COLUMBIA, SC (AP) — Appeals have just begun for the disgraced former South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaughwho has been serving a life sentence without parole for nearly three years for the killing of his wife and son.
The South Carolina Supreme Court has agreed to hear Murdaugh’s appeal of his murder convictions, which his lawyers said were the result of Manipulation of the jury from the clerk who oversaw the jury during his six-week trial.
And in federal court, Murdaugh appeals the 40 years imprisonment The sentence came after he pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $11 million from clients and his law firm.
Defense attorneys said the sentence – 10 years longer than the maximum recommended in sentencing guidelines – was too harsh under the U.S. Constitution. Prosecutors said it was a safeguard in case Murdaugh, now 56, ever gets his sentence. Conviction for murder overturned.
His appeals will take years. The courts have not even begun to hear the core of Murdaugh’s argument that the judge in his murder trial made mistakes, for example by This allowed him to use his stolen money as evidenceThis was crucial to the prosecution’s argument that the murders were intended to arouse sympathy and buy time so that the thefts would not be discovered.
The defense said the jury was unfairly angered by the evidence when it was supposed to focus only on the homicide.
Appeal for jury manipulation
Appealing a jury tampering charge in state court is relatively straightforward.
A lower court judge declined to overturn Murdaugh’s conviction after his lawyers argued that as Clerk of Court of Colleton County, Becky Hill told jurors at his murder trial not to trust Murdaugh’s testimony, held confidential conversations with the jury foreman, and pressured jurors to reach a quick verdict. Hill later resigned amid an ethics investigation.
Judge Jean Toal, a retired chief justice of the state Supreme Court who is handling the appeal, pointed to the standard set in a previous South Carolina Supreme Court ruling that to overturn a jury tampering conviction, a finding must be made that a juror changed his mind as a result of the undue influence.
Murdaugh’s lawyers argued that a federal judge’s decision in another case should apply instead, and that the defendant only needs to prove that his conduct had the potential to influence the jury.
In the state Supreme Court’s ex parte order Tuesday granting the appeal, Murdaugh’s lawyers were given 30 days to present their arguments but did not set a date for a hearing.
Federal appeal against 40-year prison sentence for theft
In the federal case, Murdaugh’s lawyers argued that his right to protection from cruel and unusual punishment under the U.S. Constitution was violated because Judge Richard Gergel ignored the federal officials’ recommended prison sentence of 17.5 to nearly 22 years and sentenced Murdaugh to 40 years.
Prosecutors had asked for 30 years, so Murdaugh would have to remain in prison for the rest of his life regardless of his murder conviction.
In their response to his appeal, federal prosecutors simply noted that when Murdaugh agreed to plead guilty, he signed a document stating that he would not appeal unless prosecutors were lying or his defense attorneys were inadequate.
Murdaugh robbed his customers in wrongful death and assault cases. At the sentencing, Gergel said Murdaugh stole from “the most needy and vulnerable people,” including a client who suffered quadriplegia after an accident, a police officer who was injured on the job, and a trust fund for children whose parents had died in an accident.
And these people had entrusted “all their problems and all their hopes” to their lawyer, said Gergel.
To argue for a lighter sentence, Murdaugh’s lawyers compared his case to the 25-year prison sentence for crypto entrepreneurs Sam Bankman Fried or the 11-year prison sentence for the CEO of Theranos Elizabeth Holmesand said they stole billions, while Murdaugh’s thefts ran into the millions.
But the victims in these cases were investors, while Murdaugh stole from defenseless people who trusted him to protect their legal interests.
Murdaugh’s lawyers want the conviction overturned and a new judge to thoroughly review the case to decide whether the 40-year prison sentence is fair.
Prosecutors said this was almost unheard of in the United States, saying the only relevant case they could find involved a life sentence for writing a bad check for $100.
The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, randomly assigned a three-judge panel to hear the case.
The Murdaugh case in brief
Investigators said Murdaugh was addicted to opioids and his complex plans to steal money from clients and his family’s law firm began to unravel when He shot his younger son Paul with a shotgun and his wife Maggie with a rifle. at her home in Colleton County in 2021.
Murdaugh told investigators he had not seen them for about an hour before discovering their bodies, but his voice was recorded on a video on his son’s phone taken about five minutes before the murder. Statement in his own defense During his six-week trial, Murdaugh said he was scared and lied to police about some details because he was addicted to drugs, but he vehemently denied killing his wife and son.
The weapons used in the murders were not found and prosecutors were unable to produce any clothing items containing DNA or blood traces.
Murdaugh’s family controlled much of the legal system in tiny Hampton CountyHis father, grandfather and great-grandfather were elected prosecutors for 87 years. The family also founded the county’s largest private law firm.
Murdaugh paid his lawyers $600,000 at the start of his legal troubles, and although it is unclear whether they received any more money, he has vowed to fight the convictions for as long as possible.
Meanwhile, his case remains an obsession in the true crime world. In their appeal of the theft conviction, Murdaugh’s lawyers cited NextTV, a trade publication that covers streaming, reporting that CourtTV had set a record with nearly 5 million hours of viewing of his trial.
