Convicted double murderer Alex Murdaugh's appeal to overturn his verdict and seek a new trial is being combatted by state prosecutors, calling the claims that the Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill engaged in jury tampering as "conspiracy theory".
“Never does the law permit highly motivated convicts to put their own jury on trial,” reads a 25-page Tuesday filing in Colleton County state court signed by the state Attorney General as well as three state prosecutors, and cited by The State.
It added that the incarcerated embezzler and disbarred attorney, who is currently serving life in prison without parole for the slayings of his wife Maggie, and son Paul at their family's hunting estate back in the summer of 2021.
To back up their argument not to grant Murdaugh a second trial, the document showcases how South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) interviewed nine of the 12 jurors who deliberated and found Murdaugh guilty.
“None of the jurors who were willingly interviewed with SLED reported feeling any pressure or influence to reach their verdict,” according to The State, noting that three jurors requested to not be interviewed.
The document describes any tampering allegations raised by Murdaugh's legal team to score a new trial as based on falsehoods, noting that any accusations of jury tampering are based on “a sweeping conspiracy theory about wholly irrelevant Facebook posts.”
In response to the prosecutors' filed document that is attempting to torpedo the convict's appeal, Murdaugh attorney Jim Griffin told the outlet, “We have received the state’s filing and are reviewing it and will be submitting our response in a future court filing.”
The effort to comes in response to a 65-page motion lodged by the defense pointing their finger at Colleton County clerk of court Rebecca Hill of supposedly telling jurors “not to believe Murdaugh’s testimony and other evidence presented by the defense [and] pressuring them to reach a quick guilty verdict."
It continued: "[Hill] even misrepresented critical and material information to the trial judge in her campaign to remove a juror she believed to be favorable to the defense."
Prosecutors countered in their document that the trial and conviction of Murdaugh was just.
“The greater weight of anticipated juror and court staff testimony is that Clerk Hill made no materially improper statements. ... Any evidentiary hearing (a hearing with witnesses) will only reaffirm that validity of his convictions for the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh,” the papers say, according to The State.
“Furthermore, even if Clerk Hill made any improper comments to the jury, the State has found no juror that will aver that anything Clerk Hill said or did influenced their verdict."
