official needs

48:40

to uphold the rules and hit

48:43

it down the middle. She needs

48:46

no friends to hurt and

48:48

to reward and enemies to punish. And

48:50

let's be honest here, any successful person

48:52

is going to have people who hate

48:54

them. You just have to realize that.

48:56

And it was very clear in those

48:58

emails that Becky could

49:01

not understand that. It was like watching

49:03

a high schooler who wanted to be

49:05

really, really popular and wanted to do

49:07

everything to get everybody to love her.

49:11

And it also again, the soft side

49:13

of me saw that and was like,

49:15

this must be absolutely horrible

49:17

for her because look what happened. This

49:19

is what happens when you try to

49:21

be everyone's bestie and this is what

49:23

happens when you try to be on

49:25

everyone's good side and you refuse to

49:27

stand up for the truth and stand

49:29

up for what is right. This

49:32

is what happens to you. So I've

49:35

lost respect for Becky. I've

49:37

lost a lot of sympathy for Becky.

49:40

However, at the same time,

49:42

I'm still sticking to my

49:44

guns on. I have seen

49:46

zero evidence that she did

49:48

anything to tamper or influence

49:50

with the jury. And

49:53

that is the most important thing. And there's nothing in

49:55

those two, I mean, those 2000 emails

49:58

make her look bad. She

50:02

was talking about her book. She was doing

50:04

a lot of work about her book to

50:06

the point it was just ridiculous from her

50:08

county email. Well, let's be clear.

50:10

She wasn't writing. It doesn't appear that she was writing

50:12

her book at work. It just appears. I mean, she

50:14

was doing sort of the right, like there's nothing in

50:16

there that she was doing research for

50:18

it through her county email. I don't. Can

50:21

we agree that this has been a concerted campaign? Yes.

50:24

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Because

50:27

it's true, based on attrition by

50:29

all that's coming out, she's

50:32

going to not get any benefit of the

50:34

doubt. Isn't that the goal of whoever's all

50:36

behind all of this? There's

50:39

just so much that's going to wait

50:41

on her shoulders that she can't bob

50:43

out of wood or enough to have

50:45

credibility. But again, we, you know, Mandy and

50:47

I will say like that her credibility sucks. But

50:50

I don't think her credibility is an

50:53

issue here to the extent that I

50:55

think they want to make it because

50:57

it's not her word against the

51:00

juror. There's 12 jurors.

51:02

They each stood up in front of

51:05

Judge Newman and said, this is my

51:07

verdict. This is

51:09

my opinion. So to

51:11

come back now and in all

51:13

of them, you know, most of them anyway,

51:15

the ones that are appeared in the state's

51:17

response, none of them are

51:19

saying that Becky did anything that would

51:21

change their opinion. So

51:23

we have to keep the focus on that.

51:26

I want to say this as well. I

51:28

really don't want to come off as

51:30

because I was personally betrayed

51:32

in those emails that that made me

51:35

completely change my... Becky

51:39

has been a slow burn in this past

51:41

month of getting to know who

51:43

she really is and... Great

51:46

description. We're finding out every week

51:48

more and more. I still

51:50

do not think it's fair. I

51:52

still don't think anybody would care about any

51:54

of this had Dick and Jim not hung

51:56

her out to dry and thrown her in

51:59

front of the... bus and then the

52:01

train early in

52:03

September. I would venture to say

52:05

you're right Mandy, if you went to any clerk

52:07

of court who has served

52:09

for 10, 20 years in

52:12

a particular county, there would

52:14

be not flattering things that you

52:16

could uncover about that person. It

52:18

would be in any position of

52:20

power, you're 100% right that people

52:24

say things in an email that they shouldn't

52:26

say or they use their office email for

52:28

this or they use the power of their

52:30

office to get catering or whatever. This

52:34

isn't isolated, it's just under the focus

52:36

right now for her. Right, right,

52:38

shooting fish in a barrel. I

52:42

knew, I really could like working

52:45

for a county government. I spend a day

52:47

there, like take your daughter to work day and

52:49

your daughter will see that these

52:52

people generally speaking

52:55

are not, I mean it's a night and day to the

52:57

private sector. I forget who

52:59

I was talking to you about, I was talking to somebody

53:01

about sort of the difference of like when you take a

53:03

private sector job after working in the county or wherever in

53:05

local government or what have you, you

53:08

come off as this like star employee

53:10

because you know, I'm

53:12

sorry when you go from the private sector to the public sector because

53:15

you are used to a grind that

53:17

is so different from what they do on

53:20

a daily basis. That's not to say every

53:22

public employee, there's so many that do great

53:24

jobs and are hard workers. So

53:27

I don't want to take that from anyone but there's

53:29

a lot of people that are, you know, if you

53:31

have time to lean, you have time

53:33

to clean. They're just hanging out there for

53:35

the paycheck and look at

53:37

their budget as their own personal piggy bank. But

53:40

one more thing I want to

53:43

say about the emails and

53:45

what I noticed about the

53:47

ones that were released through the

53:49

FOIA. I've

53:51

done a lot of FOIA's in South Carolina, a

53:54

lot at this point and I, it was

53:56

very clear me

54:00

that whoever released this

54:03

FOIA within Colliton County

54:06

that they did not want

54:08

to protect Becky one bit or anybody

54:11

involved in any of those emails. So

54:13

it's specifically Becky. It seemed

54:15

like they and we

54:17

know that the lawyer

54:19

for Colliton County, Sean Thornton

54:22

is a part of Jeffy's office

54:24

and that's a whole another thing.

54:27

Meaning because he has to... He

54:29

approves, he would have a

54:32

hand in approving the FOIA's. And we

54:34

need to talk about a couple of

54:36

huge problems with that. First

54:38

of all, officials have, it seems like

54:40

way too much wiggle room to decide

54:42

what they can and cannot redact when

54:45

it comes to FOIA's. I have seen

54:48

some ridiculous FOIA's that like for

54:50

it or not even FOIA's. One

54:52

time I was looking at a police

54:55

report in Beaufort County and they blacked

54:57

out where the city that the crime

54:59

took place in. Like they

55:02

get that extreme with just, there's some

55:04

people with a real heavy hand when

55:06

it comes to redacting. But you

55:08

can also tell a human is

55:10

behind us and a human who

55:12

either wants to burn the person

55:15

or wants to protect them. And

55:17

this one seems like

55:20

the people of Colliton County are ready to

55:22

hang Becky out to dry. But

55:25

because they were so incredibly

55:27

reckless with their lack of

55:29

redaction and because a news

55:31

outlet published the whole thing

55:34

recklessly. And I think that's the thing

55:36

you have to pause on and focus on

55:39

for one second here because even

55:41

though Colliton County gave

55:43

that bulk of emails out and

55:45

did only at what

55:47

looks like a partial redaction, one that

55:50

apparently benefited them. They left phone numbers,

55:52

private phone numbers, etc. And you can

55:54

talk about that in a second. But

55:57

news publications are not protected.

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