← Crime & Justice with Donna Rotunno
Crime & Justice with Donna Rotunno
Stand Your Ground on Trial: Inside the Camp Swamp Road Controversy
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A
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B
Hello and welcome to Crime and Justice. I'm Donna Rotuno. Today, a new ruling in a controversial stand your ground case in South Carolina. My guest today is Valerie Borlein, investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Valerie, welcome. I could not be more excited to have this conversation with you and can't wait to get into it for our viewers and our listeners. How are you today?
- [00:59]
C
I'm great. Thanks for having me.
- [01:01]
B
I think that the conversation regarding this case is so uniquely interesting because not only does it really look at a law that, that's very settled in many ways. Right? Stand your ground has been very settled in many jurisdictions and in some places it's really just called self defense. Right. So for, for people listening, that's really what it is. It's, it's a self defense law that allows you to defend yourself in cases like this. Valerie, what got you involved in the reporting of this case from the be.
- [01:32]
C
Well, you're right. I mean, stand your ground is established law and has been since the mid 2000s, so 20 years. And it essentially, in the 30 states that have this law, it extends the castle doctrine. You know, man's home is their castle to include any place you are, especially your car. That was the purpose and my interest was, you know, I live in the South, I cover the Carolinas primarily. And we are seeing a lot of open carry laws passed pretty quickly. So you're seeing a lot more people with, with weapons on, in a lot more places. And then I just know from my own experience driving, people are frustrated with each other. So I was just interested in what had happened with these laws that we don't talk about that often. And you know, I worked on a, on a, on a case, the Alec Murdoch case, as your listeners probably remember that case. And I wrote a book about it called the Devil at his Elbow. And I was fact checking for that book two years ago and I called Mark Tinsley, one of the lawyers in the case, and he mentioned almost as an aside that he'd gotten a call from a woman in North Carolina whose brother had been shot and killed in a road rage encounter. And it Happened just south of the North Carolina line, two miles south on the way his way home. And what she said was that he was coming home from. From bar, he had been watching football, drinking some beers on a Saturday afternoon. And he got in a road rage beef with these guys. And they followed him for nine miles down the highway. And he turned in on his shortcut road on Camp Swamp Road, jumped out and said, stop following me. And they shot him through the windshield. And we now know something on the order of more than 20 times struck him in the back and he died. And they went home that night and were never charged with anything because it was a standard ground case. And you know Mark Tinsley, he doesn't practice in North Carolina. He doesn't do this type of law, but he's a hunter. And, and he didn't like the idea that you could hunt someone down in his mind. So he started working on this case. And I was interested in standing ground laws as it is. So I started talking with the sister of the guy who was killed. His name was Scott Spivey. I started talking with Jennifer Foley more than two years ago. And so we've been working on this case and this issue for quite a minute now. And it's been, it's been the biggest story of my career.
- [03:51]
B
For sure. It's fascinating story. And let's first listen to the 911 call that's made by one of the drivers following Scott Spivey. Let's listen to that and then we'll talk about that and go through it.
- [04:04]
D
Hey, I've got a guy pointing a gun at me driving. We're armed as well. He keeps throwing the gun in our faces, acting like he's about to shoot us. If he keeps this up, I'm gonna shoot him.
- [04:15]
B
Okay, so, so we, we know that call comes into the police and we now know that that call is from one of the shooters in the car following Scott Spivey onto Camp Swamp Road. What is interesting about the phone call is of course the person who called it in is then the person who is claiming self defense about what happened. So tell me from that call what the police decided to do and why. And then we'll get into some of the twists that kind of came up as this story started to unfold.
