Alex Murdaugh could get new murder trial after South Carolina Supreme Court agrees to hear jury tampering appeal

The South Carolina Supreme Court has agreed to hear convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh’s jury tampering appeal.

The order, issued Tuesday, means the case will go straight to the high court, skipping the lengthy Court of Appeals process. The state Supreme Court could overturn a judge’s decision from earlier this year that denied Murdaugh’s attempt to get a new murder trial.

His attorneys filed a motion in July requesting the high court review that ruling before his appeal is determined by the state Court of Appeals because the case “concerns an issue of significant public interest and a legal principle of major importance warranting certification.”

Late last year, Murdaugh’s legal team requested a new trial based on allegations that the now-former Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca “Becky” Hill tampered with the jury by making comments implying Murdaugh’s guilt to jurors.

On January 29, retired Chief Justice Jean Toal held that Hill, the now-former clerk, was “attracted by the siren call of celebrity” and made improper comments to the jury, but ruled that the comments did not influence the verdict it reached.

“I simply do not believe that the authority of our South Carolina Supreme Court requires a new trial in a very lengthy trial such as this on the strength of some fleeting and foolish comments by a publicity-influenced clerk of courts,” Toal said in January.

In Murdaugh’s filing requesting the state Supreme Court review, his attorneys wrote that the “legal principle of major importance is whether it is presumptively prejudicial for a state official to secretly advocate for a guilty verdict through ex parte contacts with jurors during trial, or whether a defendant, having proven the contacts occurred, must also somehow prove the verdict would have been different at a hypothetical trial in which the surreptitious advocacy did not occur.”

Hill has repeatedly denied the allegations, but has since resigned her position as clerk of court and is under state investigation, while facing numerous state ethics violations alleging she used her professional position for personal gain.

Citing the “ongoing” nature of the matter, the state Attorney General’s Office declined to comment on the state Supreme Court order.

Last year, after a six-week trial, a Colleton County jury found Murdaugh guilty of shooting and killing his wife, Maggie, and youngest son, Paul, at the family’s hunting estate in June 2021. He was sentenced to – and is currently serving – two life sentences in state prison for their murders.

Murdaugh has also been sentenced in state and federal court, to 27 years and 40 years respectively, on dozens of financial charges stemming from more than a decade of stealing money from clients and his law firm.

He is also appealing his federal sentence for the financial crimes.

Source: CNN, Dianne Gallagher, August 14, 2024

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