Jeffrey Collins
Updated ,first published
Columbia: Prosecutors plan to retry disgraced lawyer Alex Murdaugh on murder charges in the shooting deaths of his wife and younger son after the South Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned his convictions and life sentence.
State Attorney General Alan Wilson said his office respected the court’s decision, but no one is above the law.
In a unanimous ruling on Wednesday, the Supreme Court said the conduct by the court clerk “egregiously attacked Murdaugh’s credibility” by suggesting to jurors his testimony could not be trusted. They also said the trial judge went too far in allowing evidence of Murdaugh’s financial crimes into his murder trial.
Murdaugh won’t be getting out of prison. The 57-year-old pleaded guilty to stealing around $US12 million ($165. million) from his clients and currently is serving a 40-year federal sentence.
Still, the ruling is a win for Murdaugh, who admits to being a thief, liar, insurance cheat and bad lawyer, but has adamantly denied killing his wife Maggie and younger son Paul since he found their bodies outside their home in 2021.
The justices ruled Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill, assigned to oversee the evidence and the jury during the trial, influenced jurors to find Murdaugh guilty. She hoped to improve sales of a book she was writing about the case.
The name of the book was Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders. It was pulled from publication after plagiarism allegations were made.
“As her book’s title suggests, it turns out Hill was quite busy behind the doors of justice, thwarting the integrity of the justice system she was sworn to protect and uphold,” the justices wrote in an unsigned 27-page ruling.
Hill has since pleaded guilty to lying about what she said and did.
Murdaugh’s lawyers also argued before the high court that the judge at his 2023 trial made rulings that prevented a fair trial, such as allowing evidence of Murdaugh stealing from clients that had nothing to do with the killings but biased jurors against him.
They detailed the lack of physical evidence – no DNA or blood was found splattered on Murdaugh or any of his clothes, even though the killings were at close range with powerful weapons that were never found.
Prosecutors argued that the clerk’s comments were fleeting and the evidence against Murdaugh was overwhelming. His lawyer said that didn’t matter because the comments a juror said she made – urging jurors to watch Murdaugh’s body language and listen to his testimony carefully – removed his presumption of innocence before the jury ever deliberated.
Murdaugh’s legal drama continues to captivate. There have been streaming miniseries, bestselling books and dozens of true-crime podcasts about how the multimillionaire Southern lawyer whose family dominated and controlled the legal system in tiny Hampton County ended up in a maximum-security South Carolina prison.
The justices in their ruling praised prosecutors, the defence team and the judge for outstanding work, heaping all the blame for having to try Murdaugh again on Hill.
Hill’s attorney in her criminal case didn’t return a phone call or email seeking comment.
Hill “placed her fingers on the scales of justice, thereby denying Murdaugh his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury,” the justices wrote. “Our justice system provides — indeed demands — that every person is entitled to a fair trial.”
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