Posted on 05/13/2026 8:02:46 AM PDT by Miami Rebel
South Carolina’s top court on Wednesday undid the murder convictions against Alex Murdaugh, the lawyer a jury had found guilty of murdering his wife and one of his sons in a trial that captivated the country.
In a unanimous opinion, the state’s supreme court said that “shocking jury interference” by a court clerk who oversaw jurors during the 2023 trial meant that Mr. Murdaugh’s convictions must be overturned.
The nearly six-week trial ended with his conviction in March 2023. Jurors deliberated for less than three hours before determining that he had killed his wife and son. Prosecutors had described the murders as a desperate bid by Mr. Murdaugh to gain sympathy as his lies about drug use and theft were on the verge of being exposed.
Mr. Murdaugh, 57, will remain in prison because he also had pleaded guilty to various charges related to stealing millions of dollars from his law firm and his former clients. While he has admitted to embezzlement, he has long maintained — including during testimony at his trial — that he did not kill his wife, Maggie, 52, and his younger son, Paul, 22.
The ruling does not automatically mean he will face a new trial, though prosecutors are expected to pursue one.
The two victims were found shot to death in June 2021 on the family’s hunting estate, in a rural part of South Carolina known as the Lowcountry. The case went unsolved for more than a year before Mr. Murdaugh was arrested.
The case drew enormous attention because of the family’s storied history in the region. The Murdaugh family ran a prosecutor’s office and a prominent law firm there for decades, and Paul Murdaugh at the time of his death had been facing charges of drunkenly crashing a boat, killing a teenage passenger.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“Captivated the country”?
Never heard of it.
This time, the prosecutors should call for The Chair.
I don't want to give the NYT any clicks. They deserve none.
His trial was on the cable news channels.
She also admitted to promoting her book about the trial through her public office. She was sentenced to probation.
She was sentenced to probation.
~~~
That will deter people from doing this again. /sarc
““shocking jury interference” by a court clerk who oversaw jurors during the 2023 trial meant that Mr. Murdaugh’s convictions must be overturned.”
Here is where our system fails. The clerk was not anywhere near the location of the murders, which are still there and evidence displays who did it, so why does that “overturn” a trial decision? If the evidence was there, it won’t change, and he is just as guilty as he was in the first trial. I didn’t see anywhere where the acts of the clerk were threatening to the jurors so they would be forced to not call it murder and him the participant in it. This is called a technicality, not the spirit of the law or even the evidence it provides.
wy69
“In testimony, some of the jurors said that Ms. Hill had made comments about Mr. Murdaugh’s testimony at trial, including that they should not be “fooled” by him and to watch his body language.”
You are the only one who didnt.
I believe he was as guilty as OJ.
I don’t believe OJ did the deed himself.
OJ was likely at the scene, but the timeline is tight and I believe as did the jury that the LA police were out to frame a guy who was as guilty of the murders as those who actually did the deed.
Same thing here.
The timeline is tight.
I’m sure he was at the scene.
But there were two different weapons used and how the crime went down makes it hard to believe it was by a lone gunman.
He had a drug problem and he had a lot of motive.
But the Cousin Eddie connection was never clear and it was never clear where the money he stole went.
Hard to believe the amount involved all went to his pill addiction.
I find that amazing. It was everywhere for months. You couldn’t escape it. Maybe that is because I live in the South.
The state did not prove he didn’t prove he did it.
Money talks..............
Track the sources of the money that his legal team has been sucking down these past four years.
I am halfway wondering if she did what she did to SUPPORT Murdaugh. Knowing her actions would result in a mistrial. And since that didn’t happen, she wrote a book about the trial causing attention to herself and now a new trial is in order.
Did Murdaugh pay her off?
Or is she just that effing stupid? She ought to be in jail.
You are the only one who didnt.
_________________________
Nope. There’s two of us.
The case was unsolved for a year before the charges were brought. The son who he was to have murdred was being prosecuted for the death of a teenager at the time. What was his motive? Sounds like the family might have had enemies.
Or perhaps she had already started on the book and figured a guilty verdict would increase sales. Thus, she nudged the jury toward that outcome.
She ought to be charged for and forced to pay the cost of a new trial.
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