Murdaugh Murders Podcast - Hutt-winked and Harpootlianed: The Good Ole Boys Strike Back (S01E41)

Episode Date: April 20, 2022

This episode is about so much more than jailhouse phone calls right now. This is about the future of the justice system in our state. Will we continue to stand by and let Good Ole Boys like Dick Harpootlian and Brad Hutto run our courts? Or is it finally time for a change? In this episode, Liz, Mandy and David take you through every bit of Dick and Jim’s lawsuit — including all of their mistakes. You’ll hear from South Carolina FOIA expert attorney Jay Bender. And we’re not done with the Bowen Turner case, either. Over the weekend, State Senator Brad Hutto called Mandy a “pseudo journalist.” And he sent a listener a shocking letter, which you’ll hear in this episode.  We will be posting a call-to-action on our Facebook and Instagram pages soon, so stay tuned! How can you help? Follow us on social media: https://www.facebook.com/MurdaughPod/ https://www.instagram.com/murdaughmurderspod/ OR call the public officials Involved: Assistant County Attorney Christopher Ziegler: Office: 803-576-2070, Direct: 803-576-2076, Email: [e-mail] State Senator Brad Hutto: Home Phone [phone], Business Phone [phone], Business Phone [phone], Email:[e-mail] State Senator Dick Harpootlian: Business Phone [phone], Email: [e-mail] And a special thank you to our sponsors: Cerebral, Hunt-A-Killer, Priceline, Embark Vet, VOURI, Hello Fresh, Babbel, Article, Daily Harvest, and others. The Murdaugh Murders Podcast is created by Mandy Matney and produced by Luna Shark Productions. Our Executive Editor is Liz Farrell. Advertising is curated by the talented team at AdLarge Media. For current and accurate updates: Twitter.com/mandymatney Support Our Podcast at: https://murdaughmurderspodcast.com/support-the-show Please consider sharing your support by leaving a review on Apple at the following link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murdaugh-murders-podcast/id1573560247 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I don't know how long the good ol' boys will have power in South Carolina, but I do know that the Richland County Ombudsman's Office let them win this week when they stop the release of Alec Murdoch's jailhouse phone calls. And I know that the Freedom of Information Act guarantees the public's right to access government records so that we can hold the right people accountable. If we've learned anything from this, corruption needs a broken system, and systems get broken when bad actors are allowed to do what they want with no one watching. My name is Mandy Matney.

I've been investigating the Murdoch family for more than three years now. This is the Murdoch Murders Podcast with David Moses and Liz Farrell. First of all, thank you to everyone who shared the Bow and Turner story last week. With your help, the story blew up and made headlines in NBC News, Fox News, People Magazine, The Daily Mail, and others. Thank you for supporting our mission of exposing the truth wherever it leads. And thank you for showing support for the victims in this case. We can't give those girls justice, but we can show the system that they matter.

And thank you to every person who reached out to public officials involved in the Bow and Turner case. We were sent a very shocking response from State Senator Brad Hutto, which we will of course share later in this episode and talk about why it matters. This week, we're focusing back on the Murdoch cases, particularly how those cases highlight major issues within our justice system. For months, y'all have been asking, when will we hear more jailhouse tapes? And we have bad news.

Last week, the Bulldog Attorneys, Dick Harputlian, and Jim Griffin finally got a win. Actually their first, since their client Alec Murdoch was booked at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center in October. After Richland County government officials cashed hundreds of dollars in checks from both Fitznews and the Murdoch Murders podcast for recordings of Alec's jailhouse phone calls, they suddenly reversed course. In fact, just days before the county ombudsman's office, which handles their FOIA request, sent us a rejection letter.

They had told us the recordings were ready and asked us where we would like them sent. We were excited and checking the mailbox every day like it was Christmas morning. But then, late last week, it was clear those recordings were never put in the mail. We will have David read their letter. Dear Mandy Matney, A motion for preliminary injunction was filed against the interim director of the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center on March 1, 2022. We have decided to withhold the release of the audio recordings pending the final order of the court in this matter.

