New Homicide Trial for Alex Murdaugh? A Decide Will Quickly Resolve.

On the climax of probably the most carefully watched trials in South Carolina historical past, the packed courtroom was silent apart from one girl: the court docket clerk, who learn the responsible verdicts aloud in March 2023 that put Alex Murdaugh, a outstanding lawyer, in jail for all times for the homicide of his spouse and son.

Now, a brand new court docket listening to is getting underway on Monday to find out whether or not the clerk, Rebecca Hill, improperly influenced the jurors who voted to convict Mr. Murdaugh, 55, and whether or not Mr. Murdaugh ought to have a brand new trial.

A state police company is investigating allegations from Mr. Murdaugh’s legal professionals that Ms. Hill made feedback through the trial that might have influenced the jurors’ votes. Among the many allegations are that Ms. Hill informed jurors to not be “fooled” by Mr. Murdaugh’s protection, that she had personal conversations with a juror, and that she informed jurors earlier than they began deliberating that “this shouldn’t take us long.”

Ms. Hill has not been charged, and he or she has denied most of the most severe allegations. She and the jurors are anticipated to testify on Monday at a listening to in Columbia, S.C., that’s a part of Mr. Murdaugh’s enchantment of his convictions.

Decide Jean Toal, a former chief justice of the South Carolina Supreme Courtroom, will decide what Ms. Hill did, whether or not her actions might have altered the end result of the trial and whether or not Mr. Murdaugh ought to get a brand new trial. It’s not but recognized whether or not she is going to rule from the bench on Monday or subject an opinion later.

The allegations towards Ms. Hill, which Mr. Murdaugh’s legal professionals first raised in September, are one other twist within the tragic story of the Murdaugh murders, a criminal offense that has horrified and fascinated observers across the nation since June 2021, when Mr. Murdaugh’s spouse, Maggie, and their youthful son, Paul, had been shot to dying.

Mr. Murdaugh has at all times maintained his innocence. However a key video proven at his trial revealed that he was on the household’s canine kennels along with his spouse and son shortly earlier than they had been killed, contradicting his declare that he had not been with them at the moment. Jurors deliberated for lower than three hours earlier than returning the responsible verdicts that Ms. Hill learn.

Mr. Murdaugh had been stealing thousands and thousands of {dollars} from purchasers and regulation companions for years earlier than the murders. Prosecutors mentioned within the homicide trial that he had carried out the killings in a weird, failed try to achieve sympathy and cease his regulation agency from scrutinizing his funds.

Although he’s difficult his homicide convictions, Mr. Murdaugh has admitted to having stolen huge sums of cash through the years. He pleaded guilty in November to a series of financial crimes and was sentenced to an extra 27 years in jail.

Ms. Hill was a fixture of the courtroom in Walterboro, S.C., throughout Mr. Murdaugh’s homicide trial. She later wrote a ebook in regards to the trial, the preface of which she recently admitted to plagiarizing from a draft of a BBC article.

For the reason that allegations towards Ms. Hill emerged, a number of jurors have mentioned in written statements to the police that they didn’t hear any inappropriate feedback from Ms. Hill or really feel strain to convict Mr. Murdaugh.

Attorneys with the South Carolina legal professional common’s workplace who prosecuted the case have argued in court docket papers that the claims about Ms. Hill are “unfounded and not credible.” They’ve argued that the recollections of 1 juror about inappropriate feedback from Ms. Hill could also be a results of the juror misremembering issues that prosecutors had mentioned at trial.

Even when Ms. Hill did make inappropriate feedback, the state legal professionals argued, the feedback weren’t sufficient to affect the jurors of their choice.

The listening to is about to start at 9:30 a.m. on Monday on the Richland County courthouse in Columbia.

Mr. Murdaugh, who has been disbarred, is a fourth-generation lawyer whose household had huge affect within the authorized world of South Carolina’s Lowcountry area. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather had every led a prosecutor’s workplace within the area — in complete, for greater than 80 years — and the household ran a regulation agency within the small city of Hampton for even longer.