- [04:47]
C
Sure. And the caller was Weldon Boyd. He's the driver of a white truck that was following Scott Spivey. And he called about four miles into their beefing back and forth. And he said he was trying to apprise 911 of an erratic driver. He said that the other driver who was in a black truck was waving his gun out the window and pointing it at people and he was going to follow him. But you heard him say if he keeps this up during the course of this call, he says we're a couple of things. He says, we're armed, we have our guns out. You know, if he keeps us up, we're going to have to shoot him. And then after following along this Highway 9, which is a very heavily trafficked suburban highway north of North Myrtle beach, after, after following along for nine miles, then he turns in after and they do. He says if he keeps us up, you know, I'm going to have to shoot him. There is a shootout, but what happens is from the jump, as soon as police arrive, Scott Spivey is killed. At 5:59pm on a Saturday. The police arrive at 6:10 by 6:30, it's been pretty much decided that it was self defense. There are a couple witnesses who saw the erratic driving, that Weldon Boyd and his passenger Bradley Williams were the only ones that saw the shooting itself. And they said he shot first. And it was an pretty much an open and shut case that night.
- [06:11]
B
Well, and what's interesting, Valerie, is that from the call, what we don't hear. And you know, at first, when I first listened to this and I listened to episode one of your podcast as I'm listening, because I didn't really know much about this story until I started following the podcast. What I thought at first was, okay, here's a guy, guy has a gun on the highway, he calls the police, he tells the police this guy's flashing a gun. You know, it seems a little bit cut and dry. And then when you really dig into this, you think, well, wait, he doesn't say on that call at all that he's in fear of his life. He doesn't say that he can't get away from him. He doesn't say that he was fired at right at the point of this phone call. So, you know, the main question I think becomes in that moment is number one, why you just don't drive away or get off the highway at another point or pull over and let him continue to go. But the fact that this pursuit continues, I think is where the shift happens in terms of whether or not this could or could not be justified. And then obviously there's more ships as time goes on. But when you listen to that call, I think the first strange moment is you never hear him say, I fear for my life. You only Hear him say, if he keeps this up, we're going to have to shoot him. And I think that's a big distinction.
- [07:33]
C
I think that is an important thing to realize. And later in the 911 call, you'll say, you'll hear him say, he's trying to run from me. Now we're going to keep, you know, we're going to keep after him. So to your qu. To your point about that turn, I think listening to the call and listening to the witnesses, the police very quickly said, yeah, this seems pretty cut and dry. But when you, when you think about, was there a turn in the event where the drivers of the white truck, the followers, were not in fear of their life, but was the driver in the black truck in fear of their life? It's a really interesting issue. And in the eyes of the law, right. It's, it's, it's not incredibly clear in states like South Carolina that have very broad first generation standing ground laws.
- [08:19]
B
Well, and I think you can look at it too, and you can say, okay, the minute Scott Spivey turns onto Camp Swamp Road, at that point, you know this notion, and I know that we find out through, from, you know, through Boyd that he was worried about items that he had couches in the back of his truck and he wanted to make sure that they were secured. But that doesn't really seem to be a logical explanation. After you hear the 911 call, after you hear about the turn and you think, well, is that really what you're thinking about in this moment? And if that were the case, then why wouldn't you just let him turn off, go a little bit further, pull over and, you know, look at your cargo. Like to me, that, that seemed to be another kind of red flag in the commentary about whether or not this was a true self defense or stand your ground circumstance.
- [09:08]
C
Well, I think, I think that is a, that is a big question. And as it turns out, one of the core questions in this case, Boyd has said he turned on a Camp Swamp road. He'd been brake checked way back on the highway. He was hauling a trailer. He wanted to make sure nothing had flown off like you said. But he also said at the same night, he said, oh, I wanted to, I wanted to keep after him so you'd know where the police would know where he was. So he said sort of two different things in the moment. But more importantly, in the eyes of the law, there's, you're a lawyer and I am not. But there is a debate about chronological blinders do you consider the moment that an event happens or do you consider what leads up to it? And in the eyes of the prosecutors who originally looked at this case, they said it doesn't matter if he turned after him. We're not thinking about that moment. What we're thinking about the moment that the trucks stop on Camp Swamp Road. Scott Spivey jumps out of his truck and says, stop following me. And he has a gun in his hand. Even if it's down by its side, which we, the witness accounts say it was, it doesn't matter if, if, if Weldon Boyd and Bradley Williams stayed in their truck where they had a right to be and Scott Spivey got out of his truck and gave up that right. It doesn't matter if he turned in or not. And there's, there's debate about that as, as we come to find out much later.
