Alex Murdaugh is returning to a South Carolina courtroom, but this time the convicted killer, disbarred attorney and admitted thief won’t be fidgeting in the spotlight.
Instead, it’s the jurors who found him guilty of the shooting deaths of his wife and son who’ll be questioned by a judge. The unusual hearing Monday comes in response to allegations by Murdaugh’s attorneys that a clerk of court tampered with the jury that convicted him of murder last year.
Colleton County Clerk Becky Hill also is expected to be grilled by lawyers for Murdaugh, whose fall from his role as an attorney lording over his small county to a sentence of life without parole has been exhaustively covered by true crime shows, podcasts and bloggers.
Jury tampering is the basis for Murdaugh’s appeal, but Judge Jean Toal’s rulings after a pretrial hearing this month have set a difficult standard for his lawyers to prove.
Toal ruled the defense must prove that potential misconduct including alleged comments by Hill warning jurors not to trust Murdaugh when he testifies directly led jurors to change their minds to guilty.