The South Carolina court clerk who torpedoed Alex Murdaugh’s double murder case offered a ridiculous excuse for why Murdaugh’s lawsuit against her should be tossed.
Rebecca “Becky” Hill, the disgraced clerk in Colleton County, said she should benefit from “quasi-judicial immunity” and therefore shouldn’t have to face Murdaugh’s civil claims that she interfered with the jury that convicted him.
Hill also claimed that she shouldn’t be on the hook for damages to reimburse him for legal costs of defending his murder case because he would have been forced to dish out the money for his defense regardless of her meddling.
The legal costs “are not traceable to [Hill’s] actions,” according to court papers she filed Thursday in the federal case.
Hill’s memoir, “Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders,” was pulled from shelves after it was revealed she plagiarized the preface from a BBC journalist.
Murdaugh, a 57-year-old disbarred lawyer, is seeking $600,000 in damages against Hill on allegations she tried to sway the jury to find him guilty of killing his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul in 2021.
His May suit came days after South Carolina’s Supreme Court overturned his conviction finding Hill had “placed her fingers on the scales of justice.”
Hill was sentenced to probation after copping to charges of obstruction of justice, perjury and misconduct in office for showing sealed crime scene photos to a reporter and lying about it.
She also admitted to using her position to try to push the sale of her book about the trial.
Hill also made comments to the jury telling them not to be “fooled,” “confused” or “thrown off” by Murdaugh and she had private conversations with the jury foreperson behind closed doors, Murdaugh’s suit alleged.
Murdaugh is still behind bars serving a 40-year federal sentence and a 27-year state sentence on convictions he stole from his clients.
Prosecutors have said they planned to retry the case against him.
After a dramatic six-week trial in 2023, a jury found Murdaugh guilty of fatally shooting his 22-year-old son and 52-year-old wife near the dog kennels at their sprawling hunting estate on June 7, 2021.
Prosecutors have said Murdaugh was motivated to kill his family members to stop his criminal financial dealings from coming out in an unrelated lawsuit by the family of 19-year-old Mallory Beach, who died after a drunken boat crash by Murdaugh’s son.
Murdaugh’s lawyer declined to comment Thursday.
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