Alex Murdaugh’s pursuit of a new murder trial is set for an evidentiary hearing next month

By JAMES POLLARD
Associated Press/Report for America

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The judge handling the fallout over Alex Murdaugh’s murder convictions plans to hold an evidentiary hearing next month. According to a tentative schedule shared by a media liaison for former South Carolina Supreme Court Justice Jean Toal, a three-day hearing is expected to begin Jan. 29. That is when Murdaugh’s lawyers will get to provide evidence of the alleged jury tampering behind their push for another trial. Murdaugh is serving life imprisonment without parole after a jury found him guilty this March of killing his wife and younger son. But his lawyers say the court clerk improperly asked jurors whether he was guilty or innocent, and she told them not to believe his testimony. The clerk denies the allegations.