Murdaugh murder decision overturned by SC Supreme Court

Noah Feit, The State (Columbia, S.C.) on May 13, 2026

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COLUMBIA, S.C. -- The South Carolina Supreme Court has ruled to overturn the 2023 double murder conviction of disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh.

In it’s ruling Wednesday, the state Supreme Court said the actions of former Colleton County Court Clerk Becky Hill denied “Murdaugh his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury.”

Murdaugh’s case will now return to circuit court, according to the ruling.

Murdaugh, 57, a once wealthy fourth-generation lawyer in his family law firm in Lowcountry Hampton County, is serving two life sentences for murder at a maximum security state prison in McCormick County.

He is also serving multiyear state and federal sentences for defrauding hapless clients of millions of dollars. Murdaugh has admitted his financial frauds and plead guilty to them.

But he contends he is innocent of murder and was wrongly convicted of murdering his wife and son.

In 2023, Murdaugh was found guilty of two counts of murder for the June 7, 2021, shooting deaths of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, on the family’s remote 1,770-acre estate, called Moselle.

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