The Russell Brand Jury Is Out and Deliberating in London, Murdaugh’s Lawyers Accuse a SLED Agent, a Clash Over the Clancy Holdout

0:10 Good morning. This is Daily Crime and Justice from Calaroga Media, powered by AI. I'm Garrett Fisher. It's Wednesday, November 4th, 2026. Yesterday afternoon at Southern Crown Court, two court ushers stood up and swore an oath. To keep 12 people in a private place, to let no one speak to them, and to speak to them only to ask one question. Have you agreed on your verdicts? Then eight men and four women walked out of court three to decide the fate of Russell Brand. The jury is out. And while we wait, two of the biggest cases we've followed are fighting about juries of their own. So here's today's question. What happens when the people deciding a case can't be trusted or weren't told the truth? Let's get into it.

0:57 This segment discusses allegations of rape and sexual assault. I'll keep it to what was said in court without graphic detail. The essentials? Russell Brand, 51, is on trial at Southwark Crown Court on seven charges. Three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault, and one count of attempted indecent assault involving six women between 1999 and 2009. He has pleaded not guilty to all of them, and he denies all of the allegations. Everything here comes from proceedings in open court, as reported by Sky News. Brand arrived for the 16th day of his trial in a knee-length black wool coat over a black suit and a long white scarf.

1:37 He waved at the cameras but didn't speak. Inside, his father, Ron, took a seat in the front row of the public gallery, where he could see his son through the open door of the glass dock. Laura Brand sat in her usual place at the back. Then the judge, Mr. Justice Benethen, spent most of the day on his summing up. In an English trial, that's the judge's review of the evidence for the jury. It's not a third closing argument. It's supposed to be balanced, reminding the jury of the key evidence on both sides, count by count. And it's not evidence itself. The jurors with their bundles of photographs and diagrams took notes. At one point, the judge noted his bench was rather roomier than the jury box. You haven't got as much room as I have, he told them.

2:24 That's life. A few moments stood out. On the first count, the 1999 allegation in Bournemouth, there's been a dispute over what night it happened. The woman had told the court she couldn't remember exactly. It was a long week. In his closing, Brand's barrister had told the jury she agreed she was home by Friday evening. The judge corrected that. What she'd actually said, he noted, was, I was home in the evening. So not quite agreeing she was home on Friday night, he told them. And after a photo she took was linked to a speech on Thursday, he told jurors that if he'd suggested earlier the photos were from Friday, they shouldn't rely on that. It's their job to decide. He reminded them of her evidence, that she thought Brand was gay and didn't think he was making a move. And when Brand's barrister asked why she didn't run, her answer, What was I meant to do? Run into the night? I know he raped me. I didn't want it.

3:24 And he reminded them of something that cut the other way. In the years afterward, she told friends a half-truth that Brand had once asked her out. She didn't like lying to her friends, she said. On the second count, the MTV allegation, he recalled the woman's description of herself. I'm quite sporty, I'm stronger than the average woman, and I wrenched away. and her answer when Brand's barrister suggested it was consensual. You don't drag someone by the arm if it's consensual. On the third, the Soho allegation, he read from the woman's police interview. That afterward, Brand said, I guess we should swap numbers now. Like, it was all normal, and that she didn't tell anyone at the time because she felt ashamed. He reminded jurors that Brand's barrister had asked her, why didn't you slap him? And he noted Brand's own answer when he was asked whether he pulled the woman's head down in that toilet. Brand had replied, in effect, that that's what a rapist would do, framing his whole evidence, the judge said, in the context that he was not a rapist. He also reminded the jury why that woman says she finally came forward. She told police those were laddish culture times, and that part of the reason she went to police in 2023 was to help make a nicer world for young people growing up now.

4:43 When she learned about the documentary, she said, there was a voice inside her telling her, you've got to say. On the fourth count, the radio station allegation, he dealt with something the defense made a lot of, that she'd called Brand a perfect stranger, but also said she knew who he was. The judge explained what she meant. She knew his face because he was famous, but he was a stranger in the sense that he started kissing her, as she put it, with no warning. Brand's account, the judge reminded them, was that he didn't remember it at all, and that jumping on someone like that wouldn't turn him on. On the sixth count, the Channel 4 allegation, the judge set out both sides. The prosecution had asked the jury to consider why. If Brand just wanted a massage, he didn't ask one of his two male colleagues and pointed to the sexualized insults he's alleged to have aimed at her right after. The defense pointed to her changing account of what she was wearing and said that whatever Brand's behavior was, it wasn't a sexual assault. On the fifth count, the most serious, the judge summarized both sides with care.

