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☆ A hearing to see if Alex Murdaugh gets a new murder trial begins today
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-29 | by ( Dakin Andone | Dianne Gallagher | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

The South Carolina Attorney General’s office, which led the prosecution against Murdaugh, has urged the courts to deny the motion. The evidentiary hearing Monday is expected to include the testimony of 11 jurors from the original murder trial and Hill. Murdaugh’s attorneys had indicated they also wanted to call alternate and dismissed jurors, as well as prosecutors and Judge Clifton Newman, who presided over the murder trial, as witnesses. Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill listens as prosecutor Creighton Waters makes closing arguments in Alex Murdaugh's murder trial at the Colleton County Courthouse on March 1, 2023, in Walterboro, South Carolina. Alex Murdaugh's defense attorneys Dick Harpootlian, left, and Jim Griffin before a hearing on January 16 at the Richland County Judicial Center in Columbia.

Persons: Alex Murdaugh, Murdaugh, Colleton, Rebecca “ Becky ” Hill, Hill, “, ” Hill, Dick Harpootlian, Clifton Newman, Jean Toal –, Newman, –, Rebecca Hill, Creighton Waters, Alex Murdaugh's, Maggie, Paul, Alan Wilson, Ms, ”, ‘, ” Hill’s, Neil R, Gordon, Justin Bamberg, Will Lewis, Jim Griffin, Gavin McIntyre, ” Murdaugh’s, Judge Toal, ” CNN’s Devon Sayers Organizations: CNN, South Carolina Attorney, South Carolina Supreme, The State, TNS, Getty, Prosecutors, South Carolina, Judicial Center, Courier, South, South Carolina Law Locations: Colleton County, South Carolina, Colleton, Walterboro , South Carolina, The, Columbia , South Carolina, Richland, Columbia

Toal took over the request for a new trial after the judge overseeing the case, Clifton Newman, recused himself late last year. Hill has sworn that she did not ask jurors about Murdaugh’s guilt and never suggested that he committed the murders. State police are investigating the jury tampering and misuse of office allegations against Hill but have not charged her with any crimes. He said Hill told an assistant during the trial that a guilty verdict would be good for her book sales. Toal also expressed openness to other ways of ensuring the jurors' privacy, such as obscuring their faces during testimony.

Persons: Alex Murdaugh, Becky Hill, Jean Toal, Toal, Hill, Clifton Newman, “, Jan, Newman, Murdaugh, Maggie, Paul, Jim Griffin, Griffin, ” Toal, Creighton Waters, Waters, Dick Harpootlian, Joe McCulloch, ”, ___ Pollard Organizations: South Carolina Supreme, Defense, Court, Associated Press, America Statehouse News Initiative, America Locations: Colleton

They said the court clerk, in charge of helping jurors and ensuring the trial ran efficiently, also had private conversations with the jury foreperson and pressured jurors to come to a quick verdict. And she pressured jurors to reach a guilty verdict quickly so she could profit from it,” defense attorneys Jim Griffin and Dick Harpootlian wrote. Hill’s book discusses how her Christian faith helped her navigate the sudden fame and responsibility that came with the Murdaugh trial. She said she became convinced of Murdaugh’s guilt when jurors and court officials visited the family home where the shootings happened. “I was mostly concerned about Alex being found innocent when I knew in my heart he was guilty,” Hill wrote.

Persons: —, Alex Murdaugh, Rebecca Hill, Clifton Newman, Murdaugh, Hill, “, Jim Griffin, Dick Harpootlian, didn't, Neil Gordon, “ I’ve, ” Gordon, Alex, ” Hill, Murdaugh didn't Organizations: COLUMBIA, Hampton County Guardian, South Carolina Attorney General's Locations: South Carolina, Colleton, Southern, Hampton County

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Attorneys for convicted murder Alex Murdaugh want a new trial, accusing the court clerk of improperly influencing the jury. They're accusing the court clerk at his double murder trial of telling jurors not to trust him when he testified in his own defense. They say she also had private conversations with the jury foreperson, and pressured jurors to come to a quick verdict. The request filed by Murdaugh's lawyers on Tuesday also accuses Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill of giving jury members business cards from reporters. Murdaugh's lawyers said Hill's conduct was so egregious, it tainted the entire trial.

Persons: Alex Murdaugh, They're, Rebecca Hill, ” “, Hill, ”, Jim Griffin, Dick Harpootlian, Murdaugh, Murdaugh's, Clifton Newman, “ I’m, “, Hill's Organizations: COLUMBIA, South, South Carolina Court of, Associated Press, Division Locations: Colleton, New York City, South Carolina, Hill, Carolina

[1/3] Packaged food for sale is seen on shelves at a Dollar Tree in Islandia, New York, U.S., May 12, 2023. Razor manufacturer Edgewell Personal Care Co (EPC.N) and Kraft Heinz Co (KHC.O) have overhauled or built new teams dedicated to working with the biggest U.S. dollar stores like Dollar Tree Inc (DLTR.O) and Dollar General Corp (DG.N) in the last year. Makers of food and household staples are pushing deeper into dollar stores because the low-cost retailers are opening thousands of locations each year. Griffin added that dollar stores are also introducing more "premium" private label brands, like Dollar General's Nature's Menu for pets. Kraft-Heinz also created a new team of five people late last year to identify and develop products for dollar stores, a spokesman said.

But the perceived spectacle means that not only will Murdaugh be on display — so will the county seat of Walterboro, population 5,460. “We didn’t want this, but it’s happening, and it’s here,” Scott Grooms, Walterboro’s director of tourism and downtown development, said last week. A portrait of Randolph "Buster" Murdaugh Jr., Alex Murdaugh's late grandfather, was removed from the Colleton County Courthouse ahead of Alex Murdaugh's trial. From left, Paul, Margaret and Alex Murdaugh. While he didn’t know Alex Murdaugh personally, he said few with longstanding ties in the area had not been touched by the Murdaughs’ orbit in one way or another.

Then, in 2019, Paul Murdaugh was involved in a boat crash that resulted in injuries and claimed the life of a 19-year-old passenger, Mallory Beach. Waters said that the plaintiffs were expecting to get a "personal recovery" from Murdaugh, whose financial situation was growing increasingly bleaker. via FacebookState grand jury subpoenas had been issued in the boat crash case in 2021, and at the time of the killings of Margaret and Paul Murdaugh on June 7, Paul Murdaugh was facing trial. The bodies of the wife and son were discovered by Alex Murdaugh at the family's hunting estate in rural Islandton, about 65 miles west of Charleston. But with the death of his wife and son, Murdaugh benefited because his law firm halted its questioning and a hearing in the boat case was canceled, according to Waters.

Hours later, his firm — Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth & Detrickhe — releases its own statement alleging Murdaugh had misappropriated company funds. Jan. 21, 2022A grand jury indicts Murdaugh on 23 new charges, including breach of trust with fraudulent intent and computer crimes. Jan. 24, 2022A legal claim is filed against the estates of Margaret and Paul Murdaugh by the mother of Mallory Beach, 19, who was killed in a boat crash in 2019. May 4, 2022Prosecutors announce that Murdaugh is facing four new charges related to financial crimes also involving Fleming and others. July 14, 2022A grand jury announces an indictment against Murdaugh on double murder charges in the deaths of Margaret and Paul.

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