As the unauthorized release of this information will subject the county to numerous forms of liability, I do wish to inform you that the records have already been compiled and the necessary redactions have been made, so should we receive direction from the court to release the audio recordings and it can be done so quickly. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause. Very respectfully, Christopher Ziegler, Assistant County Attorney. What this means is Dick and Jim's bullying tactic worked for now. They apparently scared the county into wrongly believing that they would be liable if they

released the calls, as they clearly had planned to do. As a reminder, Dick and Jim filed a lawsuit in federal court on February 28, just days after the Murdoch Murders podcast in Fitznews published several jailhouse recordings that Ellick Murdoch, a former attorney, had placed. They wanted to stop the further release of recordings, claiming that they had violated a component of the federal wire tapping law. They chose federal court because they likely knew their complaint didn't have a chance in South Carolina courts, which generally air on the side of transparency, even if the

state's agencies don't actually do that. Dick and Jim probably also knew that in 2011, the director of the Spartanburg County Detention Center had asked the South Carolina Attorney General's office for an opinion on whether inmates' personal phone calls are subject to public disclosure. In case you didn't know, Attorney General's opinions are non-binding legal analyses in which they offer state and local government officials their take on what decision a court might come to on any given matter based on established state and case law, previous rulings in the intent of the law.

They are a great asset to the state because they allow government agencies to weigh the risk of their decisions, and often they serve as a break for public officials going down the wrong road. Here is what the AG's office wrote about inmate calls in 2011. In the opinion of this office, and consistent with the mandate of liberal construction under the Freedom of Information Act, it could be concluded that inmates' personal telephone calls should be construed as being subject to disclosure, especially where some form of express or implied consent can be construed to have been in place.

Some form of express or implied consent? Like this? Hello. This is an Amtel operator calling from Albin S. Glenn Detention Center with a prepaid collect call from… Alex. …to accept this prepaid collect call, press 1. All phone calls are subject to monitoring and recording.

Okay, but maybe Alex didn't listen to the operator. Maybe he was completely unaware that he was being recorded. Hey, is everything else okay? Buster said you needed to talk to him in person. No, no, everything's good. When we started talking about things over the phone, it always bothered me because I don't know if it's still this phone or not. Especially this phone, so remember that.

I'm just making sure everything's okay. Hmm. I feel like he knew. After Richland County sent out their letters last week, Fitznews spoke with Jay Bender, who is an expert in media law and the Freedom of Information Act in South Carolina. Well, I don't know that there's any federal prohibition on releasing the information, and I do know that there is no invasion of privacy for the release of a public record, even if it could be considered private information, the release of which would be an unreasonable

invasion of personal privacy. The Supreme Court of South Carolina rejected a suit by a fellow who was complaining about a record of his being released. He said it invaded his privacy, and the Supreme Court said, our statute is the disclosure statute, not a privacy statute, and there's no liability on the part of the government for releasing it. So I think the federal lawsuit has accomplished what Murdoch's lawyers set out to accomplish, and that is to intimidate the government to stop it from providing public access to public

records. We'll be right back. Several South Carolina attorneys have told us, and Fitznews, that the Bulldogs lawsuit has no legal basis. The lawsuit was just a way for Dick and Jim to gum up the works on the taxpayer's dime and buy themselves some time before the calls get released. To give you a sense of how ridiculous this is, they cycled through four federal judges because of alleged or unspecified conflicts of interest before landing on the one they

currently have. Dick and Jim made a series of laughable errors in this lawsuit, perhaps showing the kind of attorneys they really would be if they weren't propped up by the good old boy system. The first mistake they made, they sued the wrong party. They sued the director of the jail, who has nothing to do with FOIA, or the release of jailhouse tapes. That would be the ombudsman's office, which we found out through a simple Google search. But good old boys don't Google.

They've never had to. If they had Googled, they also would have seen that they misspelled the wrong guy's last name. Shane Kitchen, not Kitchens, the guy who wasn't even supposed to be sued, came back with a scathing affidavit against Dick and Jim, and totally schooled them about how inmate phone calls work, including calls to attorneys. According to Kitchen, the Bulldogs failed to follow jail protocol to have their calls protected from monitoring under attorney-client privilege.

Let me say that again. They didn't even bother to register their numbers so their attorney-client calls would not be monitored or recorded, which I'm told is like defense lawyering 101. Here's what Kitchen's response actually said. plaintiff's attorneys have not followed the procedure, as is required by Amtel, to register their telephone numbers for unrecorded calls with the plaintiff. Kitchen's wrote. So basically, in this response, Kitchen is like y'all didn't even care enough about

these phone calls to do the basic work in preventing attorney-client phone calls from being recorded, so why do you care now? This is important because it could be the crux of this whole lawsuit. Because Dick and Jim didn't do a very basic and simple thing for their client, their phone calls could have accidentally been released to the public. I have been told that Ellic Murdoch might be able to successfully argue inefficient counsel due to this blunder and others. So this whole thing, this attack on the Freedom of Information Act, this erroneous assault

on our rights to access a public figure's phone calls that were made with no expectation of privacy. This could be because the good ol' boys didn't do a very simple task for their client, and now they're trying to flex their power to cover their tracks. And oh wait, that's not all they messed up on. The Bulldogs also claimed that the jail's staffing issues prevented their employees from being able to review the phone calls, which they argued should prevent the calls from being released to the public.