5:46 The defense says the woman's own ex-boyfriend told police she came round to it. and that a friend gave a different account again. The prosecution's answer? Those accounts were given years later, with different details, but both said she was raped, and 23 other witness accounts showed no significant differences. The judge suggested the jury might want to keep an eye on when each of those conversations took place, then added carefully, but it is only my suggestion. He also reminded them of the woman's own words on re-examination. I absolutely did not consent to anal sex. That was the reason for going to police. And of Brand's explanation for asking her to brush her teeth that day, that he may have asked because he was sober at the time and uncomfortable with people smelling of alcohol. And he reminded them of Brand's own words under cross-examination when he was asked why his detailed account of that night never appeared in his police interviews. I did not deal with this in my interview, but it is not true that I have invented it since.

6:49 And then, at about 3.25 in the afternoon, London time, the judge sent them out. I can only accept a unanimous verdict from all 12 of you, he said. The ushers took their oath and the jurors filed out to begin deliberating. So, what happens now? The jury deliberates in private during court hours and goes home each night under strict instructions not to discuss the case with anyone, or look at any coverage, including shows like this one, they can send notes to the judge with questions. They'll reach verdicts on each of the seven charges separately, and they could return some before others. If, after a long time, they can't all agree, the judge can tell them he'll accept a verdict of 10 to 2 or 11 to 1.

7:31 He hasn't done that yet. There's no way to predict how long it will take. With seven charges and six women, it could be hours. It could be days. When there's a verdict, you'll hear it here. And as I've promised since the first day of this trial, I'll finally tell you what I think. Until then, Russell Brand denies all charges. When we come back, two of the biggest cases we've followed and two fights about juries. Two weeks ago, we told you about Timothy Busfield, whose indictment was thrown out because a prosecutor kept witnesses from a grand jury. Now, Alex Murdaugh's lawyers are making an even more serious accusation about his. Quick refresher. In 2023, Murdaugh was convicted of murdering his wife Maggie and his son Paul at the family's hunting property in South Carolina and sentenced to life.

8:29 This year, the South Carolina Supreme Court threw out those convictions because the court clerk improperly influenced the jury. His retrial is scheduled for April. On Monday, his lawyers filed a memo asking the judge to dismiss the murder indictments altogether. Their target is the lead investigator, David Owen, of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, known as SLED. Exhibit 1, the white t-shirt Murdaugh was wearing the night he says he found the bodies. According to the defense, when Owen testified to the grand jury that indicted Murdaugh, he told jurors the shirt was covered in the victim's blood spatter. But the defense says SLED's own lab had already concluded, 11 months before that testimony, that there was no human blood on the shirt. And they say documents show that after that finding, investigators went looking for an outside expert who'd give them a different answer. Exhibit 2. The Shotgun Shells Before Murdo was charged, Owen told him in an interview that the ammunition used to kill Paul had been found loaded in similar shotguns on the property. At the first trial, Owen admitted that wasn't true and said the law allows police to use trickery when questioning a suspect.

9:41 That's correct, it does. But the defense says Owen told the grand jury the same thing. Their memo puts it sharply. The law permits an interrogating officer, within limits, to deceive a suspect. It permits no one to deceive a grand jury. And they note that the gun that killed Paul Murdaugh has never been found. Interestingly, the defense isn't asking for the case to go away for good. They want the indictments dismissed without prejudice, which means prosecutors could go back to a new grand jury, with what the defense calls competent evidence, and try again. And they point out that this isn't the first time this agent's work has been challenged. In another South Carolina murder case, a judge dismissed charges moments before opening statements after finding Owen failed to document a key statement. The state hasn't yet filed its response, and these are allegations in a defense motion. Prosecutors will have their say when both sides argue it in court on November 13th. But remember what I said about Busfield.