- [10:27]
B
And I think that in some ways that's fair. And I think if you're on the defense side of this, you're arguing that. That, of course is the issue. Right? The issue is at what point do you feel that fear and whatever happened on that phone call doesn't matter. The only thing that that phone call is telling you is the context. I've seen a gun. I know this person is armed. So now this is the knowledge that you then have. But I guess at that point you can argue, okay, the crime maybe has been committed and can't be waving a gun out your car window, can't be cutting people off, can't be doing all these things. But then what does the pursuit mean? Right. And then how does that change who's actually responsible or who actually felt in fear of their life?
- [11:11]
C
Exactly. That. The, the contrary. The other concept of the law that was, that's debated here is was Scott Spivey trying to withdraw? Was he trying to. We know now from some late breaking data that's been released two and a half years after this event, these drivers were going more than 100 miles an hour in a 60 mile an hour zone. And if you are, if you're going 100 miles an hour and the guy behind you is saying on 911 he's trying to run from me, are you trying to withdraw from the conflict? In which case you're the one who's in fear for your life.
- [11:47]
B
And I think what's truly interesting here is first of all, the decision obviously to not charge anybody, being as swift as it was. I mean, normally these investigations are a little bit more intense, they're a little bit More laborious. They look for more evidence, especially given the fact that they had multiple phone calls coming in, they had witnesses. So to make that decision in basically 20 minutes is almost unheard of in these types of circumstances, wouldn't you say?
- [12:16]
C
Yes, it is. It's extremely unusual. But one thing that to know is that Weldon Boyd, it was a very well known guy. He was a. He was a household name in Ory County, South Carolina, where Myrtle Beaches. He owns a very popular restaurant. And he is very close allies with the Horry County Police Department. The deputy chief is one of his closest friends. He hosts events. Cops eat free, their families eat half price. He's, there's, you know, the officers. He has a firing range at his ranch and police officers use it. So this was not a stranger to a lot of the people that were on the scene, as we come to find out. And from the jump, the shooters were allowed to keep their phones. They were not put separated and put in the back of a squad car. The witnesses talked with each other and compared notes. And even one of the shooters had a tactical bag. He had a range bag in the truck. When the homicide detective gets on the scene, he's like, hey, man, I need my bag. And he's like, okay. And he takes the bag out of the truck with all the gear and gives it back to him. There were a number of things that procedurally were unusual and come to find out very much against policy. And we, we know now.
- [13:32]
B
And I know. Right. And we know now that the, you know, deputy chief was friends with Boyd and they had multiple conversations that evening. And although he wanted to kind of keep himself out of it, he did not do that, which we find out later on. And when, when do you think the specific moment when the cracks appear in this. Stand your ground. What, what was the first moment that people started to say, wait a minute, this may not be what it looked like and what the police determined that night in 2023.
- [14:09]
C
Well, it was always, it was always a case where both, both families, with both the families involved are well known and have a lot of allies. It's, it's really, it's a rural area. So there was always like, hey, really? But in the eyes of the law, it was settled. Scott Spivey was killed September 9th of 2023. And it wasn't until 2025, spring of 2025, that real questions and cracks started to appear. And what happened was.
- [14:39]
B
And before we get, before we get into that, Valerie, I just want to listen. I want to listen to the driver on the body camera when the police arrived on scene. Because I think this gives us some good information, too, if we can listen to that.
- [14:53]
D
He shot us first.
- [14:55]
A
He shot at you?
- [14:56]
D
He shot 100%. I was trying to back up and get away. And then he started discharging the firearm.
- [15:02]
B
So we hear Boyd saying, right, he. He shot at us first. And that's what happened. And was there any investigation that evening to determine whether or not that was the truth?
- [15:16]
C
No, there was no investigation that evening or for many months subsequent to find out whether that was true. But part of the reason the Wall Street Journal cares about this case in particular and these stories in general, is this is not an isolated issue. And a lot of stand your ground cases, and there are hundreds of a year and a lot of stand your ground cases, the other witness is dead. So if. If the shooter, the person who's alive, says he shot first, unless there's CCTV footage or, you know, an eyewitness who contradicts that, you know, the. The shooter goes home that night. And that's part of what makes this interesting. Those are the first words out of. Out of. He runs up to that officer, the first officer on the scene, he said, he shot at us. He shot us first. He shot 100%. And that narrative takes hold right away.
