Will Becky Hill’s plagiarism of BBC reporter hurt her Murdaugh jury tampering credibility?

Now that Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill has admitted plagiarizing passages from a BBC reporter in her insider’s book on the Alex Murdaugh double murder trial, a question can be asked:

How much will Hill’s act of literary piracy play into a January court hearing about whether she illegally influenced jurors to find Murdaugh guilty?

Since Hill admitted a week ago that she plagiarized the preface she wrote for the book, sales of the book she co-authored with Neil Gordon, “Behind the Doors of Justice: the Murdaugh Murders,” have been halted.

The matter has been hugely embarrassing for Hill, a favorite of court officials, the media and the public at the six-week Murdaugh murder trial. Murdaugh was found guilty of killing of his wife, Maggie, and son Paul and is now serving two life sentences without parole in state prison.

At the upcoming court hearing, Hill — who denies tampering with the Murdaugh jurors — is potentially a star witness for the state, as prosecutors may put her on the witness stand to deny the allegations. The accusations were first made by Murdaugh’s lawyers, Jim Griffin and Dick Harpootlian, in September. The lawyers say that Hill, among other things, told jurors not to be “’fooled by’ Murdaugh’s testimony in his own defense.”

Veteran media lawyer Jay Bender said Hill’s plagiarism issues occurred at a different time from any alleged jury tampering, and the two matters have nothing to do with each other.

“It’s irrelevant to the issue before the court,” said Bender, who informally vetted Hill’s book before it was published for libel and privacy issues. Bender is also serving as a liaison between the media and Judge Jean Toal, a retired state Supreme Court chief justice who will preside over the upcoming hearing.

But Murdaugh lawyers Griffin and Harpootlian may still try to bring up the plagiarism matter at the hearing, Bender said.

Griffin and Harpootlian declined comment.

It will be up to Toal to decide what testimony can be given, Bender said.

Attorney Joe McCulloch, who represents two people who were on the Murdaugh trial jury, predicted Hill will be a central witness at the hearing but said it is an unknown what will come out about plagiarism.

“Plagiarism is not really a crime, so I don’t know if under our rules of evidence it would be pertinent as an impeachment (discrediting) basis,” McCulloch said. “This judge is going to be laser focused on whether there were any communications between any court official and any member of the jury, and if there was, did it interfere with or in any way pollute the neutrality of the jury.”

Attorney Eric Bland, who represents four Murdaugh trial jurors, said Hill’s plagiarism shouldn’t have much of an effect on how her testimony is viewed “although it does go to her credibility... but it’s more important as to what the jurors say” about the jury tampering.

Another issue “is going to be whether she’s even going to testify, given the fact that she has a referral right now from the Attorney General to the State Ethics Commission,” Bland said.

Sources and media reports have said the Ethics Commission is investigating various actions by Hill, such as alleged improper use of her office, in the course of her duties as Colleton County clerk of court, a job that pays her $101,256 a year. The commission does not comment on matters before it that are in an investigative stage. Hill has not commented on those allegations.

Also, because Hill’s son, Jeff Hill, former Colleton County technology director, was charged in November with the criminal offense of using county equipment to wiretap the phones of another county official, there’s a question of whether what, if anything, may implicate Becky Hill in her son’s alleged crime, Bland said.

Jeff Hill was fired from his $90,537-a-year job in November after being charged by SLED.

“If I am her (Becky Hill’s) attorney, I’m not sure I’m letting her get on the witness stand, given all the stuff that’s swirling around,” Bland said. ‘’If she takes the 5th (Amendment), there’s an adverse inference that could be drawn.” An adverse inference is a legal term meaning a negative conclusion can be assumed about what her testimony might have been, should she refuse to testify.

It is “a shame,” said Bland, that Hill “has become the focal point of an Alex Murdaugh trial where the state and the county had spent an untold amount of resources.”

Hill attorney Justin Bamberg told The State Media Co. that, “The plagiarism matter is separate and distinct from whether Alex got a fair trial or the jury returned a verdict based on evidence and arguments presented by the State (as well as Alex’s) defense team... the issues are all separate.

