Alex Murdaugh “thinks he is special” — but he’s really not, prosecutors blasted Thursday as they opposed the disgraced South Carolina lawyer’s bid to appear in court in civilian clothes and without shackles.
Murdaugh, 58, is set to appear in a Lexington County courtroom Monday as prosecutors try him for the second time on charges he murdered his wife and son after his murder conviction was tossed in May over a court clerk who improperly meddled with the case.
Murdaugh came out swinging with his lawyers filing a series of motions this week, including claiming it would create prejudice against him if he’s forced to wear jail clothes and shackles for his court appearances.
But prosecutors fired back Thursday, arguing in court papers that since Murdaugh still has two other financial crime convictions for which he’s serving decades in prison, he’s still an inmate and shouldn’t get special treatment.
“This case is ultimately about the fact that [Murdaugh] thinks he is special,” wrote S. Creighton Waters, a chief attorney with the state attorney general’s office.
It’s not prosecutors’ “fault that [Murdaugh] is a convicted felon serving a long sentence, and he should not be able to simply ignore the consequences of what he admittedly did,” Waters wrote.
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Murdaugh pleaded guilty in a state case, as well as a federal case, to financial crimes. He’s serving 27 years in one case and another 40 years in the other.
Murdaugh’s lawyers also filed motions seeking to get the case moved out of Colleton County on the grounds he won’t get a fair trial in the small community where everyone has been engrossed in the national headline-grabbing case, according to a report by the State.
He is also seeking DNA evidence tied to the murders.
Murdaugh was convicted in 2023 of fatally shooting his 22-year-old son Paul and his 52-year-old wife, Maggie, near the dog kennels at their sprawling hunting estate on June 7, 2021.
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That conviction was overturned after the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that a former clerk in the county, Rebecca “Becky” Hill, “placed her fingers on the scales of justice” when she tried to sway jurors against Murdaugh, shared sealed crime scene photos with a reporter and lied about it and used her position to try to sell her book about the case.
Murdaugh has maintained his innocence in the murders.
