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(NewsNation) — Alex Murdaugh will return to a South Carolina courtroom Monday for the first time since the state’s highest court threw out his murder convictions.
The hearing in Lexington County is mainly about scheduling. A new judge, Debra McCaslin, will meet with prosecutors and Murdaugh’s defense team to set deadlines for swapping evidence and start mapping out a timeline for the new trial. No major rulings are expected.
Murdaugh, once a prominent South Carolina lawyer, was convicted in 2023 of killing his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, and sentenced to life in prison. Last month, the state Supreme Court overturned those convictions, ruling that a court clerk overseeing the trial crossed a line by telling jurors not to be fooled by Murdaugh’s testimony and possibly influencing their decision by suggesting he was guilty.
Prosecutors have said they intend to retry Murdaugh, and the state’s attorney general has said the death penalty could be part of that retrial, which prosecutors didn’t pursue the first time around.
Even with his murder convictions wiped, Murdaugh isn’t getting out of prison. He pleaded guilty to stealing roughly $12 million from clients and family members, and he’s serving a 40-year federal sentence alongside a 27-year state sentence for those financial crimes.
Ahead of Monday’s hearing, Murdaugh’s lawyers requested the judge let him appear in regular clothes instead of a prison uniform, and without handcuffs or leg shackles during the hearings and the new trial.
They’re also asking prosecutors to turn over DNA found under Maggie Murdaugh’s fingernails, which investigators have said came from an unidentified man, so it can be tested at an outside lab.
Murdaugh has admitted to lying, stealing and cheating insurance companies, but he has always denied killing his wife and son, who were found shot to death outside their home in 2021.
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