(HONOLULU) — The father of a woman who died in Maui’s wildfires has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Maui County and the state of Hawaii accusing them of negligence and wrongful conduct in allowing the fires to ignite or spread without being contained or suppressed.
Harold Dennis Wells’ 57-year-old daughter, Rebecca Rans, died in the Lahaina fire, according to a suit filed Monday.
Rans was killed trying to escape the fires on Aug. 8. Rans and her long-term boyfriend, Doug Gloege, were found burned to death a few blocks from her house, according to court filings.
Defendants named in the suit also include Maui Electric Company, Hawaiian Electric Company, Hawaiian Electric Industries and Kamehameha Schools, formerly known as the Bernice Pauahi Bishop estate — a charitable foundation that owns large areas of land in the state.
In the suit, Wells alleges that Maui has continued to get drier and hotter for years and there was a spread of non-native flammable grasses and brush vegetation that “took over the island.”
Wells alleges the potential for increased fires that originated in or was fueled by the grasslands was “actively discussed among governmental officials, utilities, and informed academics, and was well-known to owners of such grasslands,” according to the suit.
The suit accuses officials of not taking action to prevent or mitigate the risk of fires after the 2018 wildfires.
“Despite this history of serious fires caused by predictable weather conditions, no one in a position to effect change did anything to prevent or substantially mitigate the risk,” the suit said.
“The result of these years of neglecting and disregarding the risk that the 2018 Fires would be repeated when similar conditions inevitably occurred was the greatest single-day loss of life and property in Hawai‘i history on August 8, 2023, a catastrophe and tragedy for which all Defendants named herein should share in the fault,” the suit said.
The lawsuit also accuses power companies of “taking no measures to harden its grid, increase power line safety, or de-energize its lines ahead of a foreseeable fire event.” Hawaii Electric has said it de-energized its lines after a morning wildfire, which was extinguished, and they were not energized when the afternoon fire broke out that consumed Lahaina.
Hawaii Electric, which owns Maui Electric, said in a statement, “As has always been our policy, we don’t comment on pending litigation. We continue to focus on supporting emergency response efforts on Maui and restoring power for our customers and communities as quickly as possible.
Wells accuses Maui County of negligence, alleging it “failed to have proper emergency preparedness procedures,” resulting in Rans’ death.
The state, county and Bishop trustees are accused of landowner negligence for failing to “exercise reasonable care in the maintenance of vegetation on their property,” according to the suit.
“At this time, our hearts are with all affected by the Maui fires and their ‘ohana,” a spokesperson for Kamehameha Schools said in a statement to ABC News. “Kamehameha Schools is an indigenous educational institution. We are committed to restoring our Native Hawaiian people and culture through education, which includes stewarding and uplifting the health and resiliency of our ‘āina (lands) and Native communities. As many aspects of the fires are still under investigation, we have no further comment at this time.”
The suit accuses them of failing to maintain their property in a way to “avoid causing injury to members of the public.”
Wells is asking for a jury trial and damages including his future medical care expenses, Rans’ burial and funeral expenses, and for other economic losses in addition to punitive damages.
Wells also asked for an injunction against defendants to stop them from engaging in dangerous activities outlined in the suit that “have and will likely in the future cause harm to the public.”
(MADISON, Wisc.) — A man has been arrested for allegedly beating and sexually assaulting a University of Wisconsin-Madison student, Madison police announced at a news conference Wednesday.
There was no connection between the victim and the suspect, who was identified as Brandon Thompson, police said.
Authorities called the randomness of the crime “frightening.”
The victim, a woman in her 20s, was “violently attacked” while walking early Sunday, police said. She was found around 3:20 a.m. off-campus on a block in downtown Madison, police said. Someone who lives in the area called police after finding the victim “severely beaten,” the Madison Police Department said.
A witness told police that Thompson was at the scene of the crime. Thompson allegedly told that witness he had “just found” the survivor and was “pretending to be an innocent bystander,” police said.
Thompson then allegedly fled the scene.
Police said video submitted by the community showed a license plate that helped lead authorities to Thompson.
Police also said Wednesday that they used body-worn camera footage from police in Fitchburg, Wisconsin, who had pulled Thompson over while he was driving, to link him to public cameras that allegedly captured Thompson walking behind the victim just before the assault.
The victim was taken in critical condition to a local hospital, police said. Authorities said Tuesday that she was expected to survive her injuries. Police on Wednesday did not elaborate on her condition.
