SC Supreme Court sets date to hear Murdaugh appeal for new trial

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCSC) — South Carolina’s highest court has placed an appeal for a new trial for convicted killer Alex Murdaugh on its calendar.

The South Carolina Supreme Court will hear Murdaugh’s appeal on Feb. 11, according to an updated court calendar.

A jury convicted Murdaugh on March 2, 2023, of murdering his wife, Maggie and son, Paul, at the family’s hunting property in rural Colleton County. The two were shot to death on the night of June 7, 2021.

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Murdaugh’s team requested a new trial, arguing he did not receive a fair trial because of alleged jury tampering by Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill. Retired South Carolina Chief Justice Jean Toal, who has presided over Murdaugh’s trials since his murder conviction, denied Murdaugh’s request for a new trial, while she acknowledged Hill was not credible and let attention get in the way of her duty.

SPECIAL SECTION: The Murdaugh Cases

Murdaugh’s lawyers claim the investigation into the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh was flawed, claiming prosecutors ignored evidence that would have exonerated their client, mispresented forensic findings and relied on “inflammatory but irrelevant financial evidence to distract from the absence of proof” that Murdaugh committed the murders.

The evidence, Murdaugh’s attorneys say, actually shows a “contaminated crime scene with ignored alternative suspect evidence.” They say first responders “trampled through the crime scene and feed room, destroying potential evidence” that included bloody footprints that “may have belonged to the alleged perpetrator(s).”

They also claim crime scene forensic agents from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division “did not attempt to lift fingerprints from the feed room doors, doorknobs, or entrance area” where Paul Murdaugh was killed, something they called “a fundamental failure in any homicide investigation.”

They also argued that “noticeable tire tracks in wet grass” that did not match any Murdaugh vehicles “were never followed or investigated, demonstrating investigative tunnel vision from the outset.”

The defense motion also claims “investigative malpractice” caused the loss of critical forensic evidence.

Prosecutors said Murdaugh should not get a new trial, arguing that the Colleton County jury convicted Murdaugh “because he was obviously guilty, not because three jurors heard Becky Hill’s ‘foolish and fleeting’ comments about his upcoming testimony” during the trial.

The state also refuted multiple arguments the defense supplied when initially requesting the new trial. Those arguments included claims that Judge Clifton Newman erred by allowing evidence of Murdaugh’s financial crimes or in overruling a defense objection to cross-examination on Murdaugh’s “failure to correct what he admitted during his own trial testimony had been multiple false statements to law enforcement, family and friends, indicating that he had not been at the kennels minutes before the double murder occurred.”

The response from the state also refuted defense arguments that opinion evidence from a qualified firearms expert, evidence of guns seized from Murdaugh’s home and a rain jacket seized from Murdaugh’s parents’ home, which tested positive for gunshot residue, should not have been admitted.