SC AG seeks extension to respond to Murdaugh appeal ahead of Thursday deadline

(WCIV) — The Murdaugh murder saga continues after the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office faces a deadline to respond to convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh’s Supreme Court appeal brief.

Thursday is the deadline, however state leaders are hoping it’s extended an extra 120 days, in addition to the 90 extension they were already granted.

In December of 2024, Murdaugh filed a motion to appeal his convictions and sentences based on allegations of jury tampering by a court official.

The state filed this request for an extension on April 3, saying they’re not trying to delay the case.

In their reasoning for the delay request, they state their team has an already heavy workload and they need time to go through the extensive details of the case, like the 6,000-page trial transcript.

Murdaugh’s team did reply to the state’s motion and opposed their request.

“The Attorney General’s office has about 90 attorneys,” they stated. “If those attorneys cannot meet reasonable court deadlines in major cases, they can retain outside counsel to assist.”

News 4’s exclusive Legal analyst Charlie Condon detailed his thoughts after reading the documents.

“They go through a list of reasons as to why they oppose it. And one of the reasons that really stuck out to me was that they really believe that they are going to win on appeal based upon the jury tampering allegations. This would therefore unduly prejudice their client if there’s another extension granted, that would in effect allow them to be incarcerated under that conviction,” said Former State Attorney General Condon.

According to Condon, Murdaugh is going to be in prison regardless of the appeal outcome.

“The obvious comeback is, it really doesn’t matter in terms of incarceration, because this defendant’s going to be in a prison regardless of the outcome of this appeal, because of all of his other sentences. And that is a true statement. I mean, whether it’s federal court convictions or state court convictions, my estimation is that he’ll spend the rest of his life in some prison,” he added.

To Condon, this latest update in the case, is just another chapter in the continuing saga.

“It fits the Murdaugh case in general in that there have been so many twists and turns. What I find really highly unusual is this big fight over one extension in an appeal. And the amount of energy that has gone into these various pleadings,” he said. “We’re not talking about the appeal itself. We’re not talking about anything substantive. We’re only talking about deadlines or timelines on filing a brief. So, I think that’s really, really unusual.”

Also outlined in the State’s documents, is that Murdaugh’s team previously received 90-day and 120-day extensions from the court of appeals, which Murdaugh’s team says “the grounds for Appellant’s and the State’s requested extensions are different.”

Reportedly Murdaugh’s first 90-day extension was due to the length of the transcript and the state also requested a 90-day extension for the same reason. Murdaugh’s team did not object that extension.

On the other hand, as for Murdaugh’s 120 day extension, his team says that was due to “much of counsel’s time since the filing of the notice of appeal was consumed researching and litigating a motion for a new trial based on evidence discovered after trial that an elected state official tampered with the jury during trial because she wanted to profit from writing a book about a guilty verdict.”

As of Thursday morning, the courts have not responded or made a ruling, however this is an actively developing story.

Condon says, based off previous extension requests, it seems there really is no set timeline from when the courts could respond.

“I did notice on I think the last extension request; the State made the extension request on the day of the deadline and simply sent it in and the court granted it, I want to say four or five days later,’ said Condon. “It seems to me the practice is so long as you make the motion for the extension, there’s no harm to you for your legal position, and then you simply wait for them to respond. So, I would expect the court to follow the same timeline, which would be roughly within a week,” he added.

If granted the extension, the deadline for the state’s brief will be pushed back to August 8.

Murdaugh’s team says if the state’s extension is granted, they will have been given a full year to respond to Murdaugh’s official brief on the “Clerk of Court Becky Hill’s deliberate jury tampering for personal financial gain”.

To read up more on the extension, click here and here.