“We are deeply concerned for this individual, keeping them and their family in our thoughts and providing all possible support,” UW-Madison Dean of Students Christina Olstad and UW Police Chief Kristen Roman said in an alert to the school community regarding the “violent and severe attack.”
Police this week urged people to be on “high alert” and said patrols in the area were increased.
Jason Getz/Atlanta Journal Constitution/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(ATLANTA) — A Fulton County judge has ordered two defendants in the Georgia election interference case to stand trial together on Oct. 23.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee said he was “very skeptical” of District Attorney Fani Willis’ desire to try the remaining defendants’ cases together on that date, but that he would hear more arguments on the matter.
“I’m willing to hear what you have to say on it,” McAfee said.
Both defendants — attorney Kenneth Chesebro and former Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell — had sought speedy trial demands as well as motions to sever their cases from the other defendants, including from each other.
The judge, however, said that severing them from each other would not be needed to achieve a fair trial.
Chesebro, Powell, and 17 others, including former President Donald Trump, have pleaded not guilty to all charges in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia. The former president says his actions were not illegal and that the investigation is politically motivated.
Prosecutors told McAfee during the hearing that they expected the trial against the 19 defendants would take four months — not including jury selection — and that the state plans to call over 150 witnesses.
Prosecutor Nathan Wade argued that even if the case was broken up and Chesebro and Powell were tried separately, the DA’s office would “absolutely” need the same amount of time and same number of witnesses to try the case, given they have to prove the entire conspiracy.
“So the court, in the interest of judicial economy, would have to make the decision as to whether or not the court wants to try the same case 19 times,” Wade said.
Chesebro’s attorney Scott Grubman argued that trying Chesebro with the other defendants would be unfair, since Chesebro only engaged in a portion of the conduct alleged in the indictment. Grubman argued that the Fulton County case boils down to three distinct conspiracies: one related to the alternate elector scheme, a second related to tampering with ballot computers in Coffee County, and a third related to the effort to intimate poll worker Ruby Freeman.
“Mr. Chesebro is only concerned in terms of the evidence or allegations with what I’m going to call the alternate elector alleged conspiracy,” Grubman said.
While Grubman recognized that Georgia’s racketeering statute gives prosecutors the ability to charge broader criminal conduct, he argued that connecting Chesebro to unrelated conduct would be unfair to his client.
“Why should Mr. Chesebro have to deal with a jury who’s going to sit there for weeks, if not months, and listen to all of this evidence related to Coffee County and Miss Powell? He’s never been there. He’s never met Miss Powell. He’s never emailed or called her,” Grubman said.
Chesebro’s other attorney, Manubir Arora, said that severing his client from the others would ultimately result in a “clean trial [that] would be much shorter.”
But prosecutors pushed back on that assertion.
“The state’s position is that whether we have one trial or 19 trials, the evidence is exactly the same,” said Fulton County Deputy District Attorney Will Wooten. “The number of witnesses is the same.”
Powell’s attorney argued that she should be tried alone, not with Chesebro, so that he can prove that the DA’s allegations against her regarding the Coffee County data breach are “incorrect” — an effort he says would be “prejudiced” by going to trial alongside Chesebro.
Chesebro faces seven counts, including two counts of conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree and two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings. According to the indictment, he allegedly conceived “multiple strategies for disrupting and delaying the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021.”
Powell also faces seven counts, including two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud. She allegedly helped people tamper with ballot markers and machines inside an elections office in Coffee County, according to the indictment.
Earlier Wednesday, former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows filed his own motion seeking to sever his case, and asked the judge to halt the state prosecution against him while he awaits a decision from a federal judge regarding his earlier request to remove his case to federal court.
Meadows is seeking to have his case moved on the basis of a federal law his attorneys argue requires the removal of criminal proceedings brought in state court to the federal court system when someone is charged for actions they allegedly took as a federal official acting “under color” of their office.
(SAN ANTONIO) — Police in San Antonio are searching for a man and woman who were kidnapped from their home Wednesday morning.
Officers responded to the couple’s home around 6 a.m. and found five children — believed to be the victims’ — inside and unharmed, San Antonio police said.
The children told police the unknown suspects broke in and “forcefully” took the victims, who are in their late 30s.
A motive is not known, police said.
Police did not release a description of the alleged kidnappers.
