Why Is Alex Murdaugh Getting Another Trial? | Forensic Files

Hi Crime Junkies. There has been some breaking news in one of the most high-profile cases of the last decade,
the Murdaugh family murders out of South Carolina. We covered this case last year
after Alex Murdaugh, a former prominent lawyer in the area from a family of prominent lawyers, was convicted of the
2021 murder of his wife Maggie and his son Paul. That conviction has just been tossed out. And Alex has been granted a
new trial by the South Carolina Supreme Court. Now, this isn't based on new evidence. The appeal that made its way
to the South Carolina Supreme Court centered around the court clerk in the original trial who confessed to doing
sketchy and illegal things like influencing the jury, lying under oath, and showing sealed crime scene pictures
to reporters, like just to name a few. Now, a new trial doesn't mean Alex Murdaugh just walks free now. There's a
lot at play here. And I don't know about you, but I have a lot of questions. So, thanks to our
reporter who originally worked this case, Malika Dollisaw, we got inside access to Alex Murdaugh's defense
attorney, Dick Harpootlian. And our breaking news reporter is ready to ask him all of the burning questions a Crime
Junkie would have about this new development. So, here is Briana Whitney. >> First off, thank you for giving us this
interview, sitting down with us after getting this ruling literally minutes ago. I mean, the bombshell here, new
trial for your client, Alex Murdaugh. This is what your team wanted. >> Absolutely. And we
um you know, we're we're shocked by the verdict until we figured out um >> [clears throat]
>> that the jury been fixed or it was an attempt to fix it by the clerk of court.
Then it made sense. Six-week trial, they came back in a week. Uh and the clerk of court was lobbying
them at every opportunity to not believe Alex and find him guilty. And we find out later on that she told people she
was writing a book and a guilty verdict would help her sell books. So, she was doing not only out of some sense of
moral outrage, if she has the capability to be morally outraged, but she also was
trying to monetize and make money out of this tragedy, which is extraordinarily uh
horrid. >> Now, to be clear, I just read through this reading, too. The ruling for the
new trial is solely based improper influence on the jury. Has nothing to do with the evidence
presented in this case, correct? >> Well, it it doesn't it doesn't. That the Supreme Court went on to say, uh you
know, because we're going to reverse it based on Becky Hill's conduct, we don't need to find additional grounds, but
cautioned in a footnote and in a very long explanation about different evidentiary issues we raised and said,
you know, to the to the next judge, you're not bound by any previous ruling. And on the financial crimes, clearly
found uh that that uh the state went too far and the judge allowed testimony that
they would not want done in a second trial. But again, um it's not binding on any trial judge, but
if I were reading that opinion as the next trial judge, I'd be very cautious about the financial crimes testimony,
and very cautious about the guns and the tool marks and all the other things that
we raised issues about. Um the cell phone expert that the state came up with over a weekend. There are many many ma
many many evidentiary issues. All those issues we dealt with in a second trial. And by the way, Alec was always going to
plead guilty to the financial crimes. >> The financial crimes though, you know, that's one part of this.
This case heavily based on circumstantial evidence, but part of the huge issue here is your client admitted
to lying, admitted to lying about where he was that night, admitted to lying to police. So, that doesn't change anything
in this new trial despite what happened with the court clerk, correct? I mean, how do you deal with that? He's admitted
to lying. >> I mean, what the court said is you can't go if you're going to put in evidence of
financial crimes, it's got to be much more limited. There's no forensic evidence tying him to the murders. No
fingerprints, no DNA, um uh no confession, no video, uh no uh matter of fact, forensic evidence
would indicate he didn't do it. So, >> [clears throat] >> the the it's up to the state to prove
him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. They've got him lying about where he was. That doesn't prove he murdered
anybody. Uh I mean, Alec plead guilty to the financial crimes. Clearly, he's not going to get out of
jail anyway. Um and so, the jury will examine the evidence in the light of proving him guilty beyond a reasonable
doubt. Did he lie to the police? He admitted he did. He said he was had taken some drugs some um Oxy. He had
some in his pocket. You know, he lied. He did you know, he felt the police were looking at him as a suspect, so he lied
about it. >> Well, I mean, and they were. They they were looking at him as a suspect. So,
what do you do I mean, for people watching this, they're going to look at this ruling by
the South Carolina Supreme Court and say, "Okay, this was ruled on and ordered based on the actions of the
court clerk." But, by and large, the state proved their case and the jury found him guilty of these murders based
on the evidence presented. How do you expect that piece to go any differently in this next trial?
>> Because they won't have the clerk of court whispering in their ear every day,
"Don't believe him." She won't be trying to remove jurors who are expressing some
doubt. Uh she won't be lobbying them. It wasn't He didn't get a fair trial. He didn't have He had did not have a jury
that based their verdict on the facts cuz the the facts in my view, and I've been doing this a long time as a
prosecutor myself for 12 years. The facts, [clears throat] the forensic evidence
would not lead any reasonable jury to conclude he was guilty. >> The majority of the jurors had come back
and said that they did not feel they were influenced by Becky Hill's comments in terms of looking at the evidence and
rendering their own verdict. So, that's why I'm wondering how you think it would
be different this time with the evidence outside of Becky Hill. >> Clearly, the the the court also found
