@meghannmcuniff: The new judge in disbarred lawyer Alex Murdaugh's double-murder case in South Carolina ruled today that his April 2027 retrial will be held outside Colleton County because of juror bias and "extraordinary" pretrial publicity. "I'm going to order that venue be transferred to a county outside of the 14th Judicial Circuit, because I believe that the defendant cannot receive a fair and impartial trial in Colleton County," said Judge Debra McCaslin. She has not decided in which county the new trial will take place. The South Carolina Supreme Court appointed McCaslin to preside over Murdaugh's case after overturning his convictions for murdering his wife, Maggie Murdaugh, and son Paul in a 27-page opinion on May 13. The court said a clerk's comments to jurors during the 2023 trial, including telling them defense attorneys are "going to say things that will try to confuse you," were "improper external influences on the jury" that demanded reversal. The court also said the trial judge, since-retired Clifton Newman, "allowed the State to go far too long and far too deep into aspects of Murdaugh's financial crimes that were not probative of the State's theory of motive, which gave rise to considerable danger of unfair prejudice, and therefore should have been excluded." Murdaugh still is serving prison sentences for state and federal financial crimes. He appeared in McCaslin''s courtroom in Lexington this morning for a two-hour hearing. The judge heard testimony from defense attorney Phil Barber about courthouse logistics and accommodations in other counties, including places for court staff and attorneys to stay. She noted in her ruling that "fewer" one in seven potential jurors qualified to serve in Murdaugh's first trial in 2023 "demonstrating an extraordinary degree of community exposure and prejudice." She also cited now-former clerk Becky Hill's "interference with the jury process," which she said "is deemed presumptively prejudicial and cannot be measured by any voir dire." You can watch McCaslin read her entire ruling in an eight-minute video on my YouTube channel and Facebook page. #law #court #crime

Meghann Cuniff

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Friday 14 August 2026 21:28:08 GMT