The South Carolina Supreme Court overturned the murder convictions of Alex Murdaugh, who was convicted in 2023 of double homicide. He was sentenced to two life sentences for killing his wife and son and is serving an additional 40 years for financial crimes.
The court ruled 5-0 in favor of Murdaugh’s appeal, CBS News reports, explaining that the jury’s efforts were “in vain because Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill placed her fingers on the scales of justice, thereby denying Murdaugh his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury.”
“Our justice system provides—indeed demands—that every person is entitled to a fair trial, which includes an impartial jury untainted by external forces bent on influencing the jury toward a biased verdict,” the court wrote. “Although we are aware of the time, money, and effort expended for this lengthy trial, we have no choice but to reverse the denial of Murdaugh’s motion for a new trial due to Hill’s improper external influences on the jury and remand for a new trial.”
A post-trial court found that Hill “made improper comments to the jurors on the day Murdaugh testified, e.g., ‘this is an important day’ or ‘this is an epic day’ and that they should watch Murdaugh’s body language, on the day he testified in his own defense,” according to Fox News. The report noted that court documents claimed that Hill tried to “insert herself into the jury’s deliberations through these comments was in line with her stated desire for a guilty verdict to sell more copies of the book she planned to write.”
