Ex-lawyer guilty of killing wife and son to appeal double murder conviction
A disgraced lawyer who was found guilty of murdering his wife and younger son intends to appeal the double murder conviction, according to a new filing.
Disbarred South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh’s legal team filed a motion to appeal his conviction on Thursday.
The filing comes a week after a jury convicted Murdaugh on four counts: the 2021 murders of his wife Maggie, 52, and his son Paul, 22, and two counts of possessing a weapon during a crime.
On Friday, Murdaugh, 54, was sentenced to life in prison for the two murder convictions, to be served consecutively, and was not sentenced on the weapon possessions charges.
Murdaugh filed a motion to appeal a day after a new mugshot emerged of him wearing yellow prison clothes, a newly shaved head and what appeared to be a smirk on his face.
The former lawyer is being held in a solitary cell at the Kirkland Reception and Evaluation Center, which houses the most violent inmates in the state.
In the courtroom just before his sentencing, Murdaugh again denied responsibility.
‘I respect this court, but I’m innocent,’ Murdaugh told Judge Clifton Newman. ‘I would never under any circumstances hurt my wife Maggie, and I would never under any circumstances hurt my son.’
The judge replied: ‘And it might not have been you.
‘It might have been the monster you become when you take 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 opioid pills. Maybe you become another person.’
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