2026年5月13日 / 美国东部时间上午11:40 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
作者：马克·奥斯本
曾被判定谋杀妻子与儿子的南卡罗来纳州知名律师亚历克斯·默多夫的谋杀罪名及连续终身监禁判决，于周三被该州最高法院推翻。
默多夫于2023年3月被定罪，罪名是2021年在家族庄园杀害妻子玛吉与儿子保罗。
他将获得重审。
默多夫还于2023年9月承认犯下一系列金融犯罪，并被判处40年监禁。
默多夫的律师以县书记员贝基·希尔的“不当”行为为由申请重审，希尔后来撰写了一本关于其参与该审判经历的书籍。
以5票全票支持默多夫上诉的最高法院表示，陪审团的“努力付诸东流，因为科尔顿县法院书记员丽贝卡·希尔干预了司法公正，从而剥夺了默多夫由公正陪审团进行公平审判的权利”。
辩方称，希尔通过建议陪审团不要相信默多夫的证词、迫使他们快速作出有罪判决，以及歪曲庭审期间出示的信息，来操纵陪审团。
2023年3月1日，在南卡罗来纳州沃尔特伯勒的科尔顿县法院，科尔顿县法院书记员丽贝卡·希尔在检察官克赖顿·沃特斯就亚历克斯·默多夫谋杀案进行结案陈词时聆听发言。约书亚·布沙尔/ pooled供稿/《州报》/论坛新闻社 via 盖蒂图片社
2024年1月，上诉法院驳回了默多夫的重审申请，但最高法院于周三推翻了这一裁决。
“我们的司法制度提供——实际上是要求——每个人都有权获得公平审判，这包括陪审团不受旨在影响其作出偏向性裁决的外部因素玷污，”法院在其判决意见中写道。“尽管我们知晓这场漫长审判耗费的时间、金钱和精力，但由于希尔对陪审团施加了不当的外部影响，我们别无选择，只能推翻驳回默多夫重审动议的决定，并发回重审。”
根据周三的法院判决，一名在2024年上诉审判中作证的陪审员表示，“陪审团开始审议时，希尔告诉他们，‘[这]应该花不了我们多长时间’”。
根据法庭文件，该陪审员在为上诉审判提交的宣誓证词中写道：“我对默多夫先生是否有罪存有疑问，但还是投了有罪票，因为我感到其他陪审员给了我压力”。
另一名陪审员作证称，在默多夫出庭作证的当天，希尔称这是“意义重大的一天”。不过该陪审员表示，这并未影响他们最终作出的有罪判决。第三名陪审员作证称，希尔在默多夫出庭作证当天告诉他“注意自己的肢体语言”，他表示这事后也没有影响他的裁决。
默多夫最初声称，2021年妻子和年仅22岁的小儿子保罗在南卡罗来纳州艾兰顿的家族48英亩狩猎庄园遇害当晚，他并不在现场。然而，庭审期间披露，2021年6月7日，在庄园的狗舍附近，保罗录制的一段手机视频中可以听到亚历克斯·默多夫的声音。
他在作证时承认曾就自己当时在场一事向警方撒谎，并表示之所以这么做，是因为他吸毒成瘾导致偏执，不信任调查人员。
“我不太清楚自己是怎么沦落到这步田地的。我与毒瘾抗争了这么多年。我在药丸上花了太多钱，”默多夫在庭审期间说道，尽管他坚决否认自己与谋杀案有关。
南卡罗来纳州最高法院还对双重谋杀审判中纳入大量关于默多夫金融犯罪的信息表示不满。
法院写道：“我们一致认为，初审法院允许检方过于冗长、过于深入地涉及与检方动机理论无关的默多夫金融犯罪内容，这带来了相当大的不公平偏见风险，因此本应排除这些内容”。
Alex Murdaugh murder convictions overturned by South Carolina Supreme Court, new trial ordered
May 13, 2026 / 11:40 AM EDT / CBS News
By Mark Osborne
The murder convictions and consecutive life sentences for Alex Murdaugh, a prominent South County attorney who was found guilty of killing his wife and son, were overturned on Wednesday by the state’s supreme court.
Murdaugh was convicted in March 2023 for killing his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, at the family’s estate in 2021.
He will be given a new trial.
Murdaugh also pleaded guilty to a series of financial crimes in September 2023 and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Lawyers for Murdaugh pushed for a new trial based on “improper” conduct by the county clerk, Becky Hill, who later wrote a book about her time working on the trial.
The Supreme Court, which ruled 5-0 in favor of Murdaugh’s appeal, said the jury’s “efforts were in vain because Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill placed her fingers on the scales of justice, thereby denying Murdaugh his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury.”
The defense claimed Hill tampered with the jury by advising it not to believe Murdaugh’s testimony, pressuring them to reach a quick guilty verdict, and misrepresenting information presented during the trial.
Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill listens as Prosecutor Creighton Waters makes closing arguments in Alex Murdaugh’s trial for murder at the Colleton County Courthouse on March 1, 2023, in Walterboro, South Carolina. Joshua Boucher/Pool/The State/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
An appeals court rejected Murdaugh’s ask for a new trial in January 2024, but the Supreme Court reversed the decision on Wednesday.
“Our justice system provides—indeed demands—that every person is entitled to a fair trial, which includes an impartial jury untainted by external forces bent on influencing the jury toward a biased verdict,” the court wrote in its opinion. “Although we are aware of the time, money, and effort expended for this lengthy trial, we have no choice but to reverse the denial of Murdaugh’s motion for a new trial due to Hill’s improper external influences on the jury and remand for a new trial.”
One juror who testified during the appeals trial in 2024 said, that “when the jury began deliberations, Hill told the jury, ‘[T]his shouldn’t take us long,’” according to the court’s decision Wednesday.
The juror wrote, in her sworn affidavit for that appeals trial, “I had questions about Mr. Murdaugh’s guilt but voted guilty because I felt pressured by the other jurors,” according to court documents.
Another juror testified that Hill told them, on the day Murdaugh testified, it was “an epic day.” Though, that juror said it did not affect their eventual decision to find him guilty. A third juror testified Hill told him to “watch his body language” on the day Murdaugh testified, something he said also did not later influence his verdict.
Murdaugh had initially claimed he wasn’t at the family’s 48-acre hunting estate in Islandton, South Carolina, on the night his wife and his younger son, Paul, then-22 years old, were killed. However, during the trial, it emerged that Alex Murdaugh’s voice could be heard on a cellphone video recorded by Paul shortly before the killings at the property’s kennels on June 7, 2021.
He admitted during testimony he lied to police about being there and said he did so because his heavy use of drugs caused him to be paranoid and distrust investigators.
“I’m not quite sure how I let myself get where I got. I battled that addiction for so many years. I was spending so much money on pills,” Murdaugh said during the trial, though he adamantly rejected that he was involved in the murders.
The South Carolina Supreme Court also expressed dissatisfaction with the inclusion of extensive information about Murdaugh’s financial crimes in the double murder trial.
The court wrote, “we unanimously hold the trial court allowed the State to go far too long and far too deep into aspects of Murdaugh’s financial crimes that were not probative of the State’s theory of motive, which gave rise to considerable danger of unfair prejudice, and therefore should have been excluded.”
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