- [16:10]
B
Well, and there was another witness on scene, a female witness that was also calling into 91 1. And she was on the phone and, you know, in that moment, she sees gunfire. But, you know, I don't really think she was able to tell who was firing based on the actual physical evidence and her testimony, not really jiving. I mean, she was saying that she thought that one was shooting into the wind, but it was really Boyd shooting out from the window, if I'm correct.
- [16:40]
C
Yes. There was a young woman who was on her way home from work as a waitress, and she saw this encounter and started following them. She called 91 1. And in fairness to police, she sounded terrified. She's terrified. He's waving a gun, he's driving crazy. And she kept up with them and she turned in after them. And While she's on 911 says, oh, he's jumping out of his car, he's shooting.
- [17:04]
B
And.
- [17:06]
C
But in the moment, yes, she was terrified. But in her later, that was her 911 call. In her later statements, she starts walking that back almost immediately from her interviews, even there on the scene. And now she has said, y', all, I was really. I was terrified. I'd had a prior experience with a gun I'm very skittish around guns. I thought, because I saw the windshield popping, that the other. That Scott Spivey was shooting at them and now the evidence. But she says, I was parked so far behind the trailer I couldn't have seen it and I didn't see it. So she is this critical eyewitness who essentially recanted her story,
- [17:45]
B
which really goes to this quick judgment, especially after she's changing her story so soon. And if anything, you know, this investigation was still pending after they sent people home and that night they took Boyd and passenger to the. The police station. So it's not like they, you know, drove home immediately, but they did go to the police station. And you would think in that period of time, there would have been enough of a few question marks for the police to say, okay, let's sit on this, we're going to investigate this. You're free to leave. But they close that decision for fairly quickly that evening.
- [18:26]
C
Fairly quickly. And we've done some reporting on standing ground cases nationally and in states with these really broad laws like South Carolina and Florida, and some of the first states to pass these laws, there are penalties for police if they wrongly say you weren't. If you say you were acting in self defense and they say, no, you weren't, and they're wrong, there's some penalties there for them. And they're hard cases to make. Right? They're hard cases to make. And so we've talked to experts, law enforcement experts who are like, look, these laws create situations where when there's tough cases or say, for example, it's 6 o' clock in South Carolina, on the side of the road at shift change, it's 80 some degrees. It's so humid, you can see all the officers wiping their faces. There is a guy who shot another guy who everyone knows there's. These laws create. We're told some, you know, one. One expert called him a dumping ground for tough cases. And I certainly think the evidence bears that out in many respects.
- [19:32]
B
And in terms of witnesses, you had stated earlier that there was a witness who said they saw Scott Spivey with a gun, but the gun was at his side when he got out of the car. And he did not raise that weapon. He did not point that weapon. At what point?
- [19:48]
C
Point.
- [19:48]
B
And where did that witness come from? At what point did that witness arrive? And how did we learn about that witness on the scene?
- [19:56]
C
So that witness, his name is Frank McMurrow, and he and his wife were driving from Virginia, taking a shortcut to get to the beach, to go to a. Go to a vacation. And he was coming down Camp Swamp Road, headed towards the trucks that were parked there. So he didn't see any of the road raging. He just saw the black truck stop and. And Scott Spivey jump out. And he calls. He calls 911 and he says he's excited, too. And in the first, you know, 30 seconds minute of his phone call, he said the guy in the black trunk jumps out and says, do not follow me anymore. And it looked like the guys in the white truck just unloaded a whole magazine at him. And I think he's. I think they might have hit him. That's what he says. But Even on the 911 call, you hear Weldon Boyd yelling at him, hey, did you see that? He shot at us. So it's one of those things where this eyewitness has stuck very firmly to the fact he never saw the shooting. He never saw Scott Spivey raise his gun. But he was also beaten feet to get by him because there was an armed man in the oncoming lane and he's got his wife in the car. He's scared. But as it turns out, Frank McMurro is. Is very familiar with guns. He's trained on guns. He owns guns. And he was adamant in every statement, multiple statements to police, and then recently in his testimony that the slide was back on Scott Spivey's gun. It was not in a firing position, and he never raised it more than a few inches in front of his feet.
