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by JENN WOOD
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The retrial of accused killer Alex Murdaugh will be held in Sumter County after a South Carolina judge concluded the disgraced former attorney could no longer receive a fair and impartial trial in Colleton County.
In an eight-page order (.pdf) filed on Tuesday (September 8, 2026), S.C. circuit court judge Debra McCaslin granted Murdaugh’s motion to transfer venue outside of the fourteenth judicial circuit – a five-county region where his family administered a selective brand of justice for generations.
The fourteenth circuit is also where Murdaugh was initially convicted three-and-a-half years ago of the murders of his wife, 52-year-old Maggie Murdaugh, and younger son, 22-year-old Paul Murdaugh. Those convictions were reversed by the S.C. supreme court in May of this year, however.
McCaslin selected Sumter County after considering several courthouses across the state — including locations in Richland and Charleston counties that were recommended by Murdaugh’s attorneys.
According to the order, Sumter County offers the courtroom space, security, technology and supporting infrastructure necessary to accommodate one of the most closely watched criminal retrials in South Carolina history.
The state ultimately agreed to leave the selection of a new venue to McCaslin.
Murdaugh’s retrial is currently scheduled to begin on April 5, 2027.
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WHY THE TRIAL IS MOVING
The ruling rests on four primary considerations: the extraordinary number of prospective jurors disqualified before Murdaugh’s first trial, the Murdaugh family’s century-long connection to the fourteenth circuit, former Colleton County clerk of court Rebecca “Becky” Hill‘s interference with the jury and the relentless publicity surrounding the case.
Unlike most venue disputes — which require judges to predict whether pretrial publicity has tainted a potential jury pool — McCaslin had the benefit of reviewing what actually happened during jury selection in January 2023.
Approximately 900 prospective jurors were summoned and provided detailed questionnaires ahead of the original trial. Only 123 were qualified to serve, and a final strike sheet of 80 potential jurors was assembled from that group.
In other words, fewer than one in seven prospective jurors qualified.
“That is not a prediction about jurors,” McCaslin wrote. “Instead, it is a fact established on the record of the same case, in the same county, on the same charges.”
The judge found that disqualification rate represented a “floor rather than a ceiling” because the original jury was selected before the reversal of Murdaugh’s convictions, Hill’s criminal convictions and the wave of renewed coverage those developments generated.
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RELATED | Key Evidence And Venue Disputes Take Shape
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A CENTURY OF MURDAUGH INFLUENCE
McCaslin also pointed to the Murdaugh family’s deep roots within the fourteenth circuit, which includes Allendale, Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper counties.
Three generations of Murdaughs served as the fourteenth circuit’s elected solicitor for nearly a century, while the Murdaughs’ former law firm became one of the most prominent legal institutions in the South Carolina Lowcountry.
That history, according to the judge, makes it more likely that prospective jurors would enter the courtroom with personal, professional or inherited opinions about the family.
Some residents may associate the name with public service and respect, McCaslin noted. Others may associate it with privilege, influence or resentment.
“Either direction presents a concern because the constitutional inquiry concerns impartiality, not whether community bias favors one party over the other,” he wrote.
That concern is compounded by the size of Colleton County, which has approximately 39,000 residents and a comparatively limited jury pool.
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THE HILL FACTOR
The most significant change since Murdaugh’s original trial is the S.C. supreme court’s May 13, 2026 decision overturning his convictions for the June 2021 murders of his wife and son.
Among other issues, the justices concluded Hill improperly inserted herself into the jury’s deliberative process while serving as its court-appointed caretaker.
According to the court, Hill’s conduct deprived Murdaugh of his constitutional right to a fair trial before an impartial jury and “placed her fingers on the scales of justice.”
The court described Hill’s actions as a “breathtaking and disgraceful effort” to undermine the jury process — conduct it called unprecedented in South Carolina.
McCaslin found those conclusions directly relevant to the venue question.
Potential Colleton County jurors would no longer be asked only whether they had formed opinions about Murdaugh’s guilt. They could also have views about whether the county’s judicial system unfairly convicted him, whether Hill behaved corruptly, whether the defense used a technicality to overturn the verdict or whether the Supreme Court reached the correct decision.
Holding the retrial in the same courthouse where that constitutional violation occurred would also create broader concerns about public confidence in the proceedings.
“Public confidence and juror impartiality are better protected by separating the retrial … from the courthouse and local environment now inseparably associated with both the original conviction and its invalidation,” McCaslin wrote.
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YEARS OF SATURATION COVERAGE
The judge also distinguished the Murdaugh saga from a typical high-profile criminal case.
Since the murders, the case has generated more than ten books, at least six podcast series, more than seven television and streaming productions, more than 20 documentary episodes and years of sustained social media attention.
National publicity alone does not necessarily require a venue change. In this case, however, the national media phenomenon has repeatedly focused on a relatively small community where the Murdaugh family was already well known.
McCaslin described it as a convergence of “national media saturation and local community familiarity.”
The judge also cited the recent decision to move the Mallory Beach wrongful death case outside the Fourteenth Judicial Circuit because of the publicity surrounding both the boat crash litigation and Murdaugh’s criminal prosecution.
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WHAT COMES NEXT
South Carolina law offered McCaslin another option: selecting jurors in a different county and transporting them to Colleton County for the trial. The judge rejected that approach as more expensive, complicated and burdensome.