that the finan- much of the financial crimes evidence was prejudicial. It had a huge
impact on the jury, in my opinion. And again, this court in this decision said, "Don't do that again."
>> Right. So, you believe despite the ruling being made based off of Becky Hill's actions, you believe there's a
chance your client could be found not guilty in this second trial. >> Absolutely.
>> And what do you guys do to prepare differently now? Will he testify again? Will you have him testify again? Do you
prepare your witnesses and your plans of how you're going to present your case any differently now, given what's going
on moving forward? >> I guess the sort of the catty response to that is that's for me to know and you
to find out. >> [laughter] >> But, I mean, we just got this decision. >> Let me ask you this. Is Is there a
That's fair. Is there a chance though you'll put Alec back on the stand? Cuz that's a liability either way. And we
don't always see that from defense teams. I feel like usually it's the opposite. They don't want their client
to testify. >> Okay, our client's a lawyer. Now, he's a disbarred lawyer, but he is not your
typical client. Uh when he may- he will make the decision. We won't. Um and uh there are plusses and minuses to both
positions. And again, we don't know without the financial crimes, he's been convicted of them. If he takes
the stand, they can walk through each one of those guilty pleas, and uh the you know, and the jury will hear two
things. One, that he's pled guilty to stealing all this money. >> [clears throat]
>> And two, he's never going to get out of jail anyway. So, I mean, that sort of takes the heat
out I mean is a murderer going to walk free? No. Even if he's acquitted, he's in jail for
the rest of his life for the financial crimes. >> To your comment you just made. I mean
your client's a lawyer so there might be less liability putting him on the stand
but he's also a confessed liar. He's also a convicted felon. Does that change your viewpoint of the fact that yeah, he
has a legal background but still putting him on the stand I mean he's he's he's lied in the past.
>> The reason I said he's a lawyer is because what any client as you know, it's their decision. You know, I can
give him my legal advice but you know, whether to do it or not do it and we're wait I mean that's something a decision
to be made a week before a trial at preliminary essential where you know, we're ways
away from that. >> He could decide the day before he goes on the stand. >> He could decide the day of. I mean
the judge always said you know, have them stand up and say you've decided to testify or not to. You know, was that
your decision? And walk through I mean they go through warnings on it. So and I've had clients that have changed their
mind on the day of the trial. So it I can't project that and I can't project what our strategy will be. What
what what we do know is what the state's witnesses are going to say which we did not know
prior to the last trial. So that is a huge advantage we didn't have the first time around and if they testified to
something differently than they did the first time, we can use that transcript and impeach him. Now there's a state law
that prohibits the use of Alex's testimony in the first trial. >> Okay, so he would have so he would have
to testify again if >> He doesn't have to testify. If he doesn't but if he does testify
um they may may we're not sure because never really been tested whether or not they can impeach him based on his
previous testimony. >> With everything that surrounds this case in terms of attention, spotlight,
fanfare, media coverage, how do you find a second impartial jury for this next trial?
>> Great question. Um first of all, when >> [clears throat] >> the no trial judge has been appointed,
that'll be sometime in the future. Who knows, I mean, when the Supreme Court decides to do that. Once we have that
trial judge, we'll have to go to Colleton County for almost immediately for pre-trial motions about change of
venue. Um and I I don't think we even have to put up an evidentiary proffer to show
a Colleton County jury could not be picked. And then where do you move it? And you we're entitled to a jury from a
place that's demographically similar. In other words, you couldn't go to Greenville in South Carolina, which is a
uh Colleton County probably has a 35% African-American population. >> [clears throat]
>> Um it's primary primarily rural. I mean, I there are a couple of counties that
would meet that criteria, several counties. But I think we're going to have to do that examination. Now, when
you do that, when you get ready to pick a jury, I think voir dire has got to be extensive. Now, in South Carolina, we
don't have attorney-conducted voir dire except in a death penalty case. So, in this instance, we're going to have to
really work to get the judge to ask the questions that we want asked and need need to get asked about what you just
said. I mean, where are you going to find a jury that hasn't basically already made up its mind?
>> Especially in a smaller smaller county. >> This is an aspect of this case that's
very important. I can't really tell you what my opinion is yet. I mean, we until we got
this 30 minutes ago, um it was all speculation. Uh and now that we've seen uh what what the way of the land is, and
what the how the court I think has constrained the state in the evidentiary rulings. They didn't reverse on that
basis, but they did make very specific criticisms. Um that will somehow in some way affect how we look at a juror, how
we and the fact he's already pled guilty to the financial crimes. >> Right. I mean, there is definitely
aspects that are different going into this trial than you had the first go-around.
And thinking just about your evidence overall and and what you believe could be the case here, which you say is that
Alec Murdoch you believe is not guilty. Who do you believe did kill Maggie and Paul?
>> Well, let me let me say this to you. My opinion on his guilt or innocence is irrelevant.
I'm a lawyer. I represent him. My job is to see that he gets a fair trial and that that all the facts that are
