SC Supreme Court sets February to hear appeal in historic Murdaugh murder case

The six-week trial in which disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh was found guilty of killing his wife and son has been over nearly three years.

But the case — which millions watched live on Court TV — lives on.

And at 9:30 a.m. February 11, the five-member S.C. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments by Murdaugh’s defense attorneys asking that his convictions for killing wife Maggie and son Paul be overturned, and he be granted a new trial, according to a court scheduling document..

The appeal date was releasedTuesday by the S.C. Supreme Court, the document shows.

Defense attorneys Dick Harpootlian, Phil Barber and Jim Griffin have two main avenues of attack.

First, they allege that former Colleton County clerk of court Becky Hill, a state official, improperly swayed one or more jurors to vote to find Murdaugh guilty. Hill’s intrusion “infected the trial with unfairness” and denied Murdaugh his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury, they argue in a brief.

Secondly, they contend that the extensive information about Murdaugh’s financial crimes that state Judge Clifton Newman allowed the jury to hear about from 10 witnesses unfairly prejudiced the jury against Murdaugh, who had not yet pleaded guilty to the thefts at that point. Allowing witnesses to testify about Murdaugh’s embezzlements reflected badly on Murdaugh’s character and violated longstanding norms that say in a criminal case, the jury should only be “presented with evidence relevant to the charged crimes,” the brief said.

“The State was improperly permitted to introduce evidence of Murdaugh’s alleged financial crimes solely to impugn his character to bolster its otherwise weak case,” Murdaugh’s attorneys wrote.

Prosecutors, including senior assistant deputy attorney general Creighton Waters and deputy attorney general Don Zelenka, fired back at Murdaugh’s allegation in their final, 178-page brief filed Nov. 5.

“The jury convicted (Murdaugh) because he was obviously guilty, not because three jurors heard Becky Hill’s ’foolish and fleeting’ comments about his upcoming testimony,” prosecutors wrote.

Prosecutors also wrote that trial Judge Newman did not abuse his discretion by letting witnesses testify about substantial evidence about Murdaugh’s financial crimes and how he was on the brink of ruin and exposure when Paul and Maggie were killed.

Evidence about the financial crimes let the jury know why — the motive — for the killings, which was to distract authorities from learning about Murdaugh’s desperate straits, prosecutors wrote.

“On the date of the murders, (Murdaugh) was under unimaginable pressure that had been building for years, and he was desperate to save himself from the dire consequences he was facing, including decades of potential imprisonment, disbarment from the practice of law, the loss of his job and reputation, profound humiliation and disgrace, true financial annihilation, and the destruction of his firm and family legacy. Ultimately, the murders served as (Murdaugh’s) means to shift the focus away and gain himself some additional time to try and prevent his financial crimes from being uncovered, and that was his motive to commit them.

The murders were a “stunning distraction” from the 10 years of thefts during which Murdaugh stole $9.2 million, prosecutors wrote.

Judge Newman allowed the testimony about the financial crimes to show Murdaugh’s motive for the killings and not as proof that he actually committed the illegal acts, the prosecutors’ brief said.

Murdaugh contends he is innocent. He was sentenced to two consecutive life terms, He is serving them in state prison in the western part of South Carolina.

This story was originally published November 25, 2025 at 11:34 AM.