One thing I just remembered that I haven't seen pointed out...
Judge Newman was AT the Moselle visit with the jury and BH. He rode separately, but he was there on site with everyone. If he didn't see it, but Dick did...Dick had immediate access to tell Judge Newman about it.
"12 jurors and 2 alternates met at the Colleton County Courthouse on Wednesday morning where they were loaded into several transport vans and sent on their way to Moselle, according to pool reports. Judge Clifton Newman rode separately in a pick-up truck that was driven by Colleton County Sheriff’s Office Captain Jason Chapman."
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Trip to Moselle: Jury visits property where Margaret and Paul Murdaugh were killed
COLLETON COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD) – Members of the jury in Alex Murdaugh’s double murder trial visited the family’s property – known as Moselle – where Margaret and Paul were killed the night of June 7,…www.counton2.com
It was the day before the trial was set to end. So, obviously, this would not be something you would see and decide to just go home and think about it for a while before saying something.
Has it been stated officially somewhere that defense did NOT bring this up to the Judge? Do we know that for sure?
I ask because we know earlier that same week the Judge voiced his concern over what his Clerk did with a single juror, but, from the transcript, appears he did not do anything about that concern and his Clerk. If he only voiced his concern but no action was taken, and he did say this in the presence of all the attorneys,then perhaps if they saw something at the visit they didn’t think it would help them mentioning it? I don’t know. But I am curious IF this happened there, and IF we know for sure that defense did not bring it up later to the Judge before this Motion months later. The State’s reply seems to use a lot of “when did you first learn this” type of talk in it.
And perhaps, IF he saw something with Clerk and a juror, he didn’t immediately think this was wrong? Her book indicates she was the point person for all of the juror’s needs and tried to be the best hostess she could for all of them, if for weeks she’d acted in ways that checked in on them individually then maybe something like this wasn’t immediately concerning, IF he actually saw anything at all.
What I think isn’t being focused on much is perhaps the bigger problem for the State and the Court, which is if the Clerk pulled any juror aside at a visit like that. We know from her book and news interviews she’s talked about how the “jury felt” both visiting there and immediately after. She wrote about how everything just “spilled out” when leaving the property and how she knew the jury knew he was guilty before they even left Moselle. Maybe just some poor choices in words to describe that, or maybe she had some conversations with jurors, not sure we know for sure yet. As far as I know the State isn’t saying things like that incident did not happen, they’re saying the defense needs to explain how and when they first learned of this information.
IF something like this did happen, then the Clerk likely has some explaining to do. IF other jurors said they witnessed something like this, while the Clerk denies it all, it will be an interesting he said she said thing. We already know that Judge Newman - as he said on the record - that the 2 individuals plus the juror all denied the specific story he was questioning them about if the juror spoke of the case - but that he had some “recording” and used that as the basis for the juror’s removal. I mention this only to show that 3 individual parties’ words were discounted by the Judge, so may not be a stretch to think if defense attorney brought up a concern about the clerk but clerk and her staff says she didn’t do it, it may not matter what the defense attorney said? Just like it didn’t seem to matter that Judge said the two individuals “waffled” when he questioned them about the juror but still seemed to believe something happened despite 3 separate and independent denials. JMOO