A South Carolina judge on Friday ordered that the new trial for disbarred attorney Alex Murdaugh be moved out of Colleton County, ruling that he cannot receive a fair and impartial proceeding in the rural community where he was first convicted of killing his wife and son. Circuit Court Judge Debra McCaslin made the decision during a lengthy status hearing in Lexington, according to CNN, as she worked through a series of contested issues ahead of Murdaugh's retrial, now scheduled for April 2027.
"I'm going to order that venue be transferred to a county outside of the 14th Judicial Circuit because I believe that the defendant cannot receive a fair and impartial trial in Colleton County," McCaslin said, according to CNN. She did not immediately decide which county will host the new trial, leaving that question for a later hearing.
Murdaugh's defense team has pushed for Charleston, the state's most populous city, arguing it offers the best chance of seating an unbiased jury. Defense attorney Dick Harpootlian told the court that finding impartial jurors will be extraordinarily difficult and called the case "a local freakshow" in Colleton County, CNN reported. Prosecutors countered that Charleston would be logistically difficult and expensive, and said they would consider other counties. McCaslin acknowledged the financial strain the case has placed on Colleton County, noting it is a poor county that bears the cost of the retrial.
Murdaugh, 58, was convicted in March 2023 after a six-week trial in the June 2021 shooting deaths of his wife, Maggie, and 22-year-old son, Paul, at the family's estate in Islandton. Prosecutors argued he killed them to distract from investigations into financial crimes he had committed against his law firm and clients. He was sentenced to life in prison, but the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned the convictions in May, citing improper interactions between the trial's court clerk and the jury that the defense said were prejudicial. Murdaugh separately pleaded guilty to dozens of unrelated financial crimes and is currently serving concurrent state and federal sentences of 27 and 40 years.
Prior Testimony Ruling
At the outset of Friday's three-hour hearing, McCaslin ruled that prosecutors may introduce portions of the testimony Murdaugh gave during his first trial, but only under specific conditions. "When you testify in a case, there's consequences," she said, according to CNN. The defense had asked that the earlier testimony be excluded entirely, arguing it focused heavily on financial crimes that the state Supreme Court had already found received too much emphasis during the original trial.
McCaslin said only the parts of Murdaugh's 2023 testimony relevant to the new trial, primarily material tied directly to the deaths of Maggie and Paul, would be allowed. "It's all subject to rules of evidence," she said. "If it's not relevant, if it's not in your case in chief, then that prior testimony is not coming in obviously." Fox News reported that McCaslin rejected a defense argument that Murdaugh's decision to testify at the first trial had been improperly influenced by the volume of financial-crime evidence admitted at that proceeding, but she reiterated that prosecutors would not be able to introduce his full prior testimony automatically. Harpootlian said the defense "respectfully" disagreed with the ruling.
During his original 2023 testimony, Murdaugh admitted he had lied repeatedly to investigators and acknowledged being at the property's dog kennels, near where the bodies were found, on the night of the killings. He maintained under oath that he was "nowhere near Paul and Maggie when they got shot." He also testified about attempting to hire someone to kill him and about a longtime substance abuse problem, according to CNN.
New Ballistics Question Raised
Fox News reported that Murdaugh's defense introduced a new issue during the hearing, raising questions about a possible connection between the Murdaugh case and weapons from a separate Allendale County murder. Defense attorney Jim Griffin told the court his team learned of the potential link through reporting by FITSNews, and asked for testing and investigative records if any ballistics match were confirmed.
Lead prosecutor Creighton Waters said the claim was entirely new to him and that he had never heard of any such connection despite daily communication with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, known as SLED. "I would be flabbergasted to find out that actually had happened and no one had advised this office of that," Waters said, according to Fox News. He added that he does not follow podcasts or blogs covering the case because he bases his work on evidence rather than media speculation.
Waters later told the court that SLED confirmed there is no known ballistics match linking a .300 Blackout rifle used in the Allendale County shooting to the Murdaugh case, though the firearm's data had been entered into a ballistics database with no resulting leads or hits. He said he would double check the claim further. Harpootlian said the defense wants more than verbal assurances from investigators, telling the court he has come to question the integrity of the SLED lab because of issues raised throughout the Murdaugh case, though he said he has never questioned Waters personally.
The defense also pressed prosecutors on their disclosure obligations under Giglio v. United States, the 1972 Supreme Court decision requiring prosecutors to turn over evidence that could undermine a government witness's credibility. Griffin raised the case of Michael Colucci, whose murder charge was dismissed without prejudice after his attorneys alleged prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence, and asked whether former SLED agent David Owen, who also worked the Murdaugh case, had faced any discipline. Waters said he was unaware of any finding that Owen had been dishonest but would look into it.
McCaslin additionally ruled that polygraph results cannot be mentioned in front of the jury without first approaching the bench, warning that raising the subject prematurely could risk a mistrial. The ruling came after Harpootlian argued polygraphs could become relevant if witness Curtis "Eddie" Smith testifies; he told the court Smith had failed a polygraph when asked whether he killed Paul and Maggie Murdaugh, while Murdaugh had passed one.
The judge also agreed to personally oversee the drafting of the jury pool list for the retrial, a request from the defense tied directly to the misconduct that led the state Supreme Court to overturn the original verdict. "Wherever this trial is going to be, I will certainly make sure that it is on the up and up," McCaslin said, according to CNN. Murdaugh, appearing in court in a dark suit and lavender striped tie, spoke only briefly during the hearing, at one point drawing laughter when Harpootlian noted that his client, without a job for four years, was now "broke."
