Murdaugh lawyer ‘cautiously optimistic’ court clerk’s misconduct could pave way for new trial

Alex Murdaugh’s defense team is “cautiously optimistic” that the disgraced former South Carolina attorney could win a new trial when the state Supreme Court hears arguments in February, his lawyer Dick Harpootlian said.

Harpootlian, who represents Murdaugh alongside attorney Jim Griffin, said the court will consider two consolidated appeals when it hears oral arguments Feb. 11, one challenging a legal ruling made during the 2023 murder trial and another on Court Clerk Rebecca “Becky” Hill’s alleged jury tampering.

“There’s two basic appeals that have been consolidated,” Harpootlian said in an interview with Fox News Digital. “One is the underlying trial – the legal technical issues that you see in every appeal. And there’s an additional appeal that’s very unusual: did the clerk of court say things or do things in an effort to have the jury vote guilty?”

Murdaugh was convicted in March 2023 of murdering his wife, Maggie, and youngest son, Paul, at the family’s rural hunting estate in South Carolina’s idyllic low country in June 2021. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

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The second appeal centers on Hill, who was accused of making comments to jurors during the trial that defense attorneys say were intended to influence a guilty verdict. 

Hill pleaded guilty in Colleton County Circuit Court to four charges — obstruction of justice and perjury for showing a reporter photographs that were sealed court exhibits and then lying about it — as well as two counts of misconduct in office for taking bonuses and promoting through her public office a book she wrote about the trial.

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Judge Heath Taylor sentenced Hill to a year of probation. He told Hill her sentence would have been much harsher had prosecutors found that she had tampered with the Murdaugh jury. Harpootlian said Hill’s guilty plea bolsters the defense’s argument that her credibility is irreparably damaged.

“She pled guilty to perjuring herself, to lying under oath during that hearing,” he said. “I think that goes a long way to showing in appellate court that whatever she said shouldn’t be believed.”

During the evidentiary hearing, multiple witnesses testified that Hill made comments to jurors about Murdaugh’s demeanor and testimony, including statements that defense attorneys argue crossed the line from administration into influence.

Hill has denied trying to sway jurors, but Judge Jean Toal ruled last year that the defense failed to prove the comments affected the verdict. Harpootlian said the defense disagrees with that standard.

“The United States Supreme Court and the Fourth Circuit have indicated we don’t have to show that it actually influenced somebody,” he said. “We just need to show that she said things that reasonably, objectively could have influenced a juror.”

Asked whether the defense team was surprised by Hill’s guilty plea and sentence, Harpootlian said the Murdaugh team is “cautiously optimistic” in their bid to get a retrial.

“There are a couple dozen different issues that have to be addressed,” he said. “Any one of which could give us a new trial. We’re cautiously optimistic, but you don’t know until you get there and hear their questions.”

“The integrity of the system matters,” Harpootlian said. “And that’s what this appeal is really about.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Hill’s attorney, Will Lewis, for comment. 

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Harpootlian’s comments come as he promotes his new book, “Dig Me a Grave: The Inside Story of the Serial Killer Who Seduced the South,” a true-crime account of one of South Carolina’s most infamous serial killers, Donald “Pee Wee” Gaskins. The book chronicles Harpootlian’s firsthand experience prosecuting Gaskins, who was executed in 1991 after confessing to at least 13 murders. He disposed of his victims’ bodies in the swamplands of coastal South Carolina.

While the cases differ dramatically, Harpootlian said decades inside South Carolina courtrooms have given him a perspective on how the justice system operates.

In the book, Harpootlian describes Gaskins as a far more complex figure than the “two-dimensional” monster portrayed in court.

“The court and the jury saw a two-dimensional Pee Wee Gaskins, which was horrifying enough,” Harpootlian said. “But he three-dimensionally was much more complicated.”

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Gaskins, a self-described killer who bragged about his crimes, cultivated a reputation in his hometown of Sumter as a friendly, helpful man.

“He appeared to be affable, gregarious,” Harpootlian said. “Everybody that knew him thought he was just a wonderful, friendly guy.”

“What people think they know from documentaries or TV is often very different from what actually happens in the courtroom,” he said.

Harpootlian said he recently spoke with Gaskins’ daughter, Shirley, who turned her father in and testified against him at his first death penalty trial.

“She told me he had to be stopped,” Harpootlian said. “But she thinks about it every day. That was her father.”

In “Dig Me a Grave,” Harpootlian also grapples with the toll of working capital cases, including an episode shortly before Gaskins’ execution when the killer attempted to have Harpootlian’s young daughter, who was 4 years old at the time, kidnapped in a failed escape plot.

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Despite his discomfort with the death penalty, Harpootlian said he did not attend Gaskins’ 1991 execution.

“What would I get out of that other than watching another human being die?” he said. “I regret every death, and I’m certainly not going to relish in it.”