Kitchen, however, said that their staffing issues do not at all affect their ability at the jail to review phone calls. A different department does that. And shockingly, Kitchen's attorney, Andrew Lindvend, also responded with a fiery memo in opposition to the lawsuit. Yes, that surprised us too. There's a reason why Dick and Jim didn't sue us at Fitznews or the Murdoch Murders podcast about these phone calls.

Because they know we would have hired a team of competent lawyers who care deeply about the Freedom of Information Act and will fight to protect it. But they sued a government entity, likely expecting the county attorney to fold over, which they did, eventually, but not without a good fight at first. Kitchen's attorney, Andrew Lindvend, came in hot with his reply and absolutely schooled the Bulldogs on FOIA. He wrote. Recordings of an inmate's telephone communications made while imprisoned are not subject to Title

3 or any of its limitations on disclosure. The plaintiff has woefully failed to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits. He said that Harputian and Griffin's attempt to get a judge to issue an injunction, quote, will most certainly fail. He said that Dick and Jim, quote, have not presented any evidence or legal justification for the extraordinary relief of a preliminary injunction and, quote, cannot show a likelihood of success on the merits of this claim for an injunctive relief. Finally, he threw some shade on the fact that Dick and Jim were actually trying to argue

the fact that their client, a suspended attorney and previous president of the South Carolina trial lawyers, didn't know that his phone calls could actually be released to the public through the Freedom of Information Act. He wrote. That should certainly apply to the plaintiff who himself is a trained lawyer and should be very familiar with FOIA and its broad application under South Carolina law. Yikes! And beyond that, Dick and Jim failed yet again when they subpoenaed the wrong organization

for the jailhouse phone calls. A judge had to tell them that they subpoenaed the wrong guys and they had to try again. I'm noting these errors because this is the kind of work you get from a good old boy. When you peel back all of the layers of privilege cushioning them from any critique, Linman showed in his response that he had a much better understanding and interpretation of FOIA than two of the most expensive defense attorneys in the state of South Carolina, one of whom is a state senator. Quite honestly, between their responses to the lawsuit and their Thursday note to us,

it seems like the county really wants to release these calls. We want to make this clear because it's been completely and purposely twisted by social media trolls and at least one legal hack who was irresponsibly interviewed on another podcast. Our motive here is not to pry into Elec's personal calls just for the fun of it. First, we don't consider what we're doing prying. Let's not forget that Elec is using a toilet without walls. The state deemed him a high enough risk while awaiting trial that they took his freedom

away from him. That is a big deal. It means they suspended his right to certain privacy. And again, there is no privacy on a jail telephone. This isn't to say there aren't exceptions to FOIA that might apply to certain phone calls, such as ones that include information that might interfere with a law enforcement investigation or conversations between an inmate and his attorney. In our original FOIA request earlier this year, Richland County denied two of the phone

calls we had requested, citing exemptions to FOIA. In other words, they didn't give us everything we had asked for. They were not giving these calls out willy nilly. Also, we did Dick and Jim's work for them. We specifically made a point in our FOIAs that we were not asking for attorney-client phone calls. But how would the jail even know which calls were the attorneys if the Bulldogs didn't do the one thing they needed to do?

Our motive is to keep a giant spotlight on a group of people who have routinely shown that if they can, they will. Let's not forget that members of the Murdoch family and law enforcement were under investigation by the state grand jury at the time of Maggie's and Paul's murders for obstructing justice. The strange thing about all of this is that South Carolina's journalists have been pretty much ambiguous on the issue. The South Carolina Press Association, which claims to be advocates for FOIA, has remained quiet on this matter too.

Why? If we had to guess, it's because we've been holding them accountable too, and routinely calling them out when they seize upon the good old boy narratives and repeat them like they were the Ten Commandments. It didn't stop them from immediately FOIAing for these recordings after we did though. So here's the big point of all of this. Over 100 years, the Murdoch's reputation has been that they can get out of anything they get into.

