WALTERBORO, S.C. (Court TV) — The newly appointed judge in the Alex Murdaugh double murder case set a date for his second trial on Monday — but the public will be waiting for a bit.
Honorable Debra R. McCaslin set a tentative trial date for April 5, 2027, during the hourlong pretrial hearing, the first time Murdaugh has appeared in court since his conviction was overturned.
Alex Murdaugh made his first court appearance since his 2023 double murder convictions were overturned by the South Carolina Supreme Court in May (Court TV).
Murdaugh, 57, had been sentenced to two life terms after a jury convicted him of murdering his wife, Maggie Murdaugh, and son, Paul Murdaugh. The South Carolina Supreme Court overturned that conviction in May after determining that Rebecca “Becky” Hill, who was the Colleton County Clerk of Court during Alex Murdaugh’s murder trial, had tainted the jury by making improper comments about the defendant and his testimony.
The state and attorneys representing the disgraced attorney discussed several issues to iron out before the case can proceed forward.
As they prepare to retry the case, Murdaugh’s attorneys want an independent laboratory to review whether possible DNA collected from under Maggie Murdaugh’s fingernails at the crime scene was “from an unknown and unrelated male.” Attorney Jim Griffin said advancements in DNA technology, particularly with the help of artificial intelligence, provide investigators with tools that were not available to them when the slayings happened five years ago.
“In 2026, we are light years ahead, and so what we’re asking for didn’t really exist in 2021,” Griffin told the judge. “It does exist today.”
The defense says no further analysis was performed on the sample, arguing in a motion filed earlier this month that it could be crucial to proving their client’s innocence. The defense motion states that Othram, the same company whose Investigative Genetic Genealogy technology cracked open the case against Bryan Kohberger, believes it can conduct a thorough analysis of the sample, “but the testing takes considerable time, and a ‘rush’ order would be needed.”
Defense attorney Dick Harpootlian said the DNA analysis could take the trial date into late 2027 and into 2028. But McCaslin said she didn’t want to wait that long.
“Please do not think that this case is going to be tried a year later because it’s not,” she said.
Murdaugh’s lawyers are also pushing to move the retrial out of Colleton County, the site of the first trial.
“This is among the most heavily publicized criminal prosecutions in the history of this State,” the motion for change-of-venue states. It asks for the trial to be moved out of the 14th circuit, which encompasses Allendale, Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper counties, “where the Murdaugh name has been synonymous with the local legal system for nearly a century, where the population is small and interconnected, and where the very documentaries, books, and films that have shaped public opinion were researched, filmed and produced.”
McCaslin did not rule on the motion, noting the state did not have adequate time to respond.
Murdaugh’s defense also requested that the defendant appear at future hearings unshackled and in normal clothing, which caused prosecutors to come back swinging.
“The first two steps of any escape attempt are to become unrestrained and to get into civilian clothes,” they wrote in their response. They pointed to two instances in 2023 of disciplinary actions behind bars to say that Murdaugh “has demonstrated that he will break the rules and circumvent security if given the chance.”
The defense responded by noting the incidents merited only a 30-day loss of telephone privileges, but agreed to withdraw their request that he appear in street clothes and without shackles. “Mr. Murdaugh does not want to create a distraction for the Court or even for the State,” they wrote. “Mr. Murdaugh has admitted his many serious financial crimes, and he accepts the consequences of those crimes — decades of imprisonment, probably for the remainder of his life — without complaint. If the State wants to use that for a public spectacle, so be it.”
McCaslin was also asked to rule on a request for Murdaugh to have a laptop at the jail. McCaslin said the warden made it clear he cannot have a laptop in his cell for security and safety reasons, but she said he can have one in the presence of his attorneys or a law clerk. She also said she’ll speak with the warden to see if the laptop can be made available to him.
Another pretrial hearing has been scheduled for Aug. 14.
Despite the murder convictions being overturned, Alex Murdaugh remains behind bars serving a 27-year state sentence for financial crimes and a concurrent 40-year federal sentence for similar crimes.
Lauren Silver contributed to this report