- [21:25]
B
Now, we know from ballistics that more than one gun was fired out there that night, correct? Correct.
- [21:32]
C
All three guns were. Were fired that night for sure, right?
- [21:37]
B
Yeah. So we just don't know at what point, obviously now.
- [21:40]
C
Well, the lawyer became involved in physical evidence. Your point earlier about whether there was. There was curiosity about the physical evidence and what it indeed indicated there. The. The two men in the white truck shot through their windshield more than 20 times. As I mentioned, it looks like it's been in a war zone. And Scott Spivey was in most of. He emptied a magazine as well, but almost all the shell casings were in the backseat of his car. He jumps back. The evidence shows that he jumps back into his truck and his arm kind of falls back over the back of the truck and fires wildly. If you look at the trajectory of those shots, they were mostly errant. And there's only one shell casing that's outside the truck, and it's right underneath the wheel well for of the front of the Front wheel. So there's not physical evidence that indicates he was, he had his gun raised and was filing. There's no shell casings in the road. There's no shell casings off in the grass. So it, that there was not a lot of curiosity that night about what
- [22:41]
B
the physical evidence showed, which probably would have been the best way to determine what story was reasonable,
- [22:53]
C
I think. And I think, and police have, the Horry county police, in fairness, have said there was misconduct here. We're concerned about it. We're trying to get to the bottom of it. And so they have said, yes, many of our policies weren't followed here. And they've asked and the state law enforcement divisions come in to try and say, okay, yeah, you didn't follow your policies at all.
- [23:14]
B
Why?
- [23:15]
C
And what was the result?
- [23:18]
B
You know, I'm always pro law enforcement. We need them. We need a society that's safe. But at the end of the day, when these types of things happen, it just really shakes your confidence in, in the way these things are handled in certain circumstances. And it just shows that you have to be so aware and, and his sister, my goodness, this Ms. Foley, who came out and just did so much work on behalf of Spivey. It's, it's really something. And I want to get into Jen Foley because a lawyer that became nationally known during the Murdoch cases became involved in this case. And as you said, that's how you became aware of this case. Tell us a little bit about that lawyer, how that lawyer became involved and how Jen Foley has sort of helped change the whole trajectory of this case.
- [24:06]
C
It, you know, it is, it is, it is a strange story, but I think a lot of us were completely captivated by the Murdoch case back in 2023 and watching every day of that trial. And Jennifer Foley's mother in law, who I've come to know, watched every minute of it. And so after this happened, Jennifer and her family were having a hard time getting anyone to take their case. They live just north of state line. North Carolina doesn't have this law. In the same way, they couldn't get anybody to take their case. And the mother in law said, you should call that lawyer that represented the Mallory beach family, the family of the young woman who was killed in a boat wreck that sort of started the fall of the dy. She's like, he's never going to call me back. But she called him and he called her right back. He lives five hours away and he listened to her story and thought it sounded really off. But here's the issue about these. Not all 30 states that have these laws have the ones that are this broad, but there are six or eight that do. And in South Carolina, if you are found to be standing your ground, you have criminal immunity, you cannot be charged, but you also have civil immunity. No one can bring a wrongful death lawsuit against you. And so that means that plaintiffs attorneys don't take these cases in South Carolina because there's no money, there's no settlement that's on the table. And tort law is such that if you get shot in your vehicle, that it's not the insurer's fault. So pretty immediately, the insurer is removed from that lawsuit, as I understand it. So there's no money from the insurer. So as a practical matter, no one had ever tested this, but Mark Tinsley has won many, many multimillion dollar cases. And he, he very much, he said on the stand in the Murdoch case, nobody really tells me what to do. And there was something about this case that rubbed him wrong. And even though he lives five hours
- [25:56]
B
and you want a challenge, sometimes as lawyers, you want challenges.
