Mahaz News
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Alex Murdaugh was sentenced to life in jail with out the opportunity of parole Friday for the murders of his spouse and son – one other chapter within the downfall of the disgraced lawyer whose dynastic household had vital authorized attain for many years in elements of South Carolina’s Lowcountry.
Judge Clifton Newman, earlier than handing down two consecutive life sentences, reminded Murdaugh of his astonishing fall from grace, saying he needed to have a portrait of Murdaugh’s grandfather faraway from the courtroom to make sure a good trial. But his protection, which included Murdaugh’s testimony, was “not credible, not believable,” the choose admonished the previous lawyer.
“You can convince yourself about it but obviously you have the inability to convince anyone else,” Newman mentioned.
Murdaugh’s spouse, Maggie, and son, Paul, had been discovered fatally shot on the household’s Islandton property on June 7, 2021. Alex Murdaugh, who took the stand final week in his personal protection, maintained he didn’t kill them and located the our bodies after coming back from a short go to to his sick mom that night time.
Newman on Friday pointedly requested when Murdaugh’s net of deceit would finish.
“I know you have to see Paul and Maggie during the night times when you’re attempting to go to sleep. I’m sure they come and visit you,” the choose instructed Alex Murdaugh at one level within the Colleton County courtroom.
“Every night,” Murdaugh mentioned.
His protection attorneys mentioned they plan to attraction the sentence inside 10 days.
Defense lawyer Dick Harpootlian defended the choice to let Murdaugh testify, saying his credibility was below query due to his alleged monetary wrongdoings.
“Once they got that character information – ‘he’s a thief, he’s a liar’ – then this jury had to think that he’s a despicable human being, and not to be believed,” Harpootlian instructed reporters after sentencing. Murdaugh, he added, all the time wished to take the stand.
Harpootlian instructed Mahaz News Friday that his consumer was “not happy” with the decision however “expected it.” The lawyer mentioned it was “inexplicable that he would execute his son and his wife in that fashion, in my mind.”
Murdaugh left the courtroom carrying a brown jumpsuit and handcuffs and was launched into the custody of the South Carolina Department of Corrections.
Murdaugh began being processed at a reception and analysis heart in Columbia Friday, in keeping with a news launch from the division. That included having his head shaved as a part of the division’s customary procedures, in keeping with division spokesperson Chrysti Shain. His processing over the following month and a half will embrace medical assessments and psychological well being and different assessments that may assist determine which maximum-security jail he can be despatched to, the division mentioned.
Typically, sentencing hearings embrace sufferer influence statements however there have been none on Friday. Instead, the listening to stood out for Newman’s direct exchanges with Murdaugh, whose protection, the choose mentioned, represented “an assault on the integrity of the judicial system.”
“I don’t question at all the decision of the state not to proceed the death penalty,” Newman instructed Murdaugh.
“But as I sit here in this courtroom and look around (at) the many portraits of judges and other court officials and reflect on the fact that over the past century your family, including you, have been prosecuting people here in this courtroom and many have received a death penalty probably for lesser conduct.”
“Remind me of the expression you gave on the witness stand…,” the choose mentioned to Murdaugh.
“A tangled web we weave,” Murdaugh mentioned, repeating a line from his testimony.
“What did you mean by that?”
“It meant when I lied, I continued to lie.”
“And the question is when will it end?” Newman mentioned. “This ended already for the jury because they’ve concluded that you continued to lie and lie throughout your testimony.”
The choose famous Murdaugh’s longtime addition to painkillers.
The killer, Newman instructed Murdaugh, “might not have been you. It might have been the monster you become when you take 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 opiate pills. Maybe you become another person. I’ve seen that before.”
See the second verdict was learn in Murdaugh trial
After greater than a month and dozens of witnesses, jurors took lower than three hours Thursday to convict Murdaugh of two counts of homicide within the June 2021 killings, in addition to two counts of possession of a weapon through the fee of a violent crime.
