Disgraced South Carolina legal scion Alex Murdaugh will have a much better shot at being acquitted of his wife and son’s murders after the state Supreme Court stunningly overturned his conviction Wednesday, legal experts told The Post.
Murdaugh, 57, has been serving two consecutive life sentences without parole for the brutal 2021 executions of his wife, Maggie, and their 22-year-old son, Paul, after a jury found him guilty of the slayings following a dramatic six-week trial in 2023.
Now, he he will get another chance argue his long-professed innocence, after the court tossed the conviction over misconduct by former Colleton County Clerk Becky Hill.
Defense attorneys say a retrial could play out very differently than the first case.
“[Murdaugh’s defense lawyers] can try to attack the case from a different angle, so I think he has higher odds of being acquitted now than he did before, simply because it’s been some time and his team knows how people think about it,” Columbia-based defense lawyer Tyler Bailey said.
“I think now the public opinion of him is out there – all the Netflix specials, Hulu specials, public commentary…and this trial was highly publicized,” Bailey explained.
“So his defense team has the benefit of knowing what everybody thinks, [and] they could find a new angle or way to present their case.”
“If the defense completely reworks their strategy in presenting expert testimony, now that they know exactly what the prosecution is going to do…it could significantly improve his chances of acquittal,” agreed fellow Columbia defense attorney Dayne Phillips.
Still, Murdaugh faces an uphill battle because of the mountain of evidence prosecutors presented the first time around.
“It’s still an incredibly difficult position that he’s in, given the strength of the evidence that the prosecution has against him,” Phillips said.
Finding jurors with no preconceived opinions about the nationally-publicized case will also present a major challenge, both lawyers said.
It will be “a true nightmare to try to find 12 impartial jurors who know a very limited amount of the case now,” Phillips warned.
“I think it’s going to be impossible, just about, or improbable to find 12 people who don’t know anything about the case.”
Even jurors who insist they can remain fair may still pose problems for Murdaugh, he added, because “it’s very difficult for a defense attorney…to be able to get them struck.”
Bailey predicted the retrial would become another enormously expensive spectacle – and wondered whether Murdaugh could even afford the same prestigious legal team.
Both experts blasted the massive amount of taxpayer money already poured into the now-overturned trial – which Phillips said was the longest state criminal trial in South Carolina history.
“Everything that went into convening that jury, the press that was there, the amount of witnesses that were there, the witnesses that had to testify for authenticating things like digital evidence, the expert witnesses that were paid to testify…all of that in the marathon trial, and now that verdict is just thrown to the side,” Bailey said.
“It’s a travesty, a waste of resources and it should have never happened – if she just would have kept her thoughts to herself, the verdict would have stood,” he fumed, referring to Hill, whom the defense accused of jury tampering.
Prosecutors’ efforts to get a conviction for Murdaugh “were in vain” because Hill “placed her fingers on the scales of justice, thereby denying Murdaugh his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury,” the state Supreme Court justices wrote about their 5-0 ruling in a 27-page report released Wednesday.
Hill pleaded guilty in December to obstruction of justice, perjury, and two counts of misconduct in office after admitting she showed sealed crime scene photos to a reporter, lied about it and improperly promoted her book about the trial through her public office. She was sentenced to probation.
“Any time you have somebody that has sworn an oath to administer the court and to follow the rules of the court, and they violate that in such an egregious way, it is an absolute abhorrent thing,” Phillips fumed. “It flies in the face of the administration of justice.”
“There is going to be an unbelievable amount of resources put into the retrial on all sides. It is almost unfathomable,” he added.
While Bailey said there’s a chance Murdaugh could plead guilty, Pillips put the odds of the disgraced lawyer accepting a plea bargain at “less than one percent.”
“I would be shocked if the prosecution presents a plea offer and I would be equally as shocked if Murdaugh was to accept that offer and plead guilty. I think this is a case where both sides are rooted in their stances and the retrial is inevitable,” Phillips said.
“It is pretty clear that he’s most likely going to serve the rest of his life in prison,” the attorney continued. “However, the distinction is that he has always maintained his innocence that he did not murder his wife and son. His position is to obviously fight and defend that stain on him.”
Despite the overturned conviction, Murdaugh will remain behind bars serving concurrent 40-year federal and 27-year state sentences for financial crimes for stealing from his clients.
Murdaugh’s defense team said it “respected” the Supreme Court justices’ decision Wednesday to also limit the amount of testimony about Murdaugh’s financial crimes that the prosecution will be allowed to introduce during the double-murder retrial.
“The initial jury heard more than twelve hours of testimony about Alex’s financial crimes. The Court held that this evidence went far beyond what was necessary and gave rise to unfair prejudice. On retrial, that will not be permitted,” lawyers Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin wrote in the joint statement.
“Alex has said from day one that he did not kill his wife and son. We look forward to a new trial conducted consistent with the Constitution and the guidance this Court has provided,” they said.
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said his office disagrees with the Supreme Court’s decision but “will aggressively seek to retry Alex Murdaugh for the murders of Maggie and Paul as soon as possible.”
“No one is above the law and, as always, we will continue to fight for justice,” Wilson said.
