A hearing Friday for Alex Murdaugh, the disbarred South Carolina lawyer facing a second murder trial in the 2021 deaths of his wife and son, likely will address a clash over the defense’s request to move the retrial from his rural home county to Charleston.
The venue fight is among a wave of motions – including his lawyers’ request to dismiss the 2022 murder indictments over allegations an investigator presented fabricated evidence, and their request for independent testing of DNA evidence – that Circuit Court Judge Debra McCaslin could address Friday as the case heads toward an April trial.
Murdaugh, 58, is expected to appear in court for the status hearing in Lexington, the latest in a sprawling legal saga about the June 2021 fatal shootings of Murdaugh’s wife, Maggie, and 22-year-old son, Paul, outside their family home in the small Colleton County community of Islandton in South Carolina’s Lowcountry.
Murdaugh, a personal injury attorney from a Lowcountry legal dynasty, was convicted of murder in March 2023 after a six-week trial, with prosecutors alleging he killed Maggie and Paul to stave off investigations of financial crimes authorities said he committed against his law firm and clients. He admitted on the stand that he lied about his whereabouts, but denied killing the two. He was sentenced to life in prison.
But the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned the murder convictions this May and ordered a retrial, saying Colleton County’s then-clerk tainted the first trial with what the defense said was prejudicial comments to the jury. Murdaugh separately pleaded guilty to dozens of financial crimes and is serving concurrent state and federal sentences of 27 and 40 years.
Friday’s hearing likely will address a disagreement between prosecutors and the defense over the retrial location – not necessarily over whether to move it, but over the defense’s new request to have it in Charleston specifically.
McCaslin was already considering a broader relocation request. In June, the defense argued that Murdaugh couldn’t get an impartial trial in the 14th Judicial Circuit, which includes Colleton County, partly because of heavy case publicity. It noted Murdaugh’s name was synonymous with the local legal system – his father, grandfather and great-grandfather served as local prosecutors for decades – and the population was small and interconnected.
At a June hearing, McCaslin told the defense and prosecutors to discuss locations they could find acceptable.
But in a court filing last week, the defense narrowed its desired destination to adjacent Charleston County, arguing the area’s larger population would make it easier to find an impartial jury.
In a filing Wednesday, state prosecutors opposed Charleston as the venue, arguing it would be prohibitively expensive and crowded. They said the April 5, 2027, trial start would coincide with a heavy Charleston tourist season, which they contended would be partly affected by the April 5-11 Masters golf tournament some 150 miles away in Augusta, Georgia.
“The spring tourist season is already the busiest tourist time of the year in Charleston, and with the trial set to begin on Masters week, many people will go to Charleston to vacation the following week,” prosecutors wrote. As a result, hotel rates close to the county courthouse could be “more than double or triple the cost of comparable areas,” the state said.
Prosecutors also noted spring storms often “completely paralyze the already heavily congested downtown area with flooding.” And they argued a suitable jury was selected in the first trial in Colleton County “in just over two days,” and that the defense “never once complained about the selection process at the first trial.”
The state said it is open to discussing other locations if the defense would consider any county other than Charleston – which it called “the most expensive and logistically challenging” in the state – but would oppose a change of venue if the defense insisted on Charleston.
Murdaugh’s defense quickly responded on Thursday, arguing none of the alternative locations proposed by the state meet their criteria.
“The parties therefore agree upon everything that matters except the destination. The State’s opposition reduces to a single proposition: anywhere but Charleston,” the defense wrote.
Defense also seeks indictment dismissal and independent DNA testing
McCaslin on Friday also could address several other issues.
• On Monday, Murdaugh’s attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the 2022 murder indictments foundational to the case, claiming a key witness gave “perjurious testimony and fabricated evidence” to the grand jury that indicted Murdaugh.
The motion alleges the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division’s lead agent for the case “testified that he presented physical evidence directly inculpating the defendant to the Colleton County grand jury that he had admitted was false and which the defendant has proven was fabricated by law enforcement.”
Murdaugh’s attorneys said they did not provide additional detail in the filing, noting more information would be included in subsequent memorandums. As of Thursday, no further memo had been filed, and prosecutors had not responded.
• The state last week filed documents pushing back on Murdaugh’s request to send DNA found under Maggie’s fingernails to an independent laboratory for more advanced testing.
The defense in June said although authorities determined the DNA was from an unknown unrelated male, “no further analysis was attempted” and the evidence could be important. “It may turn out to be innocuous … but it’s worth looking into,” defense attorney Jim Griffin said in June.
The state, which in June argued state investigators sufficiently analyzed the DNA, filed a response last week saying “there is nothing ‘new’ or recently discovered about the DNA result from Maggie’s left-hand fingernails.”
“While the state does not oppose allowing further testing of this material, the state specifically opposes turning over the remaining reserve samples to defendant and a third party where defendant has represented he has no obligation to turn over any results of such further testing, has not granted any preservation of said samples during or following testing, and the state would otherwise be violating its evidence preservation obligations by acceding to such a request in the manner set forth by the defense,” the state wrote in a court filing.
• State prosecutors last week filed documents asking the judge for permission to reuse Murdaugh’s testimony from the first trial, even if he doesn’t choose to return to the stand in the new trial.
During two days of dramatic testimony in 2023, Murdaugh confirmed that he repeatedly lied to investigators. On the stand he admitted that he’d been at the property’s kennels – near where Paul and Maggie’s bodies were found – on the night of the killings. But he added under oath that, “I was nowhere near Paul and Maggie when they got shot.” He also admitted to both trying to hire someone to kill him and a substance abuse problem, while detailing extensive financial crimes against vulnerable clients.
The defense on Thursday objected to the state’s motion, saying it was a violation to use Murdaugh’s 2023 testimony, arguing the only reason he agreed to testify was to rebut irrelevant evidence about his financial crimes the prosecution never should have been allowed to offer in the first place, their filing said.
• In several other filings this week, prosecutors asked the judge to approve a juror questionnaire, adopt an amended protective order for discovery and renew multiple motions from the 2023 trial, including one asking to prohibit evidence related to a polygraph test taken by Murdaugh. They also are seeking permission to conduct a “fresh review” of digital evidence.
The defense opposed the state’s request for an order compelling them to turn over a “forensic extraction of his telephone performed by a defense-retained expert,” according to a Thursday court filing.
“The motion asks for the one kind of extraction that cannot contain the one kind of data the motion seeks,” which includes deleted files and non-user-accessible databases, the filing said.
McCaslin may also address other aspects of the second murder trial, including possible indications of rules that may govern media access to it.
McCaslin did issue a ruling Monday that will play out in Friday’s hearing.
In a win for the Murdaugh team, over objections from prosecutors, she ordered Murdaugh to appear unshackled and in civilian clothing “at all pretrial hearings and during trial in front of the court when news media is present with cameras.”