It's a point of pride for them. So many sources have told us stories about Ellic and Paul bragging to their friends that they were Murdochs, and that meant they didn't have to do things like go to jail when they're caught doing something that would mean handcuffs for the rest of us. We originally FOIAed the county for these calls because they were cited by the state prosecutor as evidence that all was not as it appeared with Ellic, that counter to what his attorneys were saying in the media, and in court, Ellic was still up to no good in jail.

What's a good way to keep Ellic and his attorneys from misrepresenting the truth? Invite the public to have a listen. Ellic and his attorneys never expected that anyone would FOIA for those calls. Therefore we were able to show the public Ellic in his most authentic form, or at least as close to it as we could get. Those phone calls showed a man who seemed to think nothing of breaking the rules in jail and who clearly didn't get the message that he was impecunious. Those calls also directly contradicted many of the claims that Dick and Jim made to the

judge to get Ellic out of jail, which is important to know. Remember when they told you Buster had no money? Remember they said their client had no money. In a Dick and Jim ever wanted you to believe that they were doing this work for Ellic out of the goodness of their hearts because their poor, poor client could not afford them, the jailhouse phone calls said otherwise. Remember they presented Ellic as a changed man after rehab, certainly not someone who was up to money moving shenanigans with his former law partner at the law firm that is

suing him now, by the way. Dick and Jim want you to believe that their client was a good lawyer who took a hard fall from grace. But was he ever a good lawyer or was he just a good old boy bolstered by a system of other good old boys like themselves? These guys want us to rely on their word and accept the reality they present to us as fact. But no, we can't do that, at least not anymore. And that right there is why we believe these calls are so important to disclose to the public

and why Dick and Jim don't want them disclosed to the public. Were these calls embarrassing to family members? We're sure they were, but let's be real here. Those calls can't be anywhere near the most embarrassing thing the Murdochs have to contend with right now, given who they're related to. Here's the bottom line. Releasing those calls puts Ellic, Dick and Jim on notice that we are all paying attention and our attention simply makes it harder for them to spin their stories.

Dick Harputlian is a public official. His client worked for Solicitor Duffy Stone's office in a vague position of power for more than a decade, doing who knows what else with his badge. This case is about public corruption, and the only way you gain the public's trust back after this kind of level of corruption is with transparency. And while Dick and Jim want the public to think that we want these phone calls for commercial purposes only, it is clear that these calls serve a newsworthy purpose. Remember that phone call that mentions Butch Bowers in USC Law School?

We're still looking into whether or not Buster got back into law school. But we know he did not go. Buster is working a 9-to-5 job at Wild Wing Cafe out of Charlotte, by the way, and we're still trying to find out more about this potential scandal at a public university, and we would have never known about that if it wasn't for the phone calls. We are hoping that Richland County Attorney Chris Ziegler does the right thing and changes his decision. As attorney Andrew Lineman said, Dick and Jim's lawsuit has a high chance of failure

based on the law they cited. It is important to note that Ziegler worked as an attorney for the Essie Legislative Council where he worked for South Carolina lawmakers from 2014 through 2021. There is a good chance that he knows Dick Harputlian and he surely knows the power he possesses. The thing is, the lawsuit could drag on until 2023 before a judge is forced to make a decision. Harputlian is using and abusing his power as a lawmaker to buy himself time and save himself from public harassment.

Because Chris Ziegler want to go down as the guy who let Harputlian win, as the guy who let the good ol' boys abuse the legal system for their liking. Because this is about so much more than jailhouse phone calls right now. This is about the future of our justice system in the state of South Carolina. Are Chris Ziegler and the Richland County Council going to continue to let men like Harputlian intimidate them with a lawsuit with no legal basis? Remember South Carolina, these people work for us. The good ol' boys only have power if we continue to vote for them.

Also to Dick and Jim and everyone who might be helping them slow down this process. We hate to tell you this, but the recordings are public information and they will come out eventually and you better believe we'll all be listening when they do. We'll be right back. Now we want to talk about the Bowen Turner case. Turner remember was accused of raping three girls between 2018 and 2019. Like we said in our last episode, there are a lot of similarities between this and the Murdoch case because the ecosystems that allowed both situations to exist without consequence

are basically the same. More importantly, you have a culture in which certain groups of people have gone generations deciding what the truth is and just expecting people to nod and say sure that sounds right. In this case you have a very powerful state senator, a lenient judge and an ambitious prosecutor who magically turned a bond revocation hearing into a generous plea deal in what appears to have been a closed courtroom. But first we want to update you on the latest in this case. There is some hope for the victims as attorney Sarah Ford filed a notice of appeal on Monday.

