COLUMBIA, S.C. — Convicted killer Alex Murdaugh will likely be the most talked-about person at Wednesday’s South Carolina Supreme Court hearing to appeal his 2023 double murder guilty convictions.

But Murdaugh won’t be there.

Nor will he be able to view the proceedings on livestream at the Supreme Court’s internet site. Although inmates have correctional tablets, they are preloaded with various prison-related software and do not connect to the internet.

Murdaugh, 57, a disbarred lawyer who once worked for an elite family law firm, is locked away in a South Carolina maximum security prison. No plans have been made to transport him to the Supreme Court hearing room in downtown Columbia across from the State House. In any case, convicted criminals in their prison garb, manacles and security escorts don’t normally attend their appeal hearings.

“We have no transport order for Alex Murdaugh for that day or any day,” said Corrections spokeswoman Chrysti Shain.

The hearing is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Wednesday.

The prison system still won’t publicly disclose which of its more than a dozen institutions Murdaugh is locked away in.

“He’s in statewide protective custody. We don’t say where that is,” Shain said.

She described the place Murdaugh is in as being “self-contained” within a larger maximum security prison and said Murdaugh is one of a number of prisoners in that unit. The prisoners can get out of their cells during the day and mingle with other inmates in that unit, but they return to their individual cells at night and are locked in.

“They are placed in that special unit because of protective concerns,” Shain said, declining to specify what the “protective concerns” for Murdaugh are.

Murdaugh has a job described as “wardkeeper,” which means he can be doing any number of things including sweeping, mopping, washing clothes and cleaning up the common area. “They all have tasks,” Shain said.

A Colleton County jury in March 2023 found the once-wealthy Murdaugh guilty of murdering his wife, Maggie, and younger son, Paul, at the family’s 1,700-acre hunting estate. Former Judge Clifton Newman sentenced Murdaugh to two consecutive life sentences.

The six-week trial was livestreamed on Court TV and viewed by an audience estimated in the millions around the nation and world.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Murdaugh’s lawyers will zero in on two contested areas:

—Whether Judge Newman was wrong to allow the jury to hear hours of damning testimony from numerous witnesses about Murdaugh’s financial crimes, even though Murdaugh had not yet pleaded guilty or been convicted of his frauds at that point.

—Whether any alleged jury tampering by disgraced former Colleton County clerk of court interfered with Murdaugh’s right to a fair trial.

Murdaugh is represented by attorneys Dick Harpootlian, Jim Griffin and Phil Barber. Creighton Waters, lead state grand jury prosecutor for attorney general’s office, which prosecuted the case against Murdaugh, is expected to argue the case for the state.

Murdaugh has contended he is innocent and someone else — he doesn’t know who — killed his wife and son.

Although the state prison system does not disclose where Murdaugh is, it has widely been reported that he is at McCormick Correctional Institution, a maximum security men’s prison in McCormick County near the Georgia border.

It wasn’t news to Harpootlian that Murdaugh won’t be at the hearing.

“No inmate ever comes to a Supreme Court hearing,” said Harpootlian, who has handled criminal cases for more than 50 years. “He is aware that the arguments are taking place and is very interested in them. Being a former lawyer, disbarred but a lawyer, it is much easier to explain to him what our strategy is. He has read our briefs.”

Asked if he was “feeling good” about the upcoming hearing, Harpootlian said, “Feeling good means are we prepared? Yes.”

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