favorable to him that are brought out and try to suppress on legal basis evidence that it would not be favorable
to him. That's my job. As I pointed out, I was a prosecutor for 12 years. I prosecuted 15 death penalty cases.
Put one guy in the electric chair. Tried to do it couple more times. So, it's not about my feeling. I'm a lawyer.
I have a job to do. We're not for murder. We're We're representing a client. Every under
the Sixth Amendment, as the court pointed out today, every person charged with a crime is
entitled to a fair trial. And we're there to make sure they get a fair trial. >> You're right. I mean, that's your job as
a criminal defense attorney. Let me rephrase my question a little bit. If you're [clears throat] going
forward with any sort of new strategy, are you going to try to suggest that somebody else
killed Paul and Maggie? And if so, are you going to try to specifically prove someone a certain person or persons did
that? >> Well, I think evidence is not evidence, but we received information since the
conviction that could lead us in that direction. But to be frank with you, without the ability to subpoena
phone records, without the ability to do a a investigation backed by the legal process, we have been unable to pursue
all that. But we will be. And I can't tell you at this point whether we'll present such a defense or not. Uh but
but that's one of the things we need to do before we go to trial. >> Is that kind of the next step? Almost is
it like a next discovery phase or or what happens now that you've got the ruling? I imagine you got to talk to
Alec today about this. So, what's next? >> Well, we need a judge appointed, and then we probably need to have a pretrial
conference where we talk about a schedule, rules of the game, um I mean I mean there's all kinds of
logistical issues to consider. I mean, Alec is at a prison very hours away from here.
If we're going to be able to we need to decide relatively early where we're going to be trying this
thing. And we've got some other issues we need to deal with I can't really talk about today in terms of those logistics.
Um we're going to be having a press conference on Monday where we're going to develop we're going
to answer questions about obviously the decision, but also about some things we think need to
be addressed before the trial. Um and I'm not at liberty to go into those today.
>> Any any uh I guess genre of what that's going to entail, what we can expect to hear about on
Monday? >> I really I mean, we just got the opinion today. We got to vet those other routes that we were talking about,
and it'll take us at least the weekend to figure that out. >> Yeah. And and and this is to to your
point the 27-page ruling. I mean, there's a lot in this. >> Yes, there is. There's a lot. And and
and and you know, I'm very proud of our Supreme Court. And they showed that the rule of law is well alive and effect and
in effect in South Carolina. Maybe not so much other places, but here clearly it took uh that clear-headed
focused examination of the evidence and the law to to write this opinion. It's an
excellent opinion. >> And and just so people know who are hearing that there's going to be a new
trial, I mean, the wheels of justice move slowly. There's a lot of prep work. This isn't happening next month. How
long realistically do you think it'll take to get to this next trial for it to begin?
>> I can't I mean, I really can't say because uh one of the things you got to do is
serve early on, serve discovery to get them to update. Is it has there been additional testing
that we don't know about? Did they miss any? I mean, just just one example on on the first trial. We read and heard
that uh Alex's shirt that night had been tested and they had blood spatter on it.
Blood spatter being a fine mist uh blood when you shoot somebody at close range it lands on you.
And initial report by the SLED lab, so they go on and forth with the lab was it was blood spatter and it was we were
told, well, it was not in the report, there was human blood spatter, although they couldn't type it, they couldn't say
it was Paul or Maggie's. Well, the trial was coming up January of '23 um and around Thanksgiving of '22
um a woman that works for me, Holly Miller, who's a paralegal, and actually almost I
mean, she'd probably have better lawyer than I am, was going through the file again and we got millions of pages of
stuff from them and saw a witness in a file witness name on a file she never seen before. So, she
opened it up uh it electronically and inside was a SLED lab forensic report on the t-shirt saying it wasn't human
blood. Remember now, this is less than 90 days um before we're getting ready to pick a jury. And all along we've been
reading in all the blogs and the podcasts, this revelation that he had Paul's blood or had Maggie's blood on
his shirt. We um asked to be able to examine it at one point and they destroyed they said they
destroyed it and they had in testing the testing they did they had found an expert in Oklahoma who was going to
testify with human it was blood spatter consistent with shotgun or something. And then we found that that evaporated
on them. But we found we we only found that report you could attribute the the fact that that report was contained
in a witness file. Maybe somebody was trying to hide it. I don't know. We found it. That's the
important part. And that that piece of evidence went away immediately. I think that in my opinion that's why this
financial crimes stuff became so important because without that they had nothing to connect him
forensically. No eyewitnesses, no video tape, no confession, no he he lied about
where he was. Well, we're almost entitled to a directed verdict if that's all they
have. >> I mean we'll have to see what the next jury does obviously. That jury despite that he still felt
that the state proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt. But to your point it's a new trial anything
could happen. >> Oh yeah, I'm looking forward to it. >> Dick I appreciate this. I know obviously
there's this has been a whirlwind trying to get the ruling come on do this. I appreciate your time and breaking down
your perspective on on this ruling. >> Well, thank thank you so much for having me on.

