National Roundup

South Carolina
Alex Murdaugh makes his first appearance in court since his murder trial
BEAUFORT, S.C. (AP) — Alex Murdaugh appeared publicly for the first time since his murder trial at a Thursday state court hearing over the slew of financial crimes allegedly committed by the disbarred South Carolina attorney.

The man found guilty this March of fatally shooting his wife and youngest son in June 2021 got a fleeting break from the maximum-security prison where he is serving a life sentence without parole. The prosecution and defense agreed Thursday that some of the 101 total charges brought against Murdaugh will be heard at a trial beginning the week of Nov. 27.

Murdaugh sat in an orange jumpsuit, occasionally whispering with his lawyers, as he learned how he will spend the week after Thanksgiving.

It won’t be long before Murdaugh finds himself back in another courtroom. A federal hearing over a similar bevy of charges is scheduled next Thursday in Charleston. There, Murdaugh is expected to plead guilty to theft and wire fraud — possibly marking the first time he will have legally taken responsibility for any of the more than 100 charges that have piled up since he first reported his family members’ deaths over two years ago.

Adding to the saga’s twists are recent allegations that the court clerk improperly influenced the jury in the murder case. In a request for a new trial filed last week, defense attorneys accused Rebecca Hill of telling jurors not to trust Murdaugh’s testimony and pressuring them to quickly deliver a verdict.

The murder trial cast a shadow over the Thursday proceeding. Defense attorney Dick Harpootlian asked that the state trial wait until they finish litigating the federal case and the matter of jury tampering. He argued it would be difficult to get a fair trial within a year of the widely watched murder trial’s conclusion.

“Where are you going to get a jury? Mars?” Harpootlian told Circuit Court Judge Clifton Newman.

Newman, the same judge who presided over the nearly six-week murder trial earlier this year, said the indictments were issued across many counties home to people capable of serving on a jury. He said he would not presume that jurors could not be assembled.

New York
Ex-CIA employee  found guilty of possessing child abuse images
NEW YORK (AP) — A former CIA software engineer already convicted in the biggest theft of classified information in CIA history was convicted Wednesday on charges of possessing child sexual abuse images.

A jury returned its verdict in Manhattan federal court against Joshua Schulte after prosecutors presented proof that Schulte had over 3,000 images and videos depicting the sexual abuse of children as young as age 2 hidden in encrypted areas of his home desktop computer.

At sentencing scheduled for Jan. 10, Schulte could face decades in prison for Wednesday’s conviction along with his conviction last year on charges that he released a trove of CIA secrets through WikiLeaks in 2017.

The so-called Vault 7 leak revealed how the CIA hacked Apple and Android smartphones in overseas spying operations, and efforts to turn internet-connected televisions into listening devices. Prior to his arrest, Schulte had helped create the hacking tools as a coder at the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

A mistrial was declared at Schulte’s original 2020 trial after jurors deadlocked on the most serious counts, including illegal gathering and transmission of national defense information.

Schulte, 34, has been held behind bars without bail since 2018.

In a release, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “Joshua Schulte has already been held accountable for endangering our nation’s security, and today’s verdict holds him accountable for endangering our nation’s children as well.”

A lawyer for Schulte declined comment.

Kentucky
Jury awards $100K to couple denied marriage license by former county clerk
A federal jury has awarded $100,000 to a Kentucky couple who sued former county clerk Kim Davis over her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Davis, the former Rowan County clerk, drew international attention when she was briefly jailed in 2015 over her refusal, which she based on her belief that marriage should only be between a man and a woman.

A jury in Ashland, Kentucky, awarded David Ermold and David Moore each $50,000 after deliberating on Wednesday, according to lawyers for Davis. A second couple who sued, James Yates and Will Smith, were awarded no damages on Wednesday by U.S. District Judge David Bunning.

Bunning sent Davis to jail for five days in 2015 after holding her in contempt of court. She was parodied on Saturday Night Live and embraced by conservative politicians who traveled to Kentucky to support her.

Davis was released only after her staff issued the licenses on her behalf but removed her name from the form. Kentucky’s state legislature later enacted a law removing the names of all county clerks from state marriage licenses.

Bunning ruled last year that Davis violated the constitutional rights of the two couples. In the ruling, Bunning reasoned that Davis “cannot use her own constitutional rights as a shield to violate the constitutional rights of others while performing her duties as an elected official.”

The trials held this week were held to decide damages against Davis. The former clerk had argued that a legal doctrine called qualified immunity protected her from being sued for damages by the couples.

Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, which represented Davis in the case, said in a release Wednesday they “look forward to appealing this decision and taking this case to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from Davis’ lawyers in the case in 2020.

Ermold and Moore had a highly publicized showdown with Davis at the Rowan County clerk’s office in 2015 after they asked for a marriage license with news cameras surrounding them. When she refused, Moore asked under whose authority was she acting. She replied, “under God’s authority.”

Ermold unsuccessfully ran for clerk of Rowan County in 2018, when Davis was defeated by another Democrat. Before running, Ermold and Moore returned to Davis’ office to file to run for clerk, and Davis, who handled election filings, helped Ermold during a brief but cordial meeting.