The former court clerk who helped manage the trial of Alex Murdaugh, the South Carolina lawyer who was convicted of murdering his wife and son, pleaded guilty on Monday to two counts of misconduct in office and one count each of obstruction of justice and perjury, according to her lawyer.
The charges related to accusations that the former clerk, Becky Hill, 58, had used her position for personal gain, misused public funds, shared court information under court seal with a reporter and committed perjury.
She was facing up to five years in prison, but the South Carolina Circuit Court judge who handled her case, Heath P. Taylor, sentenced her instead to five years of probation and ordered her to perform 100 hours of community service, according to her lawyer, Will Lewis.
Ms. Hill has also paid back $11,800 in public funds that prosecutors said she had illegally taken and given to herself as a bonus, Mr. Lewis said.
Judge Taylor indicated in court that Ms. Hill would have received a stiffer sentence if prosecutors had been able to prove that her actions had influenced the jury in Mr. Murdaugh’s case. But he said he agreed with Mr. Lewis that her conduct did not warrant a prison sentence.
“I know you have been humiliated throughout his whole ordeal, but of your own doing,” the judge told Ms. Hill, according to a video from the courtroom that was recorded by a reporter and podcast host, Anne Emerson. “A lot of folks got swept up in the hoopla that was that trial.”
Mr. Lewis said he had asked the judge not to sentence Ms. Hill to prison.
“Ms. Hill wanted to accept responsibility for her actions, and put all of this behind her,” Mr. Lewis said in an interview. “We respect the judge’s decision and agree that a probationary sentence was appropriate and consistent with the type of conduct Becky pleaded guilty to.”
The prosecutor who handled Ms. Hill’s case did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Ms. Hill’s actions played a key role in Mr. Murdaugh’s unsuccessful effort to overturn his conviction last year. His lawyers had argued that he was entitled to a new trial because Ms. Hill had improperly influenced the jurors in his case.
Two jurors had signed sworn statements saying that Ms. Hill had warned jurors not to “be fooled” by Mr. Murdaugh’s defense. Mr. Murdaugh’s lawyers also said that she had private conversations with a juror, and that she told jurors before they started deliberating that “this shouldn’t take us long.”
But a judge ruled in January 2024 that Ms. Hill’s “fleeting and foolish” comments did not affect the jury’s decision in March 2023 to convict Mr. Murdaugh of the murder of his wife, Maggie, and their younger son, Paul. As such, the judge ruled, Mr. Murdaugh did not meet the bar to have his conviction and life sentence set aside. Mr. Murdaugh’s lawyers have appealed that ruling.
Ms. Hill, performing one of her duties as the clerk of courts in Colleton County, S.C., read out the verdicts convicting Mr. Murdaugh. She was elected as the clerk in 2020 and resigned in March 2024. She was responsible for various administrative tasks, including managing jury logistics.
About four months after Mr. Murdaugh’s trial, Ms. Hill published a firsthand account of the trial in a book that she wrote with Neil Gordon. After it was published, Mr. Murdaugh’s lawyers said they had heard from some jurors who said they felt uncomfortable about the book and her promotion of it.
Soon afterward, Mr. Murdaugh’s lawyers accused Ms. Hill of tampering with the jury so that they would quickly return a guilty verdict.
The state attorney general opened an ethics investigation into her conduct, and the State Ethics Commission said last year that it had found probable cause that she had misused her position to enrich herself and promote the book. She later admitted that she had plagiarized portions of the book.
Ms. Hill was arrested in May and charged with two counts of misconduct in office and one count each of obstruction of justice and perjury. As she pleaded guilty to those charges on Monday, she read aloud a brief statement asking the judge for a chance to do better, The Associated Press reported.
“There is no excuse for the mistakes I made,” she said. “I’m ashamed of them and will carry that shame the rest of my life.”
Mr. Murdaugh’s conviction capped the downfall of a man who was hiding a secret life in which he stole millions of dollars from clients and colleagues.
He was a fourth-generation lawyer, and his family had long exerted influence in small-town courtrooms across parts of South Carolina. The family had controlled a regional prosecutor’s office in the state’s Lowcountry region for more than 80 years, and ran an influential law firm for even longer.
He has maintained his innocence since Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were found shot to death on the family’s rural hunting estate in June 2021.
Michael Levenson covers breaking news for The Times from New York.
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