(WASHINGTON) — Special counsel David Weiss intends to bring an indictment against President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden by the end of this month, according to court documents filed Wednesday.
Weiss’ office did not clarify what charges he might bring or where they might be filed.
The development comes a month after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Weiss as special counsel in his investigation of the younger Biden, after a plea deal struck between Hunter Biden and federal prosecutors fell apart and the case appeared headed for trial.
As part of the plea deal, Hunter Biden had originally agreed to acknowledge his failure to pay taxes on income he received in 2017 and 2018. In exchange, prosecutors would have recommended probation, meaning he would likely have avoided prison time.
The younger Biden also would have agreed to a pretrial diversion on a separate gun charge, with the charge being dropped if he adhered to certain terms.
“Mr. Biden has been following and will continue to follow the conditions of that Agreement, which the U.S. Attorney’s Office agreed and signed and informed the Court on July 20, 2023 that the Probation Office had agreed to and had recommended be put into effect,” Hunter Biden’s lawyers wrote in their own court filing following the special counsel’s filing.
Attorneys for the president’s son have argued that the diversion agreement, part of the broader plea deal that has now fallen apart, took effect on July 26, when prosecutors signed the document.
But Weiss’ team has argued that in order for the document to be ratified, it would require the signature of a probation officer — which they say did not happen.
(WASHINGTON) — Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro “acted as if he was above the law,” prosecutors told jurors Wednesday during opening statements in Navarro’s trial on charges of defying a subpoena issued in February 2022 by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Navarro, who under Trump was the director of the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, is being tried on contempt of Congress charges after he was indicted by a grand jury in June.
In his opening remarks Wednesday, lead prosecutor John Crabb said that the subpoena Navarro received from the Jan. 6 committee was a legal requirement and not “an invitation” or “voluntary.”
“Our system does not work if people believe they are above the law,” Crabb said. “Congress legitimately asked for information.”
Crabb showed jurors an email that Navarro sent to a committee staffer citing executive privilege before he was supposed to appear for testimony. The staffer, according to the email presented to the jurors, explained to Navarro that the “number of things the committee wanted to talk to [Navarro] about had nothing to do with Navarro’s work as a trade adviser.”
“He had to show up to his deposition … to cite the privilege, he had to do it on a question-by-question basis,” Crabb said. “That was made clear to Mr. Navarro. He didn’t show up.”
Navarro’s attorney, Stanley Woodward, said in his opening remarks that he agreed with prosecutors that Navarro did not submit documents or show up for testimony — but, he said, the Jan. 6 committee failed to contact former President Donald Trump to find out if he had asserted executive privilege over Navarro’s testimony and document production.
“The evidence in this case will not show that Dr. Navarro was not willful in his failure to comply,” Woodward said.
In subsequent testimony, David Buckley, a former staff director for the Jan. 6 committee, testified about the subpoena that was issued to Navarro, including the type of documents that were requested and the deadlines that Navarro was asked to meet.
Buckley said the committee was seeking to question Navarro about efforts to delay Congress’ certification of the election, a plan Navarro dubbed the “Green Bay Sweep” in his book, “In Trump Time.”
Navarro faces one count over his refusal to appear for a deposition in front of the committee, and another count for refusing to produce documents. If convicted on both counts, he could face a maximum of two years in prison and fines up to $200,000.
(NEW YORK) — Tropical Storm Lee is close to hurricane strength and is forecast to quickly intensify to an “extremely dangerous major hurricane” by Saturday, according to the National Hurricane Center.
The tropical storm is currently 1,200 miles east of the Leeward Islands.
Lee is forecast to strengthen to a Category 4 hurricane with winds up to 150 mph by Saturday as it stays over open, record-warm water.
Lee is currently expected to move north of the Caribbean Islands over the weekend, sparing the islands any direct impacts other than rough surf and rip currents.
By next week, the spaghetti models show Lee turning north before reaching Turks and Caicos. Bermuda may be in Lee’s path.
Long-range models can change over the next week, but they currently show Lee moving parallel to the East Coast. If Lee stays on that course, the East Coast wouldn’t see direct impacts, but would be hit with large surf and rip currents by late next week.
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York on Wednesday granted writer E. Jean Carroll’s motion for partial summary judgment in her 2019 defamation case against former President Donald Trump.
Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, sued Trump in 2019 over allegedly defamatory statements he made while he was president in which he said she was “not my type” while denying that he raped her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.
