An appeals court in South Carolina is allowing Alex Murdaugh to ask a judge to throw out his murder convictions and life sentence and get a new trial after his lawyers accused the court clerk in his trial of influencing the jury.
The one-paragraph decision Tuesday could open the door for a full hearing where witnesses who would have to testify under oath could include Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill, the jurors who deliberated a few hours after the six-week trial and even Judge Clifton Newman, widely praised for overseeing the case.
A time and place or the scope of the hearing will be determined later. But even if his conviction is overturned, Murdaugh won’t walk out of prison. He pleaded guilty last month to financial crimes for stealing millions of dollars from needy personal injury clients and a settlement for the family of his longtime maid who died in a fall at his home.
Murdaugh is awaiting a judge to hand down a sentence for those crimes that will almost certainly be for years if not decades behind bars.
Murdaugh’s lawyers filed their appeal last month after saying they had heard from three jurors who said Hill told some of them not to trust Murdaugh when he testified in his own defense. They said the court clerk, in charge of helping jurors and ensuring the trial ran efficiently, also had private conversations with the jury foreperson and pressured jurors to come to a quick verdict.
“She asked jurors about their opinions about Mr. Murdaugh’s guilt or innocence. She instructed them not to believe evidence presented in Mr. Murdaugh’s defense, including his own testimony. She lied to the judge to remove a juror she believed might not vote guilty. And she pressured jurors to reach a guilty verdict quickly so she could profit from it,” defense attorneys Jim Griffin and Dick Harpootlian wrote.
The attorneys called Tuesday’s ruling welcome news. “We intend to proceed expeditiously and will seek a full blown evidentiary hearing,” they said in a statement.
Hill has spoken little publicly about the allegations and her lawyer didn’t respond to a text message Tuesday. But the author who helped her write a self-published book called “Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders” asked people to give Hill the same presumption of innocence they were supposed to give Murdaugh during the trial.
