Lawyers for family of Mallory Beach request judge’s recusal in case over leaked photos

Courtesy: National Center For Missing And Endangered/Mallory Beach

Courtesy: National Center For Missing And Endangered/Mallory Beach

(WCIV) — Lawyers for the family of Mallory Beach have requested the judge presiding over their case accusing Parker’s convenience store CEO Greg Parker and others of running social media bullying efforts against the family and selling confidential footage to a documentary filmmaker to recuse himself, according to a Sept. 13 court filing.

In the document, the Beach family’s attorneys requested the recusal after it was revealed in August that the presiding Judge G.D. Morgan, Jr.’s current law clerk Adam Compton was employed by Deborah B. Barbier, an attorney who has and does still represent the Parker’s Corporation and its CEO. The document states:

Mr. Compton’s continued employment in Your Honor’s chambers creates an appearance of impropriety requiring recusal pursuant to the South Carolina Code of Judicial Conduct.

Compton worked for Barbier in Columbia in the summer of 2023, according to the filing, and during this time Barbier represented Parker and his company during the case involving the boat wreck in which Mallory Beach died. The Beach family’s lawyers say:

It strains credulity to believe that Mr. Compton had no contact with any portion of either case while employed with Ms. Barbier. Even so, the appearance to the public is that someone who worked with counsel for the other side is now employed in the judge’s chambers.

That suit ultimately ended in a $15m settlement paid out to the Beach family, presided by a different judge.

Attorneys say Judge Morgan originally disclosed Compton’s employment in his office on Aug. 14, 2024, when Compton began working as a law clerk. They say:

Your Honor rightfully brought this issue to light when you inquired from our clients whether they felt comfortable with your Honor continuing this case. Our clients do not feel comfortable and have entertained Your Honor’s invitation for your Honor to be recused.

The attorneys concluded that recusal is required “to serve the public’s confidence in the judiciary”.

The cases involving Mallory Beach are widely regarded to be the start of what led to Alex Murdaugh’s public fall from grace.

Beach died in a February 2019 boat crash involving Murdaugh’s boat, with the fallout of that incident inciting a media firestorm years before Paul and Maggie Murdaugh were murdered.