This past May, Carroll won a related second case accusing Trump of battery and defamation based on a 2022 statement Trump made in which he accused her of lying. Jury members found that Trump did not rape Carroll but sexually abused her, and awarded her a total of $5 million.
On Wednesday, a judge ruled that — based on the outcome in the second case — the next trial, scheduled to begin in January, will only deal with the amount of damages Carroll deserves since the earlier jury already affirmed that Trump did indeed defame her.
“First, it found by a preponderance of the evidence that Mr. Trump sexually abused Ms. Carroll,” Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in Wednesday’s ruling. “Second it determined by clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Trump’s 2022 statement was false.”
“Accordingly, given that the substantive content of Mr. Trump’s 2022 statement, which the jury in Carroll II found to be defamatory, is identical to the substantive content of Mr. Trump’s 2019 statements, the jury’s finding in Carroll II is controlling in this case,” the judge wrote.
Trump is appealing the verdict in the earlier case. After New York magazine published Carroll’s rape accusation in 2019, Trump denied meeting her, accused her of trying to profit from the claim and said she was trying to carry out a political agenda.
“l say it with great respect: No. 1, she’s not my type. No. 2, it never happened. It never happened, OK?” Trump said on June 24, 2019.
Trump argued any damages awarded in the upcoming trial ought to be limited by the $5 million damage award in the earlier case. The judge rejected that argument, saying, “Mr. Trump’s contention thus mixes apples with oranges.”
(WASHINGTON) — In May of last year, shortly after the Justice Department issued a subpoena to former President Donald Trump for all classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump’s then-lead attorney on the matter, Evan Corcoran, warned the former president in person, at Mar-a-Lago, that not only did Trump have to fully comply with the subpoena, but that the FBI might search the estate if he didn’t, according to Corcoran’s audio notes following the conversation.
Only minutes later, during a pool-side chat away from Trump, Corcoran got his own warning from another Trump attorney: If you push Trump to comply with the subpoena, “he’s just going to go ballistic,” Corcoran recalled.
Corcoran’s recollections, captured in a series of voice memos he made on his phone the next day, help illuminate Trump’s alleged efforts to defy a federal grand jury subpoena, and appear to shed more light on his frame of mind when he allegedly launched what prosecutors say was a criminal conspiracy to hide classified documents from both the FBI and Corcoran, his own attorney.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him and has denied any wrongdoing.
The recordings, which have become a key piece of evidence in special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents case against Trump, contain information that was later described in Smith’s publicly released indictment and in media reports — but many of the details in them have never been made public.
ABC News has reviewed copies of transcripts of the recordings, which appear to show the way Trump allegedly deceived his own attorney, and how classified documents, according to prosecutors, ended up at Mar-a-Lago in the first place.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung, responding to the development, told ABC News, “The attorney-client privilege is one of the oldest and most fundamental principles in our legal system, and its primary purpose is to promote the rule of law. Whether attorneys’ notes are detailed or not makes no difference — these notes reflect the legal opinions and thoughts of the lawyer, not the client.”
Cheung added that Trump “offered full cooperation with DOJ, and told the key DOJ official, in person, ‘Anything you need from us, just let us know.'”
A spokesperson for the special counsel’s office declined to comment to ABC News. Corcoran did not immediately return ABC News’ request for comment.
‘Complying with that subpoena’
When Corcoran joined Trump’s legal team in April last year, the FBI had already launched a criminal investigation into Trump’s handling of classified information. Nearly 200 classified documents had been found in 15 boxes that Trump reluctantly returned to the National Archives “after months of demands,” as the indictment stated.
But Justice Department officials believed Trump was holding onto even more classified documents in other boxes at Mar-a-Lago and refusing to return them — so on May 11, 2022, the Justice Department issued a federal grand jury subpoena demanding the return of any and all classified documents.
Corcoran and another Trump attorney, Jennifer Little, flew to Florida to meet with Trump.
“The next step was to speak with the former president about complying with that subpoena,” Corcoran recalled in a voice memo the next day.
But while sitting together in Trump’s office, in front of a Norman Rockwell-style painting depicting Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton and Trump playing poker, Trump, according to Corcoran’s notes, wanted to discuss something else first: how he was being unfairly targeted.