Ford is contending that the court refused to allow survivor Chloe Bess's statement to be considered before Turner's light sentence of five years probation was given. By doing this, Ford says that the court violated the victims rights which are protected by the South Carolina Constitution. The goal last week was to make this case known to people all over the world, specifically because we believed the powerful players involved wanted the plea deal to go down quietly, which is evidenced by the fact that they didn't allow a TV reporter in the building, which is wrong by the way.

But we want to talk about something else that happened after the Bo and Turner story got big. We want to talk about an elected official's shocking response to one concerned listener. A woman from South Carolina who happens to have a doctorate degree, by the way, listened to our podcast on the Bo and Turner case and sent Brad Hutto an email expressing her disgust. She said she especially took issue with what Hutto said in reference to Chloe Bess expressing shame after she was assaulted.

In case you don't remember, Brad Hutto, the top Democrat in South Carolina, said well guess what? You just had sex on the ground with a boy you didn't really know and you got up and you felt ashamed, you felt regret, that's not rape. He said that to a survivor in open court. This woman told Hutto she couldn't imagine why he would say that unless he was an incapable attorney who lazily leaned on hundreds of years of sexism or maybe he just hates women. The woman who works at a South Carolina high school ended the letter by asking Hutto to

imagine being a teenage girl in South Carolina right now and seeing Bo and Turner go free even though Chloe Bess was brave and willing enough to testify against him. She said imagine watching as his attorney shamed a young woman brave enough to come forward knowing very well the opposition she might face. What would you think? She asked. You can read the woman's full email on our Murdoch Murders podcast social media pages. But we're going to have David read Hutto's full response to her because it is wild.

Thank you for not screaming or hurling insults as many have. Thank you for acknowledging that all defendants have a right to counsel. I have been a criminal defense lawyer for 40 years and I am regarded as effective. My duty in every case is to my client and this case was no different. My statements were made in open court on the record in the presence of lawyers representing other parties and were not refuted because the quotes were part of the evidence in this case. Something tells us that if Brad Hutto were single he would definitely be using I am regarded

as effective in his profile. So here's our problem with his explanation for what he said about Chloe. No one is questioning him on the part where Chloe said she felt ashamed because guess what? That is how victims of sexual assault often feel. We are questioning his heinous translation of what she said. That issue is not whether she said it, it's why Hutto thought that exploiting the victim's shame, her post-assault feelings, was the right move in arguing that his client deserved

a bond. Let's not forget here, Chloe's case came just 41 days after Turner was let off of his first ankle monitor in Dallas Stoller's case. As to my record in the Senate, I have been THE leading advocate for women and girls for decades. I have been repeatedly recognized by victims groups as their legislator of the year. I chaired the committee that streamlined the testing of sexual assault kits and led the floor debate to ensure its passage.

Women's rights groups across this state and nationwide have recognized my leadership on behalf of women and the fact that you seem unaware of that suggests that you have been uninvolved in these battles for women and for victims. I have not. I have led from the front. Okay, so we did some research on Brad Hutto. He likes to be recognized. He likes medals and trophies and awards.

Or he's used to them anyway. From 1959, when the paper wrote a story about his second birthday party, to the present day, Hutto is accustomed to people thinking he is the shiniest penny in their pockets. You can't tell because this is a podcast, but Hutto capitalized THE in THE leading advocate for women. And we have to tell you, this is a low bar in the South Carolina Senate. In 2013, the South Carolina Senate had one woman in it, one. And two years later, a state senator named Tom Corbin, a man who was only around 50 years

old at the time. We're not talking about some 80-year-old guy here. In 2015, he referred to women as, quote, a lesser cut of meat. He also asked the one woman in the legislature to leave Senate chambers because he didn't want to offend her little ears by, and we are so sorry to have to even say this phrase, talking about something called, quote, gay man juice. Again, on the Senate floor, and again, the bar is low for Brad Hutto. Here's the thing men like Hutto have a problem with.

