Alex Murdaugh denied new double-murder trial after judge hears jury tampering allegations

Murdaugh hasn't even started the regular appeals of his sentence, where his lawyers are expected to argue several reasons why his murder trial was unfair.

A South Carolina judge on Monday denied Alex Murdaugh‘s bid for a new trial after his defence team accused a clerk of court of tampering with a jury.

Judge Jean Toal said she wasn’t sure if Colleton County Clerk Becky Hill was telling the truth that she never spoke to jurors about the case, saying she was “attracted by the siren call of celebrity.”

But Toal said the 12 jurors who testified all said any comments did not directly influence their decision to find Murdaugh guilty.

Toal said after reviewing the full transcript of the six-week trial, she couldn’t overturn the verdict based “on the strength of some fleeting and foolish comments by a publicity-seeking clerk of court” because they didn’t actively change the jurors’ minds.

All 12 jurors took the 90-mile (145-kilometre) trip from Colleton County to Columbia to give what was typically about three minutes of testimony, mostly yes-or-no questions from the judge’s script. Murdaugh, now a convicted killer, disbarred lawyer and admitted thief serving a life sentence, wore an orange prison jumpsuit as he watched with his lawyers.

Hill also testified, denying she ever spoke about the case or Murdaugh at all with jurors.

“I never talked to any jurors about anything like that,” Hill said.

Toal questioned her truthfulness after Hill said she used “literary license” for some things she wrote about in her book about the trial, including whether she feared as she read the verdict that the jury might end up finding him not guilty.