The new judge handling the fallout over Alex Murdaugh’s murder convictions plans to hold an evidentiary hearing late next month.
Murdaugh’s lawyers want another trial in the killings of the former lawyer’s wife and younger son, citing allegations that the court clerk improperly influenced the jury.
The defence will get to put forth evidence at a three-day hearing expected to begin on January 29, according to a tentative schedule shared by a media liaison for former South Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Toal.
Jurors, the clerk and even the trial judge might have to testify under oath.
Murdaugh is serving life imprisonment without parole after a jury found him guilty in March of killing his wife, Maggie, and younger son, Paul, in June 2021.
He was sentenced in November for stealing about 12 million dollars (£9.4 million) to an additional 27 years behind bars under a plea deal that resolved scores of state crimes related to money laundering, breach of trust and financial fraud.
Ms Toal must decide whether to re-run a murder trial that lasted six weeks, involved more than 70 witnesses and included about 800 exhibits. The state’s highest court appointed Ms Toal to oversee the weighty matter of a new trial after Judge Clifton Newman recused himself.
Mr Newman, who rose to celebrity in true crime circles for his deft guidance of the highly watched case, is set to leave the bench after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 72.
Central to the appeal are accusations that Colleton County clerk of court Becky Hill tampered with the jury.
Murdaugh’s lawyers said in a September filing that the elected official asked jurors whether Murdaugh was guilty or innocent, told them not to believe Murdaugh’s testimony and pressured jurors to reach a guilty verdict for her own profit.
Ms Hill is also said to have flown to New York City to be with three jurors during their post-trial television interviews and allegedly shared journalists’ business cards with jurors during the proceedings.
Ms Hill has denied the allegations in a sworn statement, saying she neither asked jurors about Murdaugh’s guilt before deliberations nor suggested to them that he committed the murders.
Adding to the intrigue is the recent revelation that Ms Hill plagiarised part of her book about the case.
Ms Hill’s lawyers acknowledged in a statement on December 26 that she submitted a BBC reporter’s writing to her co-author “as if it were her own words”.
The lawyers expressed Ms Hill’s remorse and said the book has been unpublished “for the foreseeable future”.
