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The South Carolina Supreme Court has sent Alex Murdaugh’s murder case back to a lower court for retrial, marking the official start of what could become another lengthy courtroom battle in the Lowcountry.
A new court docket entry lists the filing as a “Remittitur” for Richard Alexander Murdaugh, dated May 29.
The remittitur sends the case back to the trial level, where prosecutors, defense attorneys and the court will now begin navigating the new murder proceeding. That process will likely include scheduling hearings, revisiting pretrial motions, handling evidence disagreements and setting a possible new trial date.
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Alex Murdaugh is led out of the Colleton County courthouse in Walterboro, S.C., on Wednesday, March 1, 2023. He is on trial for the double slaying of his son, Paul, and wife, Maggie, in June 2021. (Mark Sims/Fox News Digital)
Murdaugh, the disgraced former South Carolina attorney whose family once held enormous legal power in the state’s Lowcountry region, was previously convicted in the 2021 murders of his wife, Maggie, and younger son, Paul, at the family’s rural hunting estate in Colleton County.
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In May, the South Carolina Supreme Court ordered a retrial in the murder case, upending one of the state’s most closely watched convictions.
Alex Murdaugh sits with his legal team as jury selection continues before his trial at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, S.C., on Jan. 24, 2023. Murdaugh faces 30 years to life in prison if convicted of murder in the deaths of his wife Maggie and their son Paul. (Joshua Boucher/The State)
The formal return of the case to the lower court does not mean a retrial is imminent.
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson previously told Fox News Digital that he hopes to retry the notorious case “quickly.”
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Wilson said his office is aiming to bring the case back to court within the next year, though he admitted that the timeline is not guaranteed.
“Look, I’m being aspirational when I say this, but we would like to try to get this case up before January 2027. That would be our goal,” he said.
Defense attorney Dick Harpootlian speaks to the media alongside Alex Murdaugh’s defense team after their client was sentenced to double life in prison on March 3, 2023. Murdaugh was convicted of murdering his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, in 2021. (Mark Sims for Fox News Digital)
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Murdaugh’s lead defense attorney, Dick Harpootlian, has said the defense plans to seek a venue change, attorney-led jury questioning and potentially sequestration of jurors.
“We now have the ability to get people’s social media, their Instagrams, all of that,” he previously told Fox News Digital. “And we’ll scour that before they ever get a chance to appear.”
Alex Murdaugh stands during a break in his murder trial at the Colleton County Courthouse on Friday, Feb. 24, 2023. Jurors found him guilty. (Joshua Boucher/The State/Pool/Tribune News Service/Getty Images)
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Murdaugh’s retrial comes after the state’s Supreme Court unanimously reversed the disgraced lawyer’s convictions in the killings of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, ruling that Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca “Becky” Hill improperly influenced jurors during the six-week trial.
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Though his murder convictions and subsequent life sentences were overturned by the South Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday, he remains in prison to serve sentences for his financial crimes.