- [26:00]
C
And this one has been, this one has been a real passion project for him. But I think for Jennifer Foley, Scott Spivey's sister, her training as an undergrad at NC State, which is, you know, half a mile from where I live, was in criminal justice. She st. She had a. She had an internship in college in the state crime lab. And she, as a result of taking this case, filing a civil lawsuit, that there were just reams of material turned over in civil discovery. 70 gigabytes of information. And she made it her life's work to dig through it. And she shared it with me as soon as she got it, and we, we went through it simultaneously.
- [26:42]
B
I mean, I found it fascinating, actually, finding out. And I want to ask you this because I just don't get it. And as I listened to the podcast, of course, I thought to myself, okay, everybody's going to say, my brother wouldn't act that way, my son wouldn't act that way. That's not in their character. And so some of that, I thought, okay, that, that doesn't move the needle for me, but what moved the needle for me was the evidence and the phone calls. And let's talk about the way the phone calls were discovered and why they were recorded. Let's talk about that first, and then I'll get into some of the content of those calls. But let's, let's kind of work through that a little bit.
- [27:24]
C
Sure. So there was, you know, I mentioned earlier that the. The shooters were treated differently than most, most killers would be in a homicide, and they were allowed to keep their phones. And so there was some immense back and forth after this became sort of a local issue, like, what's actually going on here? The police were under some pressure to come back and look at the shooter's phones. What was on them? Were there any. Any evidence of what happened? And so, reluctantly, you know, the shooting happened in September. By mid November, both shooters turned over their phones and were downloaded by the state. But the thing was that the state has since said, we were looking for a video. We thought maybe there was a video of the shooting. We didn't find it. And so we gave it all back and they closed the case. Well, what they didn't look was that Weldon Boyd had an app on his phone. He was in a very nasty custody battle over his then unborn son. His ex fiance was seven months pregnant, and he had served her with papers the day before seeking full custody of that baby. And he had just posted the diamond ring their fancy, I think, was it six? It was $20,000 ring. He just posted it on Facebook literally 20 minutes before this popped off. So anyway, he was in this very bitter custody battle, and he put an app on his phone to record all of his phone calls. And when he turned over the phone, those phone calls were embedded. It looked just like kind of random files that you would see in a big data dump. But as it turns out, he had recorded 90 phone calls, almost eight hours of calls, where you hear his innermost thoughts in the hours, minutes, actually, after he calls. Right. Starts calling people right away for four days. You hear every call he makes. And that gave us much clearer picture of what was in his mind at that time.
- [29:20]
B
And you kind of start hearing those calls. And in the beginning of those calls, it's, you know, a lot of. I had to defend myself. I had to save, you know, protect my life. I had to do what I had to do. And, you know, I don't feel sorry for what I did and a lot of that. And then it sort of turns worse for him, right? He starts to talk about the fact that he had a good time and this was so fun and that he has no regrets. And so it got. It got. Definitely got worse. And I just kept thinking to myself, oh, my goodness, the fact that you'd even have these records and these phone calls recorded is one thing, but the fact that you would say these things is another. Let's listen to the call about the teardrop from Boyd's recording. Let's listen to that for a second.
- [30:04]
D
So, Bradley, I know it's up to say, but I had a blast. I. I know it's up, but I'm a person.
- [30:14]
E
Well, I mean, you know, it is what it is.
- [30:23]
D
I had a good time.
- [30:25]
E
The main thing is I'm glad you're okay.
- [30:27]
B
I'm glad.
- [30:27]
E
Me, Okay. I mean, like I said, it is what it is. I mean, I feel no remorse for that dude. I hate the situation just because.
- [30:36]
D
It's just.
- [30:38]
E
I mean, he.
- [30:40]
D
He up. I mean, what else do you want to say?
- [30:43]
C
A couple minutes later, Boyd suggests that he and Williams do something to commemorate the killing.
- [30:49]
D
We should go get teardrop tattoos. Yeah.
- [30:54]
E
I just want to say that when we was going home from the farm, that's what our first thought was. We got to get teardrop tattoos or spider webs on our elbows.
- [31:03]
D
We got to find somewhere on our body to put a teardrop. I'm doing it. Me and you're gonna do it. I don't give a. We're doing it.
- [31:11]
E
Oh, gosh. Battle buddies.
- [31:15]
B
I mean, Valerie, there are no words for what we hear in that phone call. Zero.
