OAN’s Abril Elfi
4:01 PM – Wednesday, October 18, 2023
An appeals court has allowed Alex Murdaugh to request a new trial date after alleged court tampering.
On Tuesday, Murdaugh’s motion to suspend his conviction appeal was granted by the South Carolina Court of Appeals, and the case was sent to circuit court to explore charges of jury tampering by the Colleton County clerk.
In September, Murdaugh’s defense team requested a new trial, claiming that Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill had inappropriate conversations with a number of jurors.
They asserted that, because of this, it would deny their client of a fair trial.
They also allegedly heard from three separate jurors who claimed that Hill told them not to trust Murdaugh during his own defense testimony.
The lawyers argued that Hill’s communications may have persuaded or removed jurors who were sympathetic to Murdaugh.
“She asked jurors about their opinions about Mr. Murdaugh’s guilt or innocence,” defense attorneys wrote. “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.”
The clerk that read the guilty verdict in the high-profile case who then proceeded to later publish a tell-all book called “Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders,” has denied the allegations.
Hill’s book explains how her Christian faith helped her deal with the sudden celebrity and responsibility that the Murdaugh trial brought her.
She also stated that when jurors and court officials visited the family residence where the shootings occurred, she felt convinced of Murdaugh’s culpability. She noted that she was worried as she awaited the verdicts.
“I was mostly concerned about Alex being found innocent when I knew in my heart he was guilty.”
In March, Murdaugh, who is a disbarred attorney, was given a life sentence without parole in a South Carolina prison for killing his 52-year-old wife Maggie Murdaugh and their youngest son, 22-year-old Paul Murdaugh.
Murdaugh has denied any involvement in the murders since his family’s deaths in June 2021, but has pleaded guilty to stealing millions of dollars from his past clients.
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