As Corcoran later recalled in his recordings, Trump continuously wandered off to topics unrelated to the subpoena — Hillary Clinton, “the great things” he’s done for the country, and his big lead in the polls in the run-up to the 2024 Republican presidential primary race that Trump would officially join in November. But Corcoran and Little “kept returning to the boxes,” according to the transcripts.
Corcoran wanted Trump to understand “we were there to discuss responding to the subpoena,” Corcoran said in the memos.
The FBI ‘could arrive here’
As Corcoran described it in his recordings, he explained to Trump during that meeting what the former president was facing.
“We’ve got a grand jury subpoena and the alternative is if you don’t comply with the grand jury subpoena you could be held in contempt,” Corcoran recalled telling Trump.
Trump responded with a line included in the indictment against him, asking, “what happens if we just don’t respond at all or don’t play ball with them?”
The transcripts reviewed by ABC News reveal what Corcoran says he then told Trump.
“Well, there’s a prospect that they could go to a judge and get a search warrant, and that they could arrive here,” Corcoran recalled warning the former president as they sat at Mar-a-Lago.
Still, as depicted in Corcoran’s recordings and in the public indictment, Trump repeatedly suggested it might be better if they refused to cooperate.
The indictment says that although Corcoran — who ABC News believes to be “Attorney 1” in the indictment — and Little — believed to be “Attorney 2” — “told Trump that they needed to search for documents that would be responsive to the subpoena and provide a certification that there had been compliance with the subpoena,” Trump still insisted to them, “I don’t want anybody looking through my boxes,” and, “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?”
And in a private, pool-side conversation during a break at Mar-a-Lago that day, according to Corcoran’s recordings, Little relayed to him what she was told herself by two other Trump attorneys: that Trump would “go ballistic” over complying with the subpoena — “that there’s no way he’s going to agree to anything, and that he was going to deny that there were any more boxes at all,” Corcoran recalled on his recordings.
In the indictment, prosecutors allege Trump did something just like that.
The indictment describes how, before the May 23 meeting with Corcoran at Mar-a-Lago ended, Trump “confirmed” a plan for Corcoran to return to Mar-a-Lago two weeks later to search for any classified documents. And, according to the indictment, Corcoran “made it clear to Trump” that he would conduct that search in a basement storage room.
Corcoran’s recordings suggest he was told by others that the only location at Mar-a-Lago that contained classified documents was the basement storage room.
“I’ve got boxes in my basement that I really wouldn’t want you to go through,” Corcoran recalled Trump telling him.
And sources told ABC News that, when speaking to investigators, Corcoran explained that he checked with many people about where classified documents could be found, and everyone, including Trump, created the impression that any classified documents would be in the boxes in the storage room.
A ‘shocking break-in’
Over the next two weeks, before Corcoran returned to Mar-a-Lago to search for classified documents in the storage room, Trump’s two co-defendants in the documents case, Mar-a-Lago staffers Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, allegedly removed dozens of boxes from the storage room — all “at Trump’s direction” and with the goal “that many boxes were not searched and many documents responsive to the May 11 Subpoena could not be found,” according to the indictment.
Corcoran ultimately found 38 classified documents in the boxes that remained in the storage room, and he handed them over to the FBI, along with a certification — allegedly endorsed by Trump — that the former president had now fully complied with the subpoena.
But when FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago three months later, they found 102 more classified documents in Trump’s office and elsewhere.
Despite Corcoran warning him months earlier, according to the recordings, that the FBI might show up at Mar-a-Lago if he didn’t fully comply with the subpoena, Trump called the FBI move a “shocking BREAK-IN,” with “no way to justify” it, in posts on his social media platform.
According to the indictment, Trump “knowingly” deceived the FBI and his own attorney, providing “just some of the documents called for by the grand jury subpoena, while claiming that he was cooperating fully.”
‘Should be declassified’
The transcripts of Corcoran’s recordings also appear to offer new insight into how classified documents ended up in boxes at Mar-a-Lago in the first place, and whether Trump truly believed those documents had been declassified.
As Trump described it to Corcoran according to the transcripts, he had a nightly practice while still in the White House: He would bring newspaper articles, photos and notes to his bedroom so he could review them.
He would also bring classified documents, according to Corcoran.
“That’s the only time I could read something, and I had to read them so I could be ready for calls or meetings the next day,” Trump told Corcoran, according to Corcoran’s recordings.
However, in their meeting, Trump insisted to Corcoran that he made clear to those around him that “anything that comes into the residence should be declassified,” the transcript reads.