Murdaugh’s first trial lasted approximately six weeks. A retrial of similar length could require transportation, lodging, meals, security and potentially sequestration for an outside jury — expenses Colleton County would be required to bear. It also would return the case to the courthouse where the S.C. Supreme Court found Murdaugh’s constitutional right to an impartial jury was violated.
Instead, the entire proceeding will move to Sumter County, allowing jurors to serve in their home county while avoiding many of those costs and institutional concerns.
Unless the schedule changes, jury selection will begin there on April 5, 2027. Additional pretrial disputes remain pending, including questions surrounding DNA testing, evidence of Murdaugh’s financial crimes, prior testimony and references to polygraph examinations.
FITSNews will continue tracking those filings and provide additional details as the retrial approaches.
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THE ORDER…
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
As a private investigator turned journalist, Jenn Wood brings a unique skill set to FITSNews as its research director. Known for her meticulous sourcing and victim-centered approach, she helps shape the newsroom’s most complex investigative stories while producing the FITSFiles and Cheer Incorporated podcasts. Jenn lives in South Carolina with her family, where her work continues to spotlight truth, accountability, and justice.
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SOUND OFF…
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9 comments
It’s all such a waste of money… someone inside just needs to take care of him like they did Jeffrey Dahmer.
What do you prove about yourself by writing this?
The man is already suffering the loss of his wife and younger son. Why do you want him offed before he can prove his innocence?
This hard-heartedness is frightening to me and damaging to your own soul.
Please reconsider.
Suffered the loss of his wife and younger son… at his own hands.
There’s nothing to prove, that was shown in the first trial.
Maybe if you weren’t such a bleeding heart, you’d see the facts for what they are.
Do you just want a do over because the trial didn’t come out the way you wanted the first time? Are you a paying member of the Dick Hartpootlian fan club?
There are EXACTLY two lawyers in North Carolina (one male, one female), one in Washington, D.C., or New York (a male), and one in South Carolina (a female), whom I respect and cherish. Besides those four, there is EXACTLY one retired federal magistrate judge and one retired federal judge in North Carolina, one retired state judge in North Carolina, one deceased state judge in South Carolina, and one sitting judge in South Carolina (all five males), whom I respect and trust to always do the right thing even when there is nothing in it for them.
ALL the other lawyers and judges I have known in the U.S. are motivated by self-interest or self-importance and it shows sooner or later.
Sure, if there is nothing for him/her on either side, a South Carolina judge MIGHT rule fairly and promptly. But put as little as a proverbial feather of potential profit or fun for the judge on one side or the other, what comes out is shocking ignorance OR ignoring of the law and of decency.
I am NOT a member of Mr. Harpootlian’s “fan club,” though I have great memories of the Armenian refugees I knew in high school and great sympathy for the victims of the Armenian genocide. But I doubt Mr. Harpootlian is related to any of that except by name.
I recommend for you a French-Italian movie starring Omar Sharif and Claudia Cardinale called “Mayrig,” the Armenian word for “Mother,” if you want to know more about the Armenian Genocide. French is one my first three languages; but I hope you can find a version dubbed in English, or at least with English subtitles, if you are not at home in French as I am.
But back to Alex Murduahg, I am NOT a “bleeding heart,” I am a scientist.
Medical Science tells the food in Maggie’s and Paul’s stomachs at autopsy was too little and too digested for them to have died ONLY 22 minutes after their KNOWN large, and relatively fatty last meal.
Botanical Science and the sciences of dynamics tell me Maggie’s phone could NOT have threaded itself between unbroken twigs of vegetation and came to rest as we see it in the photo taken of it where and when found the morning after the murders. That phone must have been placed there by hand, not thrown from a moving vehicle at whatever speed. And it was MORE LIKELY pilfered or wrestled away from Maggie BEFORE, not after the shooting, to prevent her from calling for help.
These are THE FACTS. Anything else is prejudicial publicity.
Please watch the movie, look at the photos, read the autopsy pathologist’s testimony, and tell me what you, in GOOD CONSCIENCE, think.
You forgot to mention that you’re a nutcase who likes to hear herself talk.
I referred you to a well-made movie where others talk; and I answered your false accusation about being a fan club member. How is that hearing myself talk?
And I pointed scientific facts out. How does that make me “a nut case”?
I now add that “nut case” is a meaningless cliche, facile to people who know nothing about science and are unwilling to learn.
But I hope some other reader(s) benefited from my observations. One never knows which good seeds will hit fertile soil.
Do you happen to binge watch old episodes of Quincy?
I don’t know what Quincy is; nor do I have any intent of binge-watching anything.
Full disclosure though, a year ago I traced Peyton Place (a fiction including a man falsely incarcerated for 18 years for the murder of his wife) and The Fugitive and watched some episodes.
FYI, The Fugitive is loosely based on the true story of Dr. Sam Shepherd, who was convicted of his wife’s murder after horrendous prejudicial publicity and imprisoned but the U.S. Supreme Court reversed his conviction.
As Solomon the wise said, “nothing new under the sun.”
Good night and God bless nonetheless.
I think Judge McCaslin is the right Judge for this and it is evident she thought very carefully about the venue change.