(NewsNation) — The attorney representing convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh doesn’t believe he violated prison policies when he released a recorded phone call with his client to the media but says he has “no complaints” about the punishment his client received.
Murdaugh lost his phone privileges Wednesday after South Carolina Department of Corrections officials determined he violated prison policy when his attorney, Jim Griffin, recorded him reading his journal entries on a call for a documentary about his case.
Prison policy prohibits inmates from talking to the media without permission.
“We knew about the policy, we looked at the policy, we don’t think what we did, I did, violated the policy because it wasn’t an interview with the media,” Griffin said Thursday on “CUOMO” in explaining the decision to record the phone call.
The journals were made during the trial. Griffin and Murdaugh wanted to provide some excerpts to the team filming the documentary, which aired Thursday on Fox Nation.
“There were two options: turn over the entire journals or give excerpts, and how do you provide excerpts?” Griffin said. “Did it violate the policy? I don’t think so, but I’m not here to argue with the Department of Corrections. … There are bigger fish to fry.”
Phone calls between lawyers and prisoners are not recorded or reviewed because their conversations are considered confidential. But prison officials said they began investigating Murdaugh after a warden reviewing other phone calls heard Murdaugh’s voice on a call made in a different inmate’s account.
Murdaugh, the scion of a prominent legal family in South Carolina, was convicted earlier this year of killing his wife and son on their property in summer 2021. He is serving two life sentences.
Griffin is preparing to formally appeal the conviction based on what he says are “unprecedented” actions. Murdaugh’s legal team has been reviewing transcripts from the trial that they intend to use in arguing the appeal.
“There is serious questions as to whether this jury was subject to outside influences during the case,” Griffin said.
Murdaugh’s surviving son, Buster, also spoke out about the verdict for the time in the Fox Nation interview, saying he believes his father is innocent.
“When I go to bed at night, I have a fear that there is somebody else still out there,” Murdaugh said of his brother and mom’s killer on “The Fall of the House of Murdaugh” special, People reported.
“I am thankful that the public finally gets to see the Buster Murdaugh that I’ve known since 2019, frankly, and the one who’s dealt with so much grief and tragedy since 2021,” Griffin said of Buster’s interview. “I think it’s early to say how the public views him, but we see, I see, a very poised young man who has been through hell on earth, and he stands by his dad for the reasons he stated. I couldn’t’ be more proud of him.”