Just minutes after a major legal decision, Crime Junkie reporter Briana Whitney sits down with defense attorney Dick Harpootlian to break down the South Carolina Supreme Court ruling granting a new trial for Alex Murdaugh. This ruling overturns the original conviction tied to the June 7, 2021 murders of Maggie Murdaugh and Paul Murdaugh in Colleton County, South Carolina …and it could change everything.

In this exclusive interview, Dick Harpootlian explains why the court granted a new trial based on alleged jury influence by court clerk Rebecca “Becky” Hill, what evidence may or may not be allowed in the next trial, the role of financial crime testimony and why it was challenged, key forensic questions raised by the defense, and what happens next as the case heads back toward trial.

This conversation also dives into how jury selection may change in a high-profile case, the challenges of finding an impartial jury in South Carolina, new investigative directions the defense may pursue, and why this case continues to draw national attention.

Alex Murdaugh was previously convicted in 2023. This new ruling does not determine guilt or innocence; it means the case will be retried. -------- Follow Crime Junkie: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crimejunkiepodcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CrimeJunkiePodcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/CrimeJunkiePod Crime Junkie is created and hosted by Ashley Flowers.

About Ashley Flowers Ashley Flowers is the top female podcaster in the U.S. and the host of Crime Junkie, the #1 podcast among women and the #1 true crime podcast globally. As the Founder of Audiochuck, she has built a top-tier podcast production company that has garnered over 2.6 billion downloads, captivating audiences with its gripping storytelling through 10+ chart topping podcasts. Ashley and her team are dedicated to creating responsible true crime content that respects victims and their families.

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Check out these other great crime channels: @annieelise Go Deeper Than Netflix: Love Triangle, Manhunt, & Plastic Surgery | The Tragedy of Moriah Wilson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG70YzuTGI4 @kallmekris Britain's WORST Serial Killer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHXkrcujCkg @KendallRae PTA Mom Framed Over School Pick Up Miscommunication!? The Story Of Kelli Peters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkaFQCc4fe4 @bellafiori The Case of Russell Stager https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0LoFOvK358

Brief Summary

Alex Murdaugh's murder conviction is overturned; he gets a new trial due to jury influence by a court clerk.

Key points

Murdaugh's Conviction Overturned. The South Carolina Supreme Court has tossed out Alex Murdaugh's conviction, granting him a new trial.
Court Clerk's Misconduct Revealed. The appeal centered around the court clerk's illegal actions during the original trial.
New Trial Implications. The new trial raises questions about the evidence and how it will be presented.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

A new trial doesn't mean Alex Murdaugh just walks free now.

0:48WatchMay 14, 2026

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