Alex Murdaugh taps his fist to his chest as he looks at his family during a break during day 21 of the double murder trial of Alex Murdaugh at the Colleton County Courthouse on Tuesday, February 21, 2023. (Jeff Blake/The State/Pool)
Disgraced attorney and convicted killer Alex Murdaugh won a significant legal victory in his quest for a new double-murder trial.
On Tuesday, the South Carolina Court of Appeals granted Murdaugh’s request to hold his appeal in abeyance and remand the case to the circuit court. There, Murdaugh’s attorneys will file for a new trial based on newly-discovered evidence under state judicial rules.
The terse order signed by Chief Justice Bruce Williams reads: “After careful consideration, we grant Appellant’s motion.”
“The recent ruling to stay the appeal and remand the case for a hearing on Alex Murdaugh’s motion for a new trial is welcomed news,” Murdaugh’s attorneys Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin said in a statement provided to Law&Crime. “We intend to proceed expeditiously and will seek a full blown evidentiary hearing addressing the serious allegations pertaining to improper jury communications by the Clerk of Court.”
In September, the Lowcountry legal scion’s attorneys highlighted several alleged instances of jury tampering by a court official during his double-murder trial. That motion alleges Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca “Becky” Hill “instructed jurors not to be ‘misled’ by evidence presented in Mr. Murdaugh’s defense” and “told jurors not to be ‘fooled by’ Mr. Murdaugh’s testimony in his own defense.”
Murdaugh has yet to directly request a new trial due to procedural niceties. Despite its bulk and argumentation, the September filing was merely a request for the appellate court to put his preexisting appeal in abeyance, or on pause, while the new trial motion is considered by the proper lower court.
In response, the state, led by South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, argued that Murdaugh’s attorneys made a procedural mistake: failing to file an affidavit from Murdaugh stating when he learned of the “new evidence” and that he did not know about Hill’s alleged comments during the trial.
In reply to that argument, Murdaugh’s attorneys filed another motion, claiming the state was acting in “bad faith” and making legal arguments they knew to be “untrue.” Out of an abundance of caution, however, the Murdaugh reply also included an affidavit “stating the obvious,” Harpootlian and Griffin wrote.
The court of appeals took stock of the back and forth motions in its brief order – noting simply that three motions were filed.
On March 2, after a trial taking up the better part of six weeks, Murdaugh’s peers found him guilty on all counts in the Colleton County Courthouse. The defendant was convicted of killing his wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, 52, with an AR-style rifle, and their youngest son, Paul Murdaugh, 22, with a shotgun in the dog kennels at the family’s expansive hunting lodge known as Moselle.
The early September motion alleges rampant jury tampering – including the intentional removal of a juror sympathetic to the defense.
South Carolina case law leans heavily toward the convicted criminal defendant in such instances. And if the allegations are substantiated and found true, the once-powerful trial lawyer looks to be on track. Tuesday’s development was the first huddle of some importance for the defendant to clear.
Murdaugh’s attorneys, for their part, are confident that they will succeed on their client’s behalf and say it’s only a matter of time.
“Alex is entitled to a new trial and he will get a new trial,” Griffin told Law&Crime in late September. “Whether it’s Judge Newman, by the Court of Appeals, by the Supreme Court or by the federal courts, based on the evidence that we have developed, he’s entitled to a new trial.”
The prospect of a second “trial of the century”-like legal drama in the Palmetto State would be an unkempt embarrassment for state law enforcement, the almost-retired judge who oversaw the case, and the citizens of Colleton County – where Hill is represented by defense attorneys.
The evidentiary hearing has yet to be scheduled. It is widely presumed the proceedings will be overseen by Judge Clifton Newman – the same jurist who oversaw the original double murder trial. That trial was the longest in South Carolina history.
As a condition of the order, Murdaugh’s attorneys are required to submit status updates to the appellate court every 30 days.
“Failure to file status updates may result in the dismissal of this appeal,” the order reads.
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