The South Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday set aside the murder convictions of Alex Murdaugh, ruling that a state court clerk’s improper remarks to jurors during his 2023 trial had so tainted the proceedings that he must receive a new trial. In a unanimous opinion, the justices found that the Colleton County clerk of court “egregiously attacked Murdaugh’s credibility” by telling jurors his testimony could not be trusted, conduct the court said violated Murdaugh’s right to a fair trial.
Murdaugh, 55, was convicted in March 2023 of fatally shooting his wife Maggie, 52, and their younger son Paul, 22, near the dog kennels on the family’s rural estate in June 2021. He was sentenced to life in prison. His defense team later moved for a new trial, arguing that the clerk, Hill, had engaged in impermissible contact with jurors. A trial judge denied that request in January 2024, but the state’s highest court reversed the decision on appeal, finding that the clerk’s comments “fatally infected the jury’s confidence in Murdaugh’s truthfulness.”
The ruling does not free Murdaugh. He remains incarcerated on a 40-year federal sentence imposed in April 2024 after he pleaded guilty to stealing millions of dollars from personal-injury clients and his family’s law firm, a scheme that lasted more than a decade and involved at least 71 separate criminal counts. Prosecutors there described him as a “serial fraudster” who took advantage of vulnerable people, including the sons of his late housekeeper, and used the stolen funds to finance a lavish lifestyle and an opioid addiction.
South Carolina prosecutors, who had urged the high court to uphold the convictions, said they will retry Murdaugh on the murder charges. “We will pursue justice for Maggie and Paul Murdaugh in a new trial, and we are confident the evidence will again lead to convictions,” a spokesperson for the state attorney general’s office said Wednesday.
The timeline of the case stretches back to the June 2021 shootings, which Murdaugh himself reported to 911. He denied any involvement at the time, but investigators later uncovered a web of financial crimes that, prosecutors argued, provided a motive for the killings: Murdaugh feared that his thefts would soon be exposed. In the months after the murders, he attempted to stage his own killing in a failed scheme to secure a $10 million life-insurance payout for his surviving son, and he was eventually arrested at a Florida drug-rehabilitation facility.
The overturned murder verdict reopens one of the most closely watched criminal cases in recent South Carolina history. Murdaugh’s name was once synonymous with legal power in the Lowcountry: his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had each served as elected prosecutors, and his family’s century-old law firm won multimillion-dollar verdicts for plaintiffs. That reputation collapsed as the theft allegations surfaced, and Murdaugh was ultimately disbarred and disowned by his firm.
Legal observers said the state Supreme Court’s decision is a reminder that juror taint can override even a verdict that appeared swift and decisive—the 2023 jury deliberated for less than three hours before finding Murdaugh guilty. “When a court officer inserted herself into the jury’s evaluation of the defendant’s credibility, the whole foundation of the verdict became suspect,” said one defense attorney who followed the case but is not involved in the litigation. The court’s ruling means Murdaugh’s murder case will return to a lower court for a new trial, a proceeding that could begin within the next year. Until then, he will continue serving his federal sentence in a South Carolina prison.