The murder convictions and consecutive life sentences for Alex Murdaugh, a prominent South County attorney who was found guilty of killing his wife and son, were overturned on Wednesday by the state’s supreme court.
Murdaugh was convicted in March 2023 for killing his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, at the family’s estate in 2021.
He will be given a new trial.
Murdaugh also pleaded guilty to a series of financial crimes in September 2023 and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Lawyers for Murdaugh pushed for a new trial based on “improper” conduct by the county clerk, Becky Hill, who later wrote a book about her time working on the trial.
The Supreme Court, which ruled 5-0 in favor of Murdaugh’s appeal, said the jury’s “efforts were in vain because Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill placed her fingers on the scales of justice, thereby denying Murdaugh his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury.”
The defense claimed Hill tampered with the jury by advising it not to believe Murdaugh’s testimony, pressuring them to reach a quick guilty verdict, and misrepresenting information presented during the trial.
Joshua Boucher/Pool/The State/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
An appeals court rejected Murdaugh’s ask for a new trial in January 2024, but the Supreme Court reversed the decision on Wednesday.
“Our justice system provides—indeed demands—that every person is entitled to a fair trial, which includes an impartial jury untainted by external forces bent on influencing the jury toward a biased verdict,” the court wrote in its opinion. “Although we are aware of the time, money, and effort expended for this lengthy trial, we have no choice but to reverse the denial of Murdaugh’s motion for a new trial due to Hill’s improper external influences on the jury and remand for a new trial.”
One juror who testified during the appeals trial in 2024 said, that “when the jury began deliberations, Hill told the jury, ‘[T]his shouldn’t take us long,'” according to the court’s decision Wednesday.
The juror wrote, in her sworn affidavit for that appeals trial, “I had questions about Mr. Murdaugh’s guilt but voted guilty because I felt pressured by the other jurors,” according to court documents.
Another juror testified that Hill told them, on the day Murdaugh testified, it was “an epic day.” Though, that juror said it did not affect their eventual decision to find him guilty. A third juror testified Hill told him to “watch his body language” on the day Murdaugh testified, something he said also did not later influence his verdict.
Murdaugh had initially claimed he wasn’t at the family’s 48-acre hunting estate in Islandton, South Carolina, on the night his wife and his younger son, Paul, then-22 years old, were killed. However, during the trial, it emerged that Alex Murdaugh’s voice could be heard on a cellphone video recorded by Paul shortly before the killings at the property’s kennels on June 7, 2021.
He admitted during testimony he lied to police about being there and said he did so because his heavy use of drugs caused him to be paranoid and distrust investigators.
“I’m not quite sure how I let myself get where I got. I battled that addiction for so many years. I was spending so much money on pills,” Murdaugh said during the trial, though he adamantly rejected that he was involved in the murders.
The South Carolina Supreme Court also expressed dissatisfaction with the inclusion of extensive information about Murdaugh’s financial crimes in the double murder trial.
The court wrote, “we unanimously hold the trial court allowed the State to go far too long and far too deep into aspects of Murdaugh’s financial crimes that were not probative of the State’s theory of motive, which gave rise to considerable danger of unfair prejudice, and therefore should have been excluded.”