They think it's all or nothing, that they are either pro-women or anti-women. You can help the state improve the system for testing sexual assault kits, while also profiting off your status as a senator at the expense of women. Brad went to Georgetown Law, he's smart enough to get this. Surely, with your educational background, you must realize that there is a lot more to this story, yet you apparently have been duped by a podcast run by a pseudo-journalist whose main mission is to earn money on half-truths. Okay, so the definition of gaslighting is when you make someone question their own reality,

which is what Hutto is trying to do right here. When all of the smart women out there listening know exactly what gaslighting sounds like, we've all been talked to like this, by a man who sort of compliments your intelligence but also says something to insult you in the same breath, and they say these things in such a condescending way. Like you couldn't possibly comprehend what their big man brain understands. That is what state senator Brad Hutto is doing right here. In the same email, where he's claiming to be THE advocate for women in South Carolina,

he is also insulting South Carolina women. He doesn't say what these supposed half-truths are, he thinks you are going to feel small and stupid enough to believe him because he's a man of power and a champion of women because he said so. Also Brad, I looked up your statements of economic interests and I have to say that one of us definitely has used their taxpayer-funded position of public trust to swing trips to Mexico, Turkey, and an undisclosed destination in Europe. It isn't me.

So who's the pseudo-journalist now Brad? More to come on that, by the way. In this case, my obligation was to uphold rights recognized by the Constitution, to zealously represent my client, and not to be deterred by how others with no knowledge of the facts perceive my actions. Whether a defendant has a public defender paid with state tax dollars or a private lawyer, they are entitled to an advocate. The state, law enforcement, and the victims all had skilled attorneys in this case.

That must tell you that the information as you have been hoodwinked to consume is vastly different than the facts. From the statements of witnesses, from the investigation of law enforcement, and the records of medical personnel. More like HUTWINKED Brad. We all understand and appreciate that everyone is entitled to a defense. Public defenders are true patriots in our opinion, they are vilified for what they do, but they are a crucial component of our democracy, and they hold the justice system accountable.

And we have no issue with defense attorneys. None. What we have an issue with is state senator attorneys who contribute to a practice that borders on a legalized form of bribery. We have an issue with state senators who, instead of providing a legitimate defense for their clients, use their implied power to manipulate the outcome of cases. And we have an issue with good ol' boys who try to tell us it's not raining outside and expect us not to look out the window.

This isn't Brad Hutto's first rodeo getting accused of using his mere presence on a case as a legal strategy. In 2008, a state trooper admitted that he had reduced the charges in 12 out of 17 tickets he had written. Ten of them DUI cases against defendants who hired Hutto because of Hutto's perceived influence in the courtroom. A slight investigation ensued, and the trooper told investigators, Brad appoints the judge, makes a motion, and the judge agrees.

No charges were filed against the trooper, but he was reprimanded by the state highway patrol. Back then, like now, Hutto was dismissive of the situation and assured the public that everything done here was normal. By the way, just a year before this, Hutto fought hard against reforming the state's DUI laws. Critics at the time said legislators were profiting off the loopholes in DUI laws, and they were not wrong.

I regret that you have been a victim, but I have been there fighting for your rights. I will not slow down in that effort, and when the next battle arises to protect women or victims, I will be there, like I have for the past quarter of a century. I appreciate your passion, and truly thank you for writing. Too many of the uninformed have merely yelled, but you responsibly reached out. Here's the thing. I think I can speak for many of the women in South Carolina when I say we are tired of men who believe that we need them to fight our battles for us.

We do not need any more pseudo-feminists who stand up for women only when it suits their political agenda and then turn right around and stomp all over victims when they're getting a fat paycheck and when we need them the most. Brad wants the women of South Carolina to feel like we owe him something, and he wants us to feel sorry for him because he's getting yelled at right now. This is manipulation. You ended your letter with, what would you think? And I would respond by saying, it's always prudent to assume that when you hear something

being painted as awful as you perceive this case, then you can usually be assured that there is another side to the story. Judges and lawyers abide by ethics. We don't get to respond to social media and misinformation. We do our jobs. This is laughable. Anyone listening to this podcast will know that there are many judges and many lawyers who do not abide by ethics and they absolutely can respond on social media to this so-called

misinformation. That is their right. And in fact, this is what Brad Heddo was trying to do in this email, except it wasn't misinformation he was responding to. He was responding to being criticized for his decisions. We can't forget that we have rights to a lot of them. And one of those rights is to call out injustice when we see it. Another is to ask our government to do better.

And yet another is to demand change. We will be posting a call to action this week on our social media page for listeners who are angry with our elected officials in South Carolina. Stay tuned. The Murdoch Murders podcast is created by me, Manny Matney, and my fiance, David Moses. Our executive editor is Liz Farrell. Produced by Luna Shark Productions.