Can You Ask to Move Your Trial Out of State if the Whole State Hates You?
Alex Murdaugh is up a creek.
Every week in my newsletter, I answer a legal question from readers.
This week’s question comes from Christie via our upcoming minisode on the Murdaugh Murders (Part 2). Christie asked:
Can you ask for a transfer of venue out of state?
In an upcoming Sinisterhood minisode on the Murdaugh Murders update — part 2, Christie asked whether Alex Murdaugh could ask for a change of venue outside the state if the jury pool of South Carolina was so tainted by their personal connections to the case and all the media coverage.
At the time I said, “I don’t think so,” but then I started second-guessing myself. I love when I am not sure about something because it means I get to wrap my brain around another state’s laws and refresh my memory on old concepts, deeply buried in the recesses of my skull. This was a great question, so I decided to dig into it here.
BACKGROUND
Some backstory — Alex Murdaugh is the once-prominent South Carolina lawyer who, it turns out, has been scamming his clients, stealing funds, and trying to commit insurance fraud by hiring someone murder him on the side of the road.
That is only about 1/10th of the story. His wife and son were murdered under suspicious circumstances. The family has also been tied to the murder of a young man in the community named Stephen Smith. Alex’s murdered son, Paul, also recklessly drove a boat and killed a young woman named Mallory Beach . The list of controversies associated with the family is endless. We covered his story in several parts, located here, here, here, and in an update here. The second part of the update is coming soon.
Alex is currently in jail for financial crimes and is facing millions of dollars in lawsuits for the damage he’s done. His attorney has made reference to a tainted jury pool with regards to the civil suits. Since so many families and the community at large has been negatively impacted by all of his actions, the question has become — could he really get a fair trial in South Carolina or has the jury pool been tainted?
WHAT IS VENUE?
Venue is a place where a lawsuit is filed. In the earlier days of the legal system, lawsuits for things like theft, injury, or wrongful death (called “torts”) could be “brought wherever the wrongdoer [could] be found and legally served with process.” Eventually, to keep things more organized, states passed laws mandating where lawsuits could be filed and heard by a judge.
WHERE DO YOU SUE SOMEBODY?
South Carolina Code section 15–7–30 mandates that a lawsuit like the ones Alex is facing, “must be brought and tried in the county” (1) where the defendant (Alex) resides at the time of the lawsuit, OR (2) where the most substantial part of the bad act occurred.
SO CAN YOU CHANGE YOUR VENUE?
You can ask for a new venue, just not outside the state. I’ll address South Carolina law in this answer, but note that laws vary across states and with the federal lawsuits as well.
South Carolina Code Annotated § 22–3–920 provides that either party in a civil case (the person suing or being sued) or the prosecutor or the accused in a criminal case, may apply for a change of venue. So it never hurts to ask.
The person requesting the change of venue has to give the judge a sworn statement explaining why he does not believe he can receive a fair trial in the current venue. The sworn statement has to include details and facts supporting the person’s belief. The code states that if the sworn statement “sets forth grounds for a belief that the party cannot obtain a fair trial” then the judge must grant the change of venue. You can only move once, though. In that scenario, the case would be moved to another county to proceed with trial there.
You can’t move the case out of the state because other states don’t have jurisdiction over controversies or crimes that happened in South Carolina. In some civil cases, if each party is from a different state and other factors apply, the plaintiff could possibly sue in federal court. We don’t have the time or space to get into that here. It takes up a whole semester in first year Civil Procedure in law school and doesn’t apply here anyway.
But if the shit goes down in South Carolina, the trial will, too.
WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO MOVE?
Because the generosity of juries vary, sometimes a person filing a lawsuit may try to file in a place that is more friendly to someone who has suffered in the same way they have. Let’s look at a hypothetical. Say there’s a guy name Bob, and he works for the railroad company. If Bob was in a railroad accident, it would serve him well to file his lawsuit in a county where juries have proven to be generous to railroad accident victims in the past and who may be willing to punish railroad companies who injure people.
When you file in a place friendly to you, that is sometimes referred to as “forum shopping.” Ironically, the county where Alex Murdaugh practiced — Hampton, South Carolina — was a famously plaintiff-friendly county. Called a “judicial hellhole” by the defense-friendly American Tort Reform Foundation, Hampton was known for its liberal and generous jury verdicts, especially against railroad companies.
Due to South Carolina’s previously lax venue laws, Bob may have been injured by the railroad in a county across the state far away from Hampton, but if the tracks passed through Hampton, his attorneys could file his lawsuit in the judicial hellhole, hoping for a juicy, high-dollar verdict. This exact scenario is how the Murdaugh family accumulated its wealth over the decades. (Except for Alex — he was stealing.)
** Side Note: Tort reform is a controversial topic. Especially after the McDonald’s coffee verdict, there was a push by insurance companies and large businesses to reduce the amount of damages injured people could recover when they were injured. The narrative that “lawsuits are out of control” was pushed in the media, despite the fact that the Wall Street Journal reported “Americans… are filing far fewer lawsuits. Fewer than two in 1,000 people [0.002] — the alleged victims of inattentive motorists, medical malpractice, faulty products and other civil wrongs — filed tort lawsuits in 2015 ….” For a super interesting documentary on tort reform, check out the documentary Hot Coffee. **
WILL ALEX GET TO MOVE ANY OF THE MANY LAWSUITS FILED AGAINST HIM?
His lawyers can certainly try. Alex’s attorneys filed a motion against opposing counsel, Eric Bland, accusing Bland of tainting the jury pool with his media appearances. This argument is pretty cute considering Alex’s own attorneys have been giving interviews freely, and saying some pretty ridiculous stuff on camera. Plus, the media coverage has been national and international, so there is no way they can find a venue where someone hasn’t heard of the case. The motion is pending.
So if they can’t leave the state, how will he get a fair trial? The jury selection process will likely be extensive to ensure that only unbiased jurors are seated on the jury. If they bring in one or two hundred people to interview, surely they can find twelve who haven’t watched any documentaries or listened to any podcasts on the case.
In short, nope. He can’t move out of state. This goes for the criminal charges as well.
Thanks for the question, Christie! And thanks to y’all for sticking with me on this long trek through the fascinating world of South Carolina civil procedure.
Got a question? Submit it here. They can be legal what-if questions, questions on current events, or questions about the legality of actions in TV shows or movies you’ve seen. I never ever want to answer your personal legal questions, so don’t send those. Love you, but I don’t do that.
Until next week, that’s the tea, and if you get sued in a biased state — sorry, you can’t leave.
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