“Of course, the plagiarism may cause some to question Becky’s integrity, but she owned her own bad judgment,” Bamberg said.

Michael Virzi of the University of South Carolina’s Rice Law School said whether Hill plagiarized is not directly relevant as to whether she had any improper jury contact.

“A person can certainly be guilty of one accusation and perfectly innocent of another,” said Virzi, who teaches courses on ethics, as well as legal writing, at the law school and has a private law practice centered around lawyer ethics, discipline and malpractice.

Virzi added that Hill will “almost certainly be called to testify at the jury tampering hearing. The big question is whether she’ll plead the 5th.

“Testifying will open her up to questions not just on the alleged facts, but on anything that impacts her credibility as a witness, like dishonesty in general. In that case, any evidence of dishonesty about her book would certainly impact her credibility on other issues,” Virzi said.

How plagiarism happened

Hill’s plagiarism of numerous passages and interviews from the draft of a BBC story was a literary theft of opportunity.

Hill had been working with BBC reporter Holly Honderich, who like some out-of-state journalists had parachuted into Colleton County in early February to spend a few days at the trial and then write a story about it. Like most reporters covering the trial, Honderich got to know Hill, who enjoyed helping the media with seating and answering questions about various legal and social matters.

Back at her office, Honderich wrote the draft of an article that wove together Murdaugh family background, testimony from the trial, and interviews with more than half a dozen lawyers and others.

On Feb. 20, Honderich accidentally emailed a draft of her story to Hill.

About three hours after sending the email to Hill, Honderich realized her mistake and wrote Hill, “Please disregard and delete the last email I sent you – I have an editor named Rebecca and I confused the addresses when I sent it.”

Hill replied, “I will do that, but what a well written article. Really good!!”

But Hill kept Honderich’s email, sending it to a friend, Charlotte Norwood, editor and publisher of the Walterboro Standard the next day. Hill also sent a copy to her personal email on July 24, according to an email released by Colleton County. Norwood has not responded to an inquiry from The State Media Co. about receiving Hill’s email.

The paper trail documenting Honderich’s story, her mistake in emailing it to Hill, and Hill’s plagiarism was contained in an email release on Dec. 21 made by Colleton County to four news organizations who had requested a year’s worth of Hill’s emails on her county account. The news groups were The State, The Post & Courier of Charleston, Fits News and WCIV ABC of Charleston.

On Dec. 21 or 22, a few people on X, formerly Twitter, began to hint at plagiarism by Hill but apparently published no extensive detailed account of what they had found, according to FITSNews.

On Saturday, Dec. 23, Hill emailed Honderich, apologizing for the plagiarism, one of her lawyers told The State. But Hill made no public statement that day, and it’s not known how Hill became aware that her plagiarism had been discovered.

By Sunday, Christmas Eve, Hill’s co-author, Gordon, had also learned of Hill’s literary theft. He began to make plans to go public, express regret and announce he had nothing to do with Hill’s theft.

On Tuesday morning, Dec. 26, The State newspaper published a lengthy article about the plagiarism, based on a statement by Hill. The State’s article also compared Honderich’s article with Hill’s preface for her book and found numerous points of identical, or nearly identical, writing, and various interviews made by Honderich that Hill had claimed as her own.

Randy Covington, University of South Carolina journalism professor, said the incident illustrates what can go wrong when amateur nonfiction writers such as Hill, who might have expertise in a subject but have no training in journalistic ethics or information-gathering, set out to write about an event.

Quotes from Covington about the Murdaugh trial were contained in Hill’s preface to her book, but Hill actually stole Covington’s observations on the trial from the BBC reporter, who interviewed Covington.

Covington, one of a half-dozen people whose quotes Hill stole from the BBC article, said in an interview with The State newspaper that he did not talk with Hill.

“In the end, the public benefits from those who follow the rules, as opposed to the idea that every citizen is a journalist and ‘I can copy things, make things up, write what I think might be true’,” said Covington, who teaches media ethics and is director of special projects at the University of South Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communications.

“This underscores the importance of getting news and information from people you can trust and not someone who may have subject matter expertise, but doesn’t understand that plagiarism is bad,” said Covington.