A Sept. 8, 2026, order relocates Alex Murdaugh’s retrial roughly 80 miles from Colleton County, four months after the state’s murder convictions against him were reversed.
Retrial site set, trial date confirmed
Alex Murdaugh’s murder retrial will be held in Sumter County, South Carolina, roughly 80 miles from the Colleton County courthouse where he was convicted in 2023, under an order Judge Debra McCaslin issued Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026. Jury selection and trial are scheduled for the week of April 5, 2027.
McCaslin’s eight-page Sept. 8, 2026, order followed an earlier ruling, issued Aug. 14, 2026, that the case could not remain anywhere in the 14th Judicial Circuit, which includes Colleton County — though that August ruling did not yet name a new location. In the Sept. 8, 2026, order, McCaslin cited several reasons for the move: extensive jury-pool contamination during the original 2023 trial, when only 123 of roughly 900 summoned prospective jurors were found qualified; three generations of the Murdaugh family having served as the 14th Circuit’s solicitor for nearly a century, producing what the order describes as inherited local opinions that could threaten a fair trial; the jury interference by former Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill, which the South Carolina Supreme Court called “breathtaking and disgraceful”; and saturation media coverage of the case, including, according to FITSNews’ account of the order, more than 10 books, at least six podcast series, more than seven television and streaming productions, and more than 20 documentary episodes.
Sumter County, McCaslin’s order states in FITSNews’ paraphrase, offers the courtroom space, security, technology and supporting infrastructure necessary to accommodate one of the most closely watched criminal retrials in South Carolina history.
Murdaugh remains in prison regardless of how the retrial unfolds. He is serving separate sentences — 27 years in state custody and 40 years in federal custody, running concurrently — for financial crimes unrelated to the murders, and nothing in this month’s rulings affects that incarceration.
Both sides argue over where the case should be heard
Defense attorney Dick Harpootlian had pushed for the retrial to move to Charleston rather than Sumter, and argued at the Aug. 14, 2026, hearing that Colleton County itself was too compromised to host any part of the proceedings. “Colleton County is poison,” he said, adding that “the courthouse is the scene of the crime.” He told the court that “most normal people would run like a scalded dog from this case” and that “No rational person wants on this jury.”
Lead prosecutor Creighton Waters resisted Harpootlian’s push for Charleston, citing cost, and described himself as “a steward of taxpayer money.” At the same Aug. 14, 2026, hearing, according to a transcript of the proceedings, Waters said the state’s aim was to “we’ll put together a fair process to put 12 in the box,” adding: “I want to get somewhere where we can get 12 in a box and get a process that win, lose or draw is going to be one that sticks, and that’s the state’s goal.”
McCaslin ultimately chose neither Charleston nor Colleton County, settling on Sumter in her Sept. 8, 2026, order.
Why there’s a retrial at all
The venue fight exists only because the South Carolina Supreme Court, in a unanimous, per curiam opinion filed Wednesday, May 13, 2026, reversed the denial of Murdaugh’s motion for a new trial and sent the case back for retrial. The justices had heard arguments Feb. 11, 2026.
The court’s own language, from the opinion: Becky Hill “placed her fingers on the scales of justice, thereby denying Murdaugh his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury.” Hill, who served as Colleton County’s clerk of court during the original trial, had told jurors not to be “fooled” by Murdaugh’s defense, urged them to “watch his body language,” and called the day of his testimony “epic” — remarks made outside the courtroom, according to the opinion. The court found those comments were “more than innocuous interventions” and triggered a legal presumption of prejudice under Remmer v. United States, a standard the state failed to rebut. The justices called Hill’s conduct “egregious, improper jury interference” that “unquestionably was intended to push the jury to a guilty verdict,” and described it as “breathtaking and disgraceful … unprecedented in South Carolina.”
PBS NewsHour’s May 13, 2026, coverage also highlighted a second issue: that the trial judge had allowed extensive evidence of Murdaugh’s unrelated financial crimes during the murder trial, which PBS reported as having biased the jury. The Supreme Court’s opinion, however, frames that concern as guidance for how the retrial should be conducted, not as an independent legal basis for the reversal itself. The court instructed that if financial-crimes evidence is introduced again, prosecutors “must complete its introduction of that evidence efficiently without the lengthy presentation of inflammatory details with little to no probative value that was permitted in the first trial.” The May 13, 2026, reversal rests on Hill’s jury interference.
What was — and wasn’t — overturned
The May 13, 2026, ruling vacated both of Murdaugh’s murder convictions, for the June 7, 2021, killings of his wife, Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and son Paul Murdaugh, 22, along with two weapons-possession counts from the same trial and his life-without-parole sentence. A new trial was ordered on all of it.
The May 13, 2026, ruling did not touch Murdaugh’s separate financial-crimes case, in which he pleaded guilty to stealing roughly $12 million from clients and his own law firm. Those convictions and sentences stand untouched, and he continues serving them.
How each side responded, and a lawsuit that came and went
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson’s office said in a statement issued May 13, 2026: “While we respectfully disagree with the Court’s decision, my Office will aggressively seek to retry Alex Murdaugh for the murders of Maggie and Paul as soon as possible. … No one is above the law and, as always, we will continue to fight for justice.”
Murdaugh’s legal team, quoted by NBC News on May 13, 2026, said: “We look forward to a new trial conducted consistent with the Constitution and the guidance this Court has provided.”
Four days later, on Sunday, May 17, 2026, Murdaugh filed a federal civil lawsuit against Becky Hill, seeking $600,000 in damages plus attorney’s fees over her jury interference. NBC News reported the filing on May 18, 2026, noting any money recovered would not go to Murdaugh personally. The suit did not last long. On Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026, U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel dismissed it without prejudice, ruling that Murdaugh lacked legal standing because the $600,000 in trial costs he cited was not “fairly traceable” to Hill’s alleged conduct. “Nothing in this order should be construed to express an opinion regarding the possible merit or lack of merit of a claim based upon any damages Plaintiff may allege from the retrial of his murder case,” Gergel wrote. Because the dismissal was without prejudice, Murdaugh could refile the suit, and reporting at the time said his team intended to appeal the dismissal.
What happens next
With Sumter County now set as the venue and jury selection scheduled for the week of April 5, 2027, the next scheduled step comes much sooner: a pretrial hearing set for Nov. 13, 2026, with an Oct. 30, 2026, deadline for pretrial motions and a Nov. 6, 2026, deadline for responses.
Some evidentiary questions are already settled. Murdaugh’s testimony from the first trial may be used again at the retrial; polygraph results are barred; and phone data can be introduced only if the defense gives prosecutors advance notice. Others remain open, including exactly how any financial-crimes evidence will be handled under the Supreme Court’s instruction to keep such testimony efficient rather than drawn out.
Murdaugh has appeared in person at pretrial hearings, including the Aug. 14, 2026, session, and nothing in the record suggests that will change when the case goes to trial in Sumter County next spring.