{"id":28321,"date":"2026-05-13T19:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T19:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/28321\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T19:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T19:24:10","slug":"prosecutors-to-retry-alex-murdaugh-after-murder-convictions-overturned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/28321\/","title":{"rendered":"Prosecutors to retry Alex Murdaugh after murder convictions overturned"},"content":{"rendered":"

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) \u2014 The murder convictions and life sentence of Alex Murdaugh<\/a> were overturned Wednesday by the South Carolina Supreme Court because the court clerk at his trial suggested he was guilty, but the disgraced lawyer won\u2019t be leaving prison any time soon.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors say they plan to retry Murdaugh, which likely means there will be another lengthy trial<\/a> for the case that because of the combination of money, power, Southern accents and treachery has become a true crime sensation with several streaming miniseries, best selling books and dozens of true crime podcasts.<\/p>\n

Murdaugh,<\/a> 57, will remain in prison. He pleaded guilty to stealing around $12 million from his clients and currently is serving a 40-year federal sentence.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors promise a retrial that will look different<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said they would aggressively seek to try Murdaugh again on the murder charges with state Attorney General Alan Wilson saying he respected the court\u2019s decision but no one is above the law.<\/p>\n

Murdaugh\u2019s lawyers pointed out that trial will look a lot different, as the justices also ruled days of evidence at the murder trial about how Murdaugh stole from clients, many of them in dire straits, shouldn\u2019t be allowed next time.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlex has said from day one that he did not kill his wife and son. We look forward to a new trial,\u201d Murdaugh\u2019s lawyers Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n

Court said clerk attacked Murdaugh\u2019s credibility with jurors<\/p>\n

In their unanimous ruling Wednesday, the South Carolina Supreme Court said the conduct by Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill \u201cegregiously attacked Murdaugh\u2019s credibility\u201d by suggesting to jurors his testimony could not be trusted.<\/p>\n

A few jurors said Hill, assigned to oversee the evidence and the jury during the trial, told them to watch Murdaugh\u2019s body language when he testified in his own defense and to not be fooled, confused or thrown off by what he might say.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy urging the jurors not to be fooled or convinced by Murdaugh\u2019s defense, Hill essentially implored the jurors to find him guilty, the ultimate issue in the case,\u201d the justices wrote, adding that the comments insinuated there was something unusual and suspicious about his decision to testify.<\/p>\n

Hill \u201cplaced her fingers on the scales of justice, thereby denying Murdaugh his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury,\u201d the justices wrote. \u201cOur justice system provides \u2014 indeed demands \u2014 that every person is entitled to a fair trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court said Hill\u2019s motivation was the \u201csiren call of celebrity\u201d and her goal was to increase sales of her book on the trial called \u201cBehind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders.\u201d It was pulled from publication after plagiarism allegations were made.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs her book\u2019s 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,\u201d the justices wrote in an unsigned 27-page ruling.<\/p>\n

Hill\u2019s attorney in her criminal case didn\u2019t return a phone call or email seeking comment.<\/p>\n

Hill has pleaded guilty<\/a> to lying about what she said and did during the Murdaugh trial, including showing graphic crime scene photos to several media members. The journalists were not named and the photos were not described at her December hearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe court rightly described her conduct as \u201c\u2018breathtaking,\u2019 \u2018disgraceful,\u2019 and \u2018unprecedented in South Carolina,\u2019\u201d Murdaugh\u2019s lawyers said.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors argued that the clerk\u2019s comments were fleeting and the evidence against Murdaugh was overwhelming.<\/p>\n

Justices say financial crime evidence also improperly used<\/p>\n

The justices also had a warning for the next judge to try the murder case \u2014 be cautious on how much evidence of Murdaugh\u2019s thefts from his law firm and clients to allow those jurors to hear.<\/p>\n

Some brief evidence of how Mudaugh stole is fine and how it might connect to him killing his wife and son. But the court said details like how some of the people Murdaugh stole from were disabled or vulnerable could unfairly turn against him jurors who should be focused just on whether he killed his family.<\/p>\n

Investigators said Murdaugh was addicted to opioids and his complex schemes to steal money from clients and his family\u2019s law firm were starting to unravel when he shot his younger son, Paul, with a shotgun and his wife, Maggie, with a rifle,<\/a> at their home in Colleton County in 2021.<\/p>\n

Murdaugh told investigators he hadn\u2019t seen them for an hour or so before he discovered their bodies, but his voice was recorded in a video on his son\u2019s phone made about five minutes before the killing.<\/p>\n

The weapons used in the killings have not been found<\/a> and prosecutors did not present any clothes with DNA or blood evidence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) \u2014 The murder convictions and life sentence of Alex Murdaugh were overturned Wednesday by the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[17265,17264,61,17268,56,17267,50,8,224,17266,927,2635,9,2038,2039,2914,7,2636,54],"class_list":{"0":"post-28321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-alan-wilson","9":"tag-alex-murdaugh","10":"tag-ap-top-news","11":"tag-becky-hill","12":"tag-courts","13":"tag-dick-harpootlian","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-homicide","17":"tag-jim-griffin","18":"tag-juries","19":"tag-legal-proceedings","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-sc-state-wire","22":"tag-south-carolina","23":"tag-theft","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-trials","26":"tag-u-s-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116568906990800402","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}