Alex Murdaugh killed his wife and son. Now he is suing the court clerk whose jury-tampering got his convictions overturned.
Rebecca Hill, the former Colleton County Clerk of Court, engaged in an ongoing, off-the-record dialogue with the jury during the 2023 murder trial. She suggested to jurors that Murdaugh was lying. She suggested that his testimony could not be trusted. She bypassed the judge, bypassed the defense, and bypassed the record. The South Carolina Supreme Court, in its unanimous May 14 ruling overturning Murdaugh’s life sentence, found that Hill “egregiously attacked Murdaugh’s credibility” and “crossed the line from court administration into advocacy.” That is the clinical, appellate phrasing for jury taint. It means a state actor injected her own verdict into the deliberative process. A court clerk told the jury the defendant was guilty, and the jury convicted him.
Hill was not a neutral facilitator. She was an active prosecutorial agent operating outside the adversarial record. Her proximity to the jury was purely logistical—exhibits, jury movement, the physical flow of proceedings—and she weaponized that proximity to do what the prosecution itself could not: deliver an off-the-books closing argument in the jury room. Under the structural-error doctrine the South Carolina Supreme Court applied, some constitutional defects are so severe they invalidate a conviction without requiring proof of specific prejudice. A trial judge instructing a jury to convict is one such defect. A court clerk telling the jury the defendant is a liar is another. The jury box became a conduit for a court officer’s unauthorized commentary, and the verdict that emerged from it was a nullity.
The state Supreme Court did what the Constitution requires: it threw out the convictions and ordered a new trial. That was the correct remedy. What the Constitution does not require, and what no principle of justice supports, is a double murderer converting the very misconduct that undid his conviction into a payday.
The federal lawsuit Murdaugh filed this week moves the accountability question into a civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the statute that allows citizens to sue state actors for constitutional violations. Hill acted under color of state law; her position as Clerk of Court gave her access to the jury that private citizens lack, and qualified immunity does not shield a court clerk from liability for actions that violate clearly established constitutional rights. The suit names Hill personally, bypassing the sovereign-immunity shield that protects state agencies, and seeks the $600,000 Murdaugh says he spent on his tainted defense plus punitive damages.
But the right to an impartial jury is a shield against the state, not a lottery ticket for the guilty. Hill’s misconduct was a due-process violation; the remedy was a new trial before an untainted jury. Yet this civil filing treats her due-process violation as a personal-injury claim—an attempt to monetize the constitutional protection afforded to a man who, by the evidence the jury heard, shot his wife and son to death.
The South Carolina Supreme Court’s opinion was careful to limit its holding to the clerk’s actions, not the evidence against Murdaugh. The justices made clear that the clerk’s comments created an unacceptable risk of prejudice, requiring reversal regardless of the strength of the prosecution’s case. That is how the law works: a defendant’s guilt does not excuse a court’s failure to provide a fair trial. The state can try him again, and it should.
But by filing this suit, Murdaugh is extending the same transactional pattern that defined his broader criminal saga. He stole millions from clients and his law firm. He allegedly arranged his own shooting to secure a life-insurance payout for his surviving son. Now, having been handed a second chance at a fair trial by a court that enforced his constitutional rights, he is trying to extract money from the clerk whose misconduct was, in the end, the only thing standing between him and a life sentence.
The clerk’s conduct was inexcusable. Court employees are not prosecutors; they are not permitted to lobby jurors. Clerks, bailiffs, and court reporters operate in the blind spots of the official transcript, and when an institutional actor exercises that power outside the adversarial record, the trial ceases to be a trial. If Hill wanted to see Murdaugh convicted, she should have let the evidence do the work. The remedy for her overreach is not to enrich the man who killed his family. It is the remedy the state Supreme Court already provided—a new trial before an untainted jury—and, if warranted, professional discipline or criminal charges against the clerk herself.
Murdaugh’s suit asks a federal court to put a dollar figure on the due-process violation he suffered. If it succeeds, the message will be clear: even a man who murdered his wife and son can turn a court’s protection of his rights into a profit center. That is not what the Sixth Amendment is for. The first trial was forfeited. The second must proceed on what remains of due process.