“I don’t know what was done,” Corcoran recalled Trump telling him. “I don’t know how they were marked. But that was my position.”
Those comments from Trump, as recalled by Corcoran, suggest Trump understood that — despite subsequent public claims to the contrary — classified documents were not declassified simply by bringing them to the residence.
As for how classified documents ended up in boxes, Trump “had a lot of boxes” in his bedroom, and when he was done reading a newspaper article or a classified document, he’d “throw them” into one of the boxes, according to Corcoran.
So when it came time for Trump to leave the White House in January 2021, many of those boxes from the bedroom ended up at Mar-a-Lago in the storage room.
Corcoran provided special counsel Smith’s team with his recordings after, as previously reported by ABC News, the now-former chief judge of the federal court in Washington ordered him to do so, finding that Smith’s office had made a “prima facie showing that the former president had committed criminal violations” by deliberately misleading his attorneys about his handling of classified materials, sources familiar with the matter said at the time.
As a result of that legal fight, Corcoran recused himself from continuing to represent Trump in the documents case. But when Trump was arraigned in Washington on federal charges accusing him of trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Corcoran attended the hearing and sat in the courtroom behind Trump.
(NEW YORK) — Alex Murdaugh’s attorneys are alleging a court clerk tampered with the jury during his double murder trial in new court documents.
The disgraced South Carolina attorney was found guilty of brutally murdering his wife and younger son, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, 52, and Paul Murdaugh, 22, who were found dead from multiple gunshot wounds near the dog kennels at the family’s hunting estate in 2021.
The jury reached the verdict in March after deliberating for nearly three hours and a judge imposed two sentences of life in prison, to be served consecutively for the murders.
In a 65-page motion for a new trial filed on Tuesday, defense attorneys claim that Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill “tampered with the jury by advising them not to believe Murdaugh’s testimony and other evidence presented by the defense, pressuring them to reach a quick guilty verdict, and even misrepresenting critical and material information to the trial judge in her campaign to remove a juror she believed to be favorable to the defense.”
ABC News did not immediately receive a response from Hill to messages seeking comment.
The attorneys, Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin, said they have spoken to three jurors and have sworn testimony by two of them alleging that Hill had improper discussions with jurors about matters concerning testimony.
The defense attorneys said they saw Hill having discussions with jurors during the trial but had no knowledge of what the discussions were. Griffin told reporters during a briefing on Tuesday that they were met with a “zone of silence” from all of the jurors when they tried to speak with them after their verdict last March.
That zone “collapsed,” Griffin said, after Hill released a book last month about her experiences during the trial, Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders. At that point, several jurors began to express their concerns to the attorneys, he said.
The defense attorneys allege that Hill instructed jurors prior to Murdaugh taking the stand in his own defense to “not be fooled” by what he said or his body language.
Among the allegations, the motion also claims that jurors who smoked were allowed smoke breaks during the trial, but that during deliberations Hill allegedly told them they could not get a break until a verdict was reached. There were six smokers on the jury, according to the appeal.
Breaks during deliberations are not a clear area in law, ABC News contributor Channa Lloyd told ABC News.
“During deliberations typically jurors are supposed to stay together until a verdict is reached. This is to minimize the opportunities that a juror could be influenced or speak to outside persons,” Lloyd said, noting that breaks are at the court’s discretion. “Could she have utilized this to pressure the jurors potentially (absolutely), however it could have also could have been due to the high-profile nature of the trial.”
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson has 10 days to respond to the filing, which could result in a hearing to determine how to proceed, Harpootlian said.
If the allegations are substantiated, that could be grounds for an appeal and a new trial, Lloyd told ABC News Live.
Harpootlian would not comment when asked whether he felt Hill should be criminally charged.
Harpootlian also sent a letter to the U.S. Attorney for the District of South Carolina Adair Ford Boroughs on Tuesday requesting his office to open a federal investigation into whether Murdaugh’s civil rights were violated.
During the six-week trial, prosecutors claimed that Murdaugh, who comes from a legacy of prominent attorneys in the region, killed his wife and son to gain sympathy and distract from his financial wrongdoings.
Murdaugh faces dozens of state and federal charges for allegations ranging from money laundering to staging his own death so his surviving son could cash in on his $10 million life insurance policy to misappropriating settlement funds in the death of his housekeeper.
