Judge Newman steps down from Murdaugh murder appeals, but stays on for finance crimes

South Carolina Judge Clifton Newman, who presided over Alex Murdaugh’s six-week double murder trial earlier this year, has recused himself from future proceedings and appeals in the murder case.

At the same time, Newman will stay on as the presiding judge in an upcoming trial involving some of Murdaugh’s numerous financial crimes.

Those were the two significant decrees in a terse, one-page order on Thursday by the S.C. Supreme Court:

“Judge Newman has requested that a new judge be assigned to handle the post-trial motions involving the murder charges,” said the order, signed by all five high court justices.

In the same order, the justices denied a motion by Murdaugh’s attorneys to stay, or delay, the Nov. 27 trial, and to remove Newman from that case too.

“The trial scheduled to begin on Nov. 27, 2023, shall go forward as planned,” the justices wrote.

The order gave no reason for Newman’s self-recusal on the murder cases. Newman is scheduled to retire at the end of December. The financial crimes trial is not expected to last into the New Year.

Last March 2, Murdaugh was found guilty by a Colleton County jury of killing his wife, Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22, at their Colleton County estate in June 2021. The next day, Newman sentenced him to two consecutive life sentences.

Thursday’s order was in response to motions filed in the Supreme Court by Murdaugh’s lawyers requesting that Newman be removed from hearing motions in the murder cases because he was involved in some of the events that are the basis for their requests for a new trial. Because Newman has stepped down from the case, the issue is now moot, or irrelevant, the justices said.

A financial crimes pre-trial hearing is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 17, at 10 a.m. in the Beaufort County courthouse. Newman is expected to preside.

The subject of that hearing has not been announced.

But on Thursday, Murdaugh’s attorneys filed a motion in Beaufort County asking that the trial be delayed until well into 2024 and that Newman be removed from that case. Extensive negative publicity from Murdaugh’s murder trial will make it impossible for him to get a fair and impartial jury, Murdaugh’s lawyers said. They also seek a change of venue.

Newman has violated judicial canons of ethics because he has expressed his personal opinions in various forums, including on the NBC Today show, that Murdaugh killed his wife and son, the motion said. The motion cited an affidavit by University of South Carolina Law School professor emeritus Gregory Adams that says Newman is biased against Murdaugh.

Prosecutors have disputed that Newman is biased.

Judges are not supposed to express opinions about ongoing cases.

The Nov. 27 trial, if held, will focus on a set of charges involving the 2018-2019 theft of $4 million in inheritance insurance proceeds generated from the death of longtime Murdaugh family housekeeper Gloria Satterfield. She died in February 2018 in a fall at the Murdaughs’ house, and Murdaugh has pled guilty in federal court to concocting a scheme to divert the money from Satterfield’s heirs to his own pocket.

State prosecutors are going ahead with separate criminal proceedings against Murdaugh in state court because, they say, Murdaugh’s victims deserve their day in court. State prosecutors brought the Satterfield charges against Murdaugh in the fall of 2021, more than a year before federal prosecutors brought financial crimes charges against Murdaugh.

This story was originally published November 16, 2023 at 3:02 PM.