10:41 The grand jury only works if the people presenting evidence to it play it straight. If the defense is right, that's a real problem. If it's wrong, it's a desperate swing five months before trial. Either way, a judge will decide. Maggie Murdoch was 52. Paul Murdoch was 22. Someone has to say their names. From a grand jury that may have been misled to a trial jury that couldn't agree. Lindsay Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse in Duxbury, Massachusetts, is charged with murdering her three children in January of 2023. Cora, who was five, Dawson, who was three, and Callen, who was eight months old. At her trial, her lawyers didn't dispute that she killed them. They argued she wasn't criminally responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis. After days of deliberations, the jury told the judge it was split 11 to 1. Most jurors wanted to find her not guilty by reason of insanity. One didn't. The judge declared a mistrial. That one juror later identified himself to the media.

11:47 In court, he's referred to as Juror Doe. And on Monday, he was at the center of a remarkable hearing. Clancy's longtime attorney, Kevin Reddington, wants the juror's questionnaire and permission to question him further, and he's raised the juror's criminal past. When Reddington started to say the juror's name in open court, Judge William Sullivan cut him off. According to Court TV, it went like this. The judge, I'm going to stop you right there. Reddington, no, you're not going to stop me. The judge, well, no, I am. Reddington, no, you're not. The judge told him everyone in that courtroom refers to the juror as juror Doe, and that's how it would stay.

12:32 Reddington's response, he's got more face time than I do. A new lawyer on Clancy's team, Martin Weinberg, argued that when the jury sent notes describing their frustration with the holdout, the judge should have questioned that juror much more closely and that asking all 12 jurors a single question, whether they could follow the law, was constitutionally insufficient. The judge pushed back. Hadn't he brought the jurors in, sworn them, and asked each one individually? Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague put it this way. The juror didn't refuse to deliberate. He refused to agree. And she asked for a gag order, accusing the defense of a publicity campaign that has tainted potential jurors.

13:15 When the defense asked if she'd be bound by the same rule, she said yes immediately. I am not looking for 15 minutes of fame in this case, she said. What the Commonwealth wants is justice for Cora, Dawson, and Callan. Reddington, for his part, said he wants a new trial with this judge this spring. Judge Sullivan says he'll rule on everything on November 16th, and if the charges aren't dismissed, he'll set a trial date then. Here's the uncomfortable truth in this one. A single juror is allowed to disagree with 11 others. That's the point of requiring unanimity. Whether this juror did something wrong or simply saw the case differently is now a question for a judge. And whatever he decides, three children are at the center of it.

14:01 Cora Clancy was five. Dawson was three. Callan was eight months old. Someone has to say their names. When we come back, the week ahead. That's the show for this Wednesday. Here's my question for the Spotify crowd. If a detective misled a grand jury, should the case be thrown out, even if a trial jury might still convict on the real evidence? If you're listening on Spotify, drop a comment. If you've been following the brand trial with us, this is a good moment to send the show to a friend. Before the verdict, that's how we grow. And on Apple Podcasts, tap listen uninterrupted at the top of your screen. $ 5 a month, no ads, this show plus thousands of other Calaroga media shows. And the first 30 days are free.

14:55 To everyone already subscribed, thank you. Coming up, the brand jury continues deliberating and will bring you the verdict the moment it comes. The defense wraps up in the Birchmore trial in Boston with closing arguments expected soon. Tomorrow night, Florida's scheduled execution, which would tie its record. And in Tennessee, voters chose a new governor yesterday. Whoever takes office in January inherits the question of Krista Pike. I'm Garrett Fisher. Do better. This episode of Daily Crime and Justice is produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence and is intended for news and commentary purposes only. It is not legal advice. Everyone charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. Russell Brand has pleaded not guilty to all charges and denies all of the allegations against him. Alex Murdaugh's murder convictions were overturned, and he is presumed innocent of those charges. Lindsey Clancy has pleaded not guilty. On Russell Brand, proceedings are as reported by Sky News from Southwark Crown Court. The judge's summing up is not evidenced. Under the Sexual Offenses Amendment Act 1992, complainants in sexual offense cases in the United Kingdom are entitled to lifelong anonymity. On Alex Murdaugh, the claims about Agent David Owen are allegations in a defense filing as reported by Court TV and have not been ruled on. The state has not yet responded in court.

16:23 On Lindsay Clancy, the hearing is as reported by Court TV. We have not named the holdout juror. If you or someone you know has been affected by sexual violence, you can call RAINN at 800-656-4673. In England and Wales, you can reach Rape Crisis at 0808-500-2222. If you are struggling after having a baby, you can call or text the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline at 833-852-6262.