Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that state workers will get three extra days off this month.

“In addition to Christmas Day and New Years Day, our state workers will get three extra days off—December 23, 24 and 31—to spend more time with their families and loved ones this holiday season,” the governor declared in a post on X.

State offices will be closed on all five of those days, according to a press release from the governor’s office.

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“Florida is in great shape, and we want to reward our state employees,” DeSantis said, according to the press release. “After a full year—including three costly hurricanes—we hope these extra days off allow for state workers to spend more time with their families and loved ones during this holiday season.”

Last month, “state workers were given off for November 27,” the day before Thanksgiving, Dan Barrow of the Florida Department of Management Services confirmed to Fox News Digital via email on Wednesday.

The department’s website lists nine dates “observed as paid holidays by state agencies” in 2024, including New Year’s Day, Birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, the Friday following Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gives a victory speech after defeating Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rep. Charlie Crist during his election night watch party at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida, on Nov. 8, 2022. (Octavio Jones/Getty Images)

“Full-time employees are entitled to one personal holiday each year,” the site also notes.

Last year, DeSantis announced that state offices would be closed Nov. 22, Dec. 26, December 29 and Jan. 2, on top of regular closures during the holidays, according to a November 2023 press release.

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The Florida State flag flies during the game between the North Carolina Tar Heels and the Miami Hurricanes at Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida, on Oct. 8, 2022. (Peter Joneleit/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

“Our state employees have worked tirelessly throughout the year to aid and assist Florida families,” DeSantis said, according to the release. “Over the past few months, they have selflessly responded to Hurricane Idalia and the State of Florida’s Israel Rescue Operation. Closing state offices on these additional days will provide state employees with some much-deserved time with their families and loved ones while enjoying the holiday season.”

Attorneys for lawyer-turned-convict Alex Murdaugh filed to appeal his sentence on Tuesday, saying improper testimony and court clerk Becky Hill’s alleged jury tampering “infected the trial with unfairness.”

Murdaugh, 56, is serving a life sentence for fatally shooting his wife, Maggie, and youngest son, Paul, in June 2021 on their family’s hunting estate in Colleton County, South Carolina. Prosecutors argued that their murders were an attempt to distract from Murdaugh’s mounting financial crimes, which were beginning to come to light around that time. 

This April, the disgraced legal scion was sentenced to an additional 480 months, on top of his two life sentences, for conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud, bank fraud, five counts of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 14 counts of money laundering. 

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Prosecutors allege that Murdaugh used his power and family influence in the Lowcountry to take on clients’ cases, win them “significant funds” and then keep a decent portion of the earnings for himself.

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But in their 132-page appeal, filed on Tuesday, Murdaugh’s attorneys argue that their client’s financial crimes should not have been included in his earlier murder trial, stating they were irrelevant and could have painted him in a bad light that negatively influenced jurors. 

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Clerk of Court Becky Hill has been accused of tampering with the jury in the Alex Murdaugh double murder trial. (Fox Nation)

The appeal also alleges that former Colleton County Clerk Becky Hill, who resigned over allegations of jury tampering in Murdaugh’s case, swayed jurors to find him guilty.

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Of 12 jurors who found Murdaugh guilty of murder in March 2023, 11 said Hill did not influence their decisions. One said he heard the clerk make comments about watching Murdaugh’s body language, but said her words did not influence his verdict.  

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Alex Murdaugh sits during a hearing on a motion for a retrial, Jan. 16, 2024, at the Richland County Judicial Center in Columbia, South Carolina. (Tracy Glantz/The State via AP, Pool)

Judge Jean Toal ruled in January that the allegations against Hill were not enough to grant the defendant a new trial in the murder case. Murdaugh’s attorneys argued against that ruling in their appeal. 

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Hill, who is accused of 76 ethics violations, was expected to face the State’s Ethics Commission on Dec. 19. But that hearing is on hold in light of a pending criminal investigation by the Attorney General’s Office, the State newspaper reported.

The appeal also alleges that prosecutors introduced multiple guns as evidence that had no evidence linking them to the murders, and that gunshot residue on a raincoat shown as evidence in court were not linked to their client by any evidence. 

Fox News Digital’s Audrey Conklin contributed to this report.

The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office declined this week to turn over any new communications between District Attorney Fani Willis and outgoing special counsel Jack Smith, asserting in a new court filing that the documents either do not exist or are exempt from disclosure under Georgia law.

The update was shared Tuesday by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group that sued Willis in March after her office denied having any records of communication between Willis and Smith or between Willis and the House January 6th Committee.

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Both Smith and the House Select Committee had been investigating alleged efforts by President-elect Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election—putting their investigations directly in the crosshairs of Judicial Watch and other conservative activists. 

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ordered Willis last Monday to produce any records of communication with either Smith or the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 within five business days, siding with Judicial Watch in determining that Willis had indeed violated the state’s open records act by failing to respond to the lawsuit. 

Willis, for her part, claims she was not properly served by the group.

The Fulton County Open Records Department appears to disagree. In a new court filing this week, they said that their staff conducted a “diligent search” but had not uncovered any records of documents or communications between Willis and Smith, the special counsel tapped by Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022 to oversee two investigations into the alleged actions of former President Donald Trump.

Attorney General Merrick Garland testifies during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Department of Justice on Tuesday, June 4, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP/Jacquelyn Martin)

Additionally, staff for the Open Records Department asserted any records or documents between Willis and the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 are still “legally exempt” or “exempted from disclosure” to Judicial Watch under the Georgia Open Records Law, which itself protects against the release of documents or records that arose from an investigation, subsequent indictment, or prosecution in the ongoing case against Trump and his allies. 

The filing comes as Willis’s actions have come under scrutiny by Republican lawmakers and conservative nonprofit groups. 

Members of the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee have said Willis asked the House Select Committee on January 6th to share information with her office, prompting additional scrutiny into those communications.

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Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, strikes the gavel to start a hearing on Capitol Hill. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Trump and 18 others pleaded not guilty in Fulton County last year to all charges stemming from a sweeping racketeering indictment brought by the DA’s office, which accused them of attempting to overturn the results of the presidential election. 

The charges against Trump in Georgia had been on hold after his attorneys filed an appeal to have Willis disqualified from the case, citing alleged conflicts of interest.

Importantly, the charges against Trump in the state have not yet been officially dropped, despite his status as president-elect. 

The case’s status comes as Smith has wound down all federal court proceedings against Trump following his victory in the 2024 election and longstanding Justice Department policy that prevents U.S. prosecutors from bringing federal criminal charges against a sitting president. 

Fox News Digital’s Haley Chi-Sing contributed to this report.