Days after getting his double murder convictions overturned by the South Carolina Supreme Court, Alex Murdaugh is suing the court clerk accused of tainting the jury pool.
As reported on Tuesday’s AM Update, Murdaugh’s legal team filed a 17-page lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Charleston against Rebecca “Becky” Hill, the former former Colleton County court clerk who oversaw the jury during his 2023 murder trial.
Convictions Overturned
Murdaugh was convicted in March 2023 of murdering his wife, Maggie, and his son, Paul, after a six-week trial. He was sentenced to life in prison in the case that captivated the nation and shattered one of South Carolina’s most prominent legal families.
Months after the convictions, Murdaugh’s attorneys filed a bombshell motion for a new trial, claiming they had uncovered evidence of jury tampering. A judge denied that request in January 2024, but his legal team immediately vowed to appeal.
Last week, the South Carolina Supreme Court unanimously overturned the murder convictions after finding Murdaugh was denied his right to a fair trial because of Hill’s improper influence on the jury.
The decision ordered the entire murder case to be retried. The justices acknowledged the enormous time, money, and effort spent on the original trial but wrote it had “no choice” but to send the case back for a new one.
According to the decision, Hill “placed her fingers on the scales of justice” after finding she suggested to jurors they should not trust Murdaugh’s testimony, told them not to be “fooled” or “confused” by the defense, and pressured the jury to reach a quick verdict.
The Civil Suit
Murdaugh’s attorneys are now using that ruling as the foundation for a new lawsuit against Hill. “In this lawsuit, we filed under the federal civil rights statute 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to redress constitutional deprivation of rights. Those rights were Alex’s right to a fair trial, a right that him be tried before an untampered, untainted jury,” lawyer Jim Griffin explained during a Monday press conference.
“With the South Carolina Supreme Court’s ruling, it has been adjudged as a matter of state law that she deprived Alex of his constitutional rights, deprived him of a right to a fair trial, and, as a result, we’ve got to do it all over again, which nobody wants to do,” he added.
Murdaugh’s attorneys pointed to what they say was Hill’s motive, alleging she used her access to the trial and the jurors as an opportunity for financial gain. After the verdict, Hill co-wrote a book about the case titled Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders. Her co-author, Neil R. Gordon, later told NBC News that the book generated about $100,000 in profits – 65 percent of which went to Hill and her husband.
The civil lawsuit claims Hill pushed jurors into a guilty verdict because “she wanted to write a book about the most high-profile trial in South Carolina history so she could buy a lake house.”
Murdaugh is seeking compensatory damages, punitive damages, attorney’s fees, and court costs. According to the complaint, Murdaugh spent approximately $600,000 on his original murder defense. Griffin said that any money his client is awarded as a result of this lawsuit will not go to him.
“Let me be clear, Alex Murdaugh owes a lot of people a lot of money. None of this money that is recovered will go to him personally,” he explained. “The purpose of this lawsuit is to hold Becky Hill accountable for what she did… and two is to investigate exactly what she did, which we’ll be able to do through the course of civil litigation. We have subpoena power, we can take depositions, and so we’re going to be able to understand the entire scope of her conduct. She has yet to be thoroughly investigated by the state, and she has not been held accountable by the state.”
Previous Punishment
Hill has denied improperly influencing the jury, though she resigned from her position in 2024 and pleaded guilty in a separate criminal case tied to the Murdaugh trial late last year. In that case, she admitted she showed sealed court exhibits to a photographer and lied about it in court. The judge sentenced her to one year of probation.
As for Murdaugh, he remains in prison on separate financial crimes convictions. He is serving a 40-year federal sentence after pleading guilty to stealing millions from clients, along with a concurrent 27-year state sentence for similar charges.
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