A federal judge has thrown out Alex Murdaugh's lawsuit against Becky Hill, the court clerk he blamed for ruining his double-murder trial. Murdaugh wanted $600,000 back, saying he had to spend that much on lawyers because of her misconduct.

US District Judge Richard Gergel dismissed the case on Wednesday, August 5, 2026. Murdaugh filed the lawsuit in May, claiming Hill violated his right to a fair trial during the case about the deaths of his wife, Margaret, and son, Paul. A jury had found him guilty of both murders, but the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned those convictions earlier in 2026 because Hill made improper comments to jurors during the trial. That decision cleared the way for a new trial, now set for April.

Murdaugh said in court papers that he pulled $600,000 from a retirement account to pay his defense lawyers for the first trial. He sued Hill to get that money back, saying her bad behavior was the reason he had to spend it in the first place.

Here is why the judge said no. Gergel found that Murdaugh's lawsuit had a fatal flaw: there was no real link between the money he spent on lawyers and what Hill did wrong. Hill did not bring the criminal charges against Murdaugh. She did not force him to hire private lawyers. She did not tell him how to spend his money. Because she was not the one who started the case against him, the chain of cause and effect that the lawsuit needed simply was not there. The Guardian

Hill's lawyers had asked the judge to throw out the case back in June 2026, filing paperwork in the US District Court for the District of South Carolina. They argued that Murdaugh could not legally get back the $600,000 he spent on his defense, no matter what Hill did wrong. WJCL Court TV

The dismissal shuts down one piece of Murdaugh's complicated legal situation. He has already pleaded guilty to stealing about $12 million from his law clients and is serving a 40-year federal prison sentence plus a 27-year state sentence for those financial crimes. Those sentences have nothing to do with the overturned murder convictions and will stay in place no matter what happens at the retrial.

The broader context here is that the judge's decision raises a question that goes beyond Murdaugh's case: if someone who works in a court does something wrong during a trial, can a defendant sue them to recover the money they spent on their defense? Gergel's answer was essentially no, not under these circumstances. The misconduct was serious enough to overturn the verdict, but it affected the fairness of the trial's outcome, not the defendant's wallet. This signals that anyone trying to sue for this kind of reason in the future will face a high bar.

Murdaugh's new murder trial is the main event still ahead. Since the state supreme court already said Hill's contact with jurors was a problem, the retrial will happen without her and with extra attention to how the jury behaves. The original charges still stand, and Murdaugh could face back-to-back life sentences if convicted again.

For Hill, getting the lawsuit dismissed removes one layer of legal trouble. But her actions during the first trial have already caused major problems for the state's case. Whether she faces any other legal proceedings for what she did as court clerk is up to state authorities. The federal judge's ruling only deals with Murdaugh's civil claim for money.