- [31:23]
C
That was. That was the first call I've heard, and I've heard it dozens of times since, and it always is. Still, it's shocking to hear. And Weldon Boyd has said it's disgusting. I never should have said that. I regret it. But in the moment, with your best friend, you say, I had a blast. I'd do it again. Were you in fear for your life? If you had a blast. If you're so. And that's the commemorate the killing. Those phone calls did two things. They gave us a real window into what Weldon Boyd actually felt about that killing. They also showed us very early on that he was in touch with police from the crime scene, getting assurances that he would be taken care of and the case would go away from the crime scene. So they were damning of his story of self defense in two major ways.
- [32:18]
B
So now, of course, we know that they, at this, at least up till now, they have not been charged criminally. They were sued civilly, and this wrongful death suit continues. And. And just recently, the judge in the civil suit has decided that neither defendant can have stand your ground immunity. So that is a huge decision in terms of where this case is going to go, not only civilly, but potentially criminally. Is that right?
- [32:44]
C
That's exactly right. On March 9, the judge ruled about the immunity for closing the door on the immunity claims. And he zeroed in on that phone call as one. The tone of it, the callousness of it and whether it indicated any fear for what was happening, but also credibility. He essentially said, I find neither of these guys to be credible. Their story's not credible. It doesn't match the physical evidence or the testimony from that witness we talked about Frank McMurrow. And so it's to our knowledge, and I've checked with the South Carolina courts and a bunch of lawyers, this is a first of its kind. But because now they have civil, they don't have civil immunity, they don't have criminal immunity. And so if it's not stand your ground, what is it? And there's, there's a state grand jury that has been convened to consider this case and it does put immense pressure on prosecutors to, to, you know, say, well if it's not stand your ground, what is it? You know?
- [33:44]
B
Well, right, and when you look at stand, you'd ground and we're talking about the civil issue here, the civil burden of proof is less. So if a judge in a civil court is saying you don't have this immunity, then on the criminal court side, you know, where are you going? Because you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they did not have a right to defend themselves and, or in a self defense case, you have to prove that you were actually in fear. So I think this is, is extremely damaging in terms of the, their, you know, ability to skate criminal charges any longer. I mean, I just don't see how a criminal court doesn't, there's not an indictment filed in criminal court at some point here.
- [34:30]
C
And I think, I think there, there has been some question raised about this, but I think that it's, it's fairly settled legal opinion in South Carolina that the civil immunity is going to hold for criminal immunity. They will not enjoy criminal immunity. But think about it, it is a tough, it was a tough case for prosecutors from the start. It still was kind of a tough case to make. But I do think you'll see a lot of pressure come to bear on a special prosecutor who was named to look at these, these. And as I understand it, South Carolina is one of those states they, you have murder and you have voluntary manslaughter, but there's not second degree or that, those type of charges. So there's a fairly limited toolkit that prosecutors have to, to work with here.
- [35:12]
B
Well, and it'll be interesting because as a defendant in a criminal case, you have a Fifth Amendment right. And now they have testified in depositions, they have given statements that they probably would not make if they were defendants in a criminal case. So I think there's going to be interesting pre trial litigation regarding that if they are, of course, charged. You know, remember back to Bill Cosby. Bill Cosby was charged after he testified in civil depositions. And it was that testimony that then sunk him criminally. And then the appellate court said, no, no, you can't do that. So that this is going to be interesting in terms of just the procedure of this and how this moves forward, given the fact that they, they have testified.
- [35:55]
C
No. And I think, I think y' all as lawyers are careful to begin with, but I think all the lawyers in this case that both defendants have, have their own legal teams and that in the plaintiff's case and the judge in particular are aware of the precedential the president that they're setting here and want to make sure that they're being careful, they're reading the law correctly and it won't get reversed or, you know that. So, so there's a, there are a lot of novel legal issues in the state that are playing out here.
- [36:24]
B
Yeah, it's, it's very, it's very interesting. And for any of the legal buffs that are listening. I know for me, it's just really interesting to talk about the differences here. Let's go to the police misconduct. I know we talked about, about it a little bit, that the police have, have already admitted that there's been misconduct here. They are, are aware they fired people. They are definitely making changes, as they should. Is there any impact on pending action in terms of what's going on with the police right now?
