What jury tampering did — and what a retrial actually means
Plain-English explainer, drawn only from the case law, the statute, and the model jury instruction. Not legal advice.
Correction, Aug 22, 2026. This page carried a burden-of-proof note and three questions about the Massachusetts insanity defence — material belonging to the Lindsay Clancy case, left over from when the site covered one case. It rendered here in error. The Massachusetts material was removed on 2026-08-22 and the questions below were written from this case’s own statute and model jury instruction. Nothing else on this page changed.
The test
The South Carolina Supreme Court applied what lawyers call the Remmer presumption, from a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case, Remmer v. United States. The idea in plain English: a jury is supposed to decide a case on what it hears in the courtroom and nothing else. So if an outsider gets to the jury and says something about the case — and it is more than a harmless, passing remark — the law does not make the defendant prove the jurors were swayed. It flips the question: the verdict is presumed to be poisoned, and the prosecution has to show there is 'no reasonable possibility' the verdict was influenced. Here the outsider was the elected Clerk of Court, the official who runs the jury's day — seats them, delivers their notes, controls who reaches them — which is why the court called her conduct 'unprecedented' and said she 'became a character witness on behalf of the State.' The state could not rebut the presumption, so the convictions were vacated. 'Vacated' means wiped out: the guilty verdicts legally no longer exist, and the case goes back to square one as if the 2023 trial never happened. It is not an acquittal and it is not a finding that he is innocent — the court expressly said that because it was ordering a new trial, it did not need to rule on his other challenges to the evidence, and it did not decide whether the evidence was enough to convict. Double jeopardy — the rule that you cannot be tried twice for the same crime — does not block a retrial here, because that protection attaches to an acquittal or to a conviction that survives; when a defendant wins reversal of his own conviction for a defect in the process, the ordinary remedy is a do-over.
Who has to prove what
Two different burdens, running in opposite directions. On the tampering question, once Murdaugh showed the clerk's contacts with jurors were 'more than innocuous interventions,' the burden shifted to the State to prove there was no reasonable possibility the verdict was influenced — a burden it failed to carry. At the retrial itself the burden is the ordinary one: the State must prove every element of murder beyond a reasonable doubt, and Murdaugh is presumed innocent and need prove nothing. On the pending motion to dismiss the indictments, the defense carries the burden of making what South Carolina courts call a 'colorable claim of prosecutorial misconduct' before a judge will look behind a grand jury's work at all.
- Why doesn’t double jeopardy stop a second trial?
- Because he is the one who won the reversal. A defendant who successfully appeals and has a conviction set aside can generally be tried again for the same offence, a rule running back to United States v. Ball in 1896. There is one exception. If an appeals court throws a conviction out because the evidence was insufficient, Burks v. United States (1978) bars a retry, since the state does not get a second chance to supply proof it failed to muster the first time. That exception never came into play here. The South Carolina Supreme Court granted a new trial on the jury-interference question and expressly declined to reach the evidence challenges, so it never ruled the proof was too thin.
- Will the second trial look like the 2023 one?
- Not in one respect the court singled out. It held the financial-crimes evidence was properly admitted to show motive, then warned that the State had gone far past what that justified: about twelve and a half hours of testimony it described as having little to no probative value, at a cost in unfair prejudice. The opinion tells the trial court to restrict that material next time. Where the line falls is for Judge McCaslin, and it is one of the things the parties will fight over before April 2027.
— State v. Murdaugh, S.C. Supreme Court, App. Case Nos. 2023-000392 & 2024-000576 (filed May 13, 2026) · S.C. Supreme Court opinion (official PDF, Op. No. 28329) · South Carolina Lawyers Weekly · FITSNews · Constitution Annotated (Library of Congress) — Re-Prosecution After Conviction
What each verdict means
Every outcome the jury can return in this case, and what it would mean. Each one carries the statute or the reporting it rests on.
The defense's pending motion asks the judge to throw out the murder indictments because, it says, SLED's lead agent gave the grand jury physical evidence he later admitted was false. Dismissing an indictment for that reason is rare, and it would not necessarily be permanent — the state could in principle go back to a grand jury. Murdaugh would still not walk out of prison: he is serving 27 years on state financial crimes and 40 years federally. The motion is set for argument November 13, 2026.
— FITSNews · Court TV · WACH
Judge McCaslin has already ruled the trial leaves the 14th Circuit; what is left is choosing where. The defense first asked for Charleston, then wrote to the judge on August 17 recommending Richland County (Columbia) instead. The state has floated York, Lancaster, Spartanburg, Newberry and Florence. Whichever she picks decides which South Carolinians make up the jury pool — and who pays for a months-long trial. She will announce it in a written order.
— AP (via Crossroads Today) · WIS · WBTV
Judge McCaslin has said that once she sets a trial date she keeps it. A second jury — in a county the parties are still fighting over — hears the case fresh, under new limits: less financial-crime evidence than in 2023, no polygraph talk, and whatever the DNA retesting produces.
— UPI · ABC Columbia
South Carolina murder carries a minimum of 30 years and a maximum of life without parole. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty in 2023. In 2023 the trial judge imposed two consecutive life sentences.
— Washington Post · AP timeline (via WACH)
An acquittal ends the murder case permanently; double jeopardy bars the state from trying him a third time on these charges. It would not free him: he would continue serving 27 years for state financial crimes and 40 years in federal prison for stealing from clients.
— NPR · Post and Courier
If the second jury cannot agree, the judge declares a mistrial and the state may try him again — a mistrial is not an acquittal, so double jeopardy does not block a third trial.
— State v. Murdaugh, S.C. Supreme Court (May 13, 2026)