Overview
- Defense lawyers filed motion papers on Aug. 12 insisting Charleston County is the only acceptable site for Alex Murdaugh’s court-ordered retrial and calling the city free of historic Murdaugh influence.
- The South Carolina Attorney General’s Office formally filed a response the same week rejecting Charleston as logistically and financially impractical and arguing its shared media market with Colleton County would not cure pretrial publicity.
- Prosecutors suggested alternative counties — Florence, Lancaster, Newberry, Spartanburg and York — as more accessible and cost-effective venues with modern courthouse facilities.
- Judge Debra McCaslin will hear the competing venue and DNA-retest motions at a pretrial session on Aug. 14 in Lexington County, with the retrial tentatively scheduled to begin in April 2027.
- The dispute follows the state Supreme Court’s May order vacating Murdaugh’s 2023 convictions because of prejudicial juror contacts, and the venue fight could shape jury selection, trial timing, local budgets and security plans for the high-profile case.