- [36:52]
C
Well, the, the state grand jury was convened in November and has been considering the misconduct issues. And they're, and they're, they're legion, right? I mean, the, the deputy chief then over homicide and crime scene and all manner of detectives that were out there promised Weldon Boyd that he would take care of them, take care of him. And then we have not talked about this, but the police made the unusual decision that night to tow Scott's body, Scott Spivey's body in his truck 25 miles. They taped the doors closed, towed the body 25 miles and then rolled him out on a body bag in the parking lot of the impound lot and processed the scene there. And I was looking at evidence pictures earlier today. Evidence has moved around. You see pictures at the crime scene where a phone or a device is in one place. But if you tow a truck and then jostle it off a flatbed, everything's shaken around. There are evidentiary issues that can never be resolved. There were. You know, there were. There were decisions made that. That make it difficult to know actually what happened that night, you know.
- [38:04]
B
Yeah. Which could also affect the prosecution moving forward. Right. If your evidence is tainted, that there's questions about fodder for the defense.
- [38:13]
C
Yeah, for sure. There was testimony. And stay tuned for more about this. But there was testimony in the hearing that was held recently about, yes, you taped the doors closed, but the back window of Scott Spivey's truck had been shot out, and you didn't close that. And when you get to the police station, the first thing that the detective says to the CSI technician is, why don't you open that secret compartment behind the backrest of the back seat of the truck? And they open the compartment, and there's a baggie of pills there. And it's not tested for prints. It's taken into evidence and tested. And then you start hearing the chief and his calls, the deputy chief and his calls with Willem Boyd. Well, I hear he's on steroids. And when, you know, they turn out to be steroids. So there are a number. And the chain of custody is the officer that was supposed to have their dash cam on that truck at all times to protect. Chain of custody pulls in the back of the parking lot and parks in front of the dumpsters and does not have his camera on the truck for an extended period of time. They're just things that we'll never know from a. From a prosecutorial point of view.
- [39:22]
B
Yeah, it's really interesting. And I know there was also that point on the body camera where you see the note that he showed Du Boyd and the police officer showed Du
- [39:30]
C
Boyd about that same officer, Sergeant Damon Viscovy, who's been fired, but he was on the scene, and he takes a phone call. He speaks to. To Boyd's lawyer by phone, makes another phone call, and comes back and shows. Secretly kind of shows it a sign that says, act like a victim. Camera. It was that same officer who was supposed to escort the truck to the. The impal.
- [39:54]
B
I mean, it's really unbelievable. It's like if you were a victim. Okay, that's fine. And that's for a court or whoever to decide, but for the police to interject themselves in such a manner is really beyond the pale. So I just. Unbelievable. I'm so looking forward to seeing. Go ahead.
- [40:10]
C
Oh, no, no. I was. I was. I was Just going to say, you know, I covered the night cop beat earlier in my career and did a lot of ride alongs and law enforcement has such a difficult job. So much of it is social work. So much of it it's people who are drawn to a certain type of work and it's, it's commendable. And no one is more upset about what went down here than other from based on my experience of being, you know, talking to people down there than other, other members of law enforcement who just, it paints everyone with a really bad brush. But I would also say again, part of the reason the Journal has care so much about this story is the facts are the same today as they were two and a half years ago and we would not have known them except for this extraordinary chain of events. And I've heard from so many families who have emailed me and said, can you look at my son's case? Can you look at my cousin's case? Something happened here. We are interested in this case for many reasons, but also just what does it tell us about broader issues in stand your ground laws and law enforcement?
- [41:14]
B
Well, we will bring light to any of these cases. Valerie, this has been a fascinating conversation. I cannot thank you enough. Everybody should go listen to your Journal podcast about Camp Swamp Road. It's fascinating. I know. I'm looking forward to the next episode. So thank you so much for joining me. Foreigno thank you for joining me on another episode of Crime and Justice. Please continue to send us your questions on social media and we will answer them right here. And don't forget to subscribe where you find your podcasts. Thank you so much. See you next time.