Alex Murdaugh’s retrial will be relocated, and his initial testimony can be used conditionally, judge rules

Lexington, South Carolina (CNN) — [Breaking news, published at 1:13 p.m. ET]

The second double-murder trial of disbarred South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh will be moved out of his home county, a judge ruled Friday afternoon.

“I’m going to order that venue be transferred to a county outside of (South Carolina’s) 14th Judicial Circuit because I believe that the defendant cannot receive a fair and impartial trial in Colleton County,” Judge Debra McCaslin said at a pretrial hearing Friday.

The judge cited an “exceptional rate of juror disqualification” in Murdaugh’s first trial.

McCaslin postponed a decision on which county will host the retrial. Murdaugh’s defense wants the trial to be held in Charleston, the state’s most populous city, while prosecutors say that venue would pose logistical challenges and be unnecessarily expensive.

[Original story, published at 12:56 p.m. ET]

Testimony given by Alex Murdaugh at his first murder trial in the 2021 deaths of his wife and son can be heard by jurors in his upcoming retrial if it meets certain conditions, a judge ruled Friday.

“When you testify in a case, there’s consequences,” South Carolina Circuit Court Judge Debra McCaslin said in a status hearing addressing a slew of motions ahead of Murdaugh’s April 2027 retrial.

The disbarred South Carolina lawyer had been convicted in the June 2021 fatal shootings of his wife, Maggie, and 22-year-old son, Paul, but the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned the convictions this May over what it said were improper interactions between a clerk and the jury.

Murdaugh’s defense asked for the testimony to be barred from the second trial, saying some of it focused on financial crimes that the state Supreme Court advised had been too much of a focus by the prosecution in the first double-murder trial.

Only the portions of Murdaugh’s 2023 testimony on the stand that are relevant to the new trial – largely, testimony relating to the deaths of Maggie and Paul – will be allowed, McCaslin said Friday.

“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.”

It was the first major decision on a wave of motions – including whether to move the trial out of Murdaugh’s home county and his lawyers’ request to dismiss the 2022 murder indictments over allegations an investigator presented fabricated evidence – that McCaslin was asked to address Friday.

Murdaugh, 58, appeared in court for the status hearing in Lexington in a dark suit and lavender striped tie, reminiscent of his previous life as a personal injury attorney from a Lowcountry legal dynasty.

Murdaugh was convicted of murder in March 2023 after a six-week trial, with prosecutors alleging he fatally shot Maggie and Paul outside their home in Colleton County in South Carolina’s Lowcountry 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.

Murdaugh separately pleaded guilty to dozens of financial crimes and is serving concurrent state and federal sentences of 27 and 40 years.

During two days of dramatic testimony in the 2023 murder trial, 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.

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.

McCaslin on Friday agreed to a defense team request that she personally oversee the process of drafting a list of potential jurors to receive a summons in the second trial, and raised the former clerk’s actions in the first trial as a reason.

“Call me suspicious, but when we have evidence that the clerk of court is attempting to influence the jury to obtain a guilty verdict … when did that (influence) start?” asked defense attorney Dick Harpootlian. “Did it start when she started winnowing down people she thought might be helpful to us? And I’m not saying that could happen again, but … I need to say to the court, I never expected it to happen the first time.”

Friday’s hearing will likely also 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.

“Wherever this trial is going to be, I will certainly make sure that it is on the up and up. I can promise you that,” the judge said Friday.

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 allowed access to independent DNA testing

Murdaugh’s team won a victory Friday in its effort to get access to DNA evidence found underneath fingernails of one of the victims.

McCaslin ordered law enforcement to turn over that evidence to the defense so they can do their own independent testing.

Authorities had said the DNA was from an unknown unrelated male, and the state said in a court filing “there is nothing ‘new’ or recently discovered about the DNA result from Maggie’s left-hand fingernails.”

Harpootlian argued Friday there was no good reason to deny Murdaugh’s team the opportunity to have its own experts do a separate analysis.

McCaslin ruled law enforcement must turn over a sample to Murdaugh’s team, but added they must then turn any remaining samples that are still capable of being tested over the prosecutors once the defense experts are done.

McCaslin on Friday also could address 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.

• 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.

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