“Justice was done today,” lead prosecutor Creighton Waters mentioned in a Thursday night time news convention. “It doesn’t matter who your loved ones is. It doesn’t matter how a lot cash you’ve gotten, or folks suppose you’ve gotten. It doesn’t matter … how distinguished you might be.
“If you do wrong, if you break the law, if you murder, then justice will be done in South Carolina.”
The case introduced nationwide consideration – together with Netflix and HBO Max documentaries – to Murdaugh, the previous private damage lawyer whose father, grandfather and great-grandfather served as prosecutors for a portion of southern South Carolina from 1920 to 2006.
Prosecutors had argued Murdaugh’s motive for the killings was to distract and delay investigations into his rising monetary issues. They homed in on a historical past of deceit, arguing he stole thousands and thousands of {dollars} from his former purchasers and legislation agency and lied to cowl his tracks – theft and lies that Murdaugh admitted in courtroom.
The protection after the decision requested for a mistrial, however Newman denied it, saying the jury had gotten sufficient time to contemplate the proof – and the proof of guilt was “overwhelming.”
The protection additionally attacked the investigators on the case, claiming the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division had “failed miserably” and even fabricated proof.
It took the jury lower than an hour to achieve the unanimous choice that Murdaugh was responsible, juror Craig Moyer instructed ABC News.
“The evidence was clear,” mentioned Moyer, the primary on the panel to talk publicly in regards to the trial.
The jury started its deliberations with a vote: “It was two not guilty, one not sure and nine guilty,” he mentioned Friday, including his vote was responsible from the beginning.
“Everybody was pretty much talking, about 45 minutes later … we figured it out,” he mentioned.
‘All he did was blow snot’: Juror on whether or not Murdaugh was crying on the stand
With little to no direct proof tying Murdaugh to the scene, together with no eyewitnesses, the prosecution largely relied on circumstantial proof, together with cellphone and car monitoring techniques suggesting Murdaugh’s actions the night time of the killings.
And prosecutors pointed to a different lie that performed a key position within the case: a video clip that positioned Murdaugh on the homicide website shortly earlier than the killings, regardless of his repeated assertions all through the investigation that he was not there.
The video, recorded by Paul close to the household’s canine kennels shortly earlier than the time prosecutors say they had been killed, captured Alex Murdaugh’s voice within the background, practically a dozen family and friends members testified.
Murdaugh then testified the voice was his – and that he’d lied to investigators about his whereabouts as a result of he grew paranoid, which he blamed on his dependancy to opioid painkillers.
Moyer, the juror, was shocked when Murdaugh acknowledged the voice heard within the video moments earlier than the murders was his personal, he mentioned.
It was that indisputable fact that satisfied Moyer that Murdaugh was responsible, the juror mentioned.
Moyer mentioned the protection argument that Murdaugh didn’t have sufficient time to commit the crimes and clear up wasn’t convincing.
Murdaugh was “a good liar,” Moyer mentioned, “but not good enough.”
“I didn’t see any true remorse or compassion or anything,” he added, noting when Murdaugh took the stand, “He didn’t cry. All he did was blow snot.”
In the top, “it was the victim, Paul Murdaugh, who solved his own murder,” Dave Aronberg, state lawyer for Florida’s Palm Beach County, instructed Mahaz News Thursday night time in regards to the trial.
In a separate case that has not but gone to trial, Murdaugh faces 99 expenses stemming from a slew of alleged monetary crimes, together with defrauding his purchasers, former legislation agency and the federal government of thousands and thousands.
Murdaugh’s former legislation agency – which renamed itself Parker Law Group in gentle of his actions – known as Thursday’s verdict a step towards justice. Several members of the legislation group testified through the homicide trial.
“The actions of Alex Murdaugh are shocking to us all. Tonight’s verdict, which was rendered after a thorough and fair trial, brings justice and some closure to this awful matter,” the agency mentioned on Facebook. “Maggie and Paul died tragically and for reasons we may never fully comprehend. They were much beloved, and we will forever mourn their loss.”
Source web site: www.cnn.com
