Mahaz News
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Convicted former lawyer Alex Murdaugh’s choice to take the stand at his double homicide trial was not completely shocking given his household’s authorized legacy stretching again to the early 1900s in coastal South Carolina.
But authorized consultants say it was finally a pricey maneuver for the scion of the well-connected Murdaugh clan, which prosecuted crime for 3 successive generations throughout the state’s rural low nation.
“Being a skilled attorney, I think he thought he could outsmart the jurors,” lawyer and authorized affairs commentator Areva Martin stated.
On Friday, one week after Murdaugh, 54, spent hours on the witness stand attempting to persuade a jury of his innocence, he was sentenced to life in jail with out the potential of parole for the murders of his spouse and son.
“He had to testify. There were too many lies,” Mahaz News authorized analyst Joey Jackson stated Saturday. “Obviously the jury felt that he was conning them.”
Murdaugh’s greatest lie maybe was denying for a yr and half that he was anyplace close to his spouse, Maggie, and 22-year-old son, Paul, after they had been fatally shot on the household’s Islandton property on June 7, 2021.
On the stand, Murdaugh maintained he didn’t kill them however discovered their our bodies after getting back from a quick go to to his sick mom that evening.
A key piece of proof got here from Paul Murdaugh, who recorded a video moments earlier than he was gunned down and killed. It confirmed a household canine close to the kennels on the property. It additionally captured his father’s voice within the background, putting Alex Murdaugh on the scene of the crime.
The video, which Murdaugh didn’t know existed earlier than the trial, eradicated his alibi. The longtime lawyer took the stand in a courthouse the place a portrait of Murdaugh’s grandfather had adorned a wall earlier than the trial. He sought to elucidate why he lied about his whereabouts.
“He had never faced accountability in his life and had always been able to escape that – and that was more important to him than anything,” lead prosecutor Creighton Waters instructed Mahaz News.
“That’s why I was always convinced that he would testify in this case. That he was assured that he could talk his way out of it one more time. Not out of all the trouble but certainly talk his way out of this. Obviously the jury saw otherwise.”
Within moments of taking the stand, Murdaugh acknowledged his voice is heard within the video that seemed to be taken on the canine kennels the place the our bodies had been discovered, saying he lied to investigators about being there earlier that night due to “paranoid thinking” stemming from his drug habit.
Over the course of the trial, quite a few witnesses recognized Murdaugh’s voice within the background of the footage. But Murdaugh was emphatic that he “didn’t shoot my wife or my son. Anytime. Ever.”
Craig Moyer, a juror who helped convict Murdaugh on Thursday, instructed ABC News it took the panel lower than an hour to succeed in a unanimous choice.
The video was essential.
“I could hear his voice clearly,” Moyer instructed ABC. “And everybody else could too.”
Murdaugh was “a good liar,” Moyer stated, “but not good enough.”
Moyer instructed ABC he “didn’t see any true remorse or compassion” from Murdaugh. On the stand, Murdaugh “didn’t cry,” Moyer stated. “All he did was blow snot.”
Waters stated he merely needed to get Murdaugh speaking throughout cross examination. And he did.
“We have to remember this guy was an experienced lawyer,” Waters stated. “He’s a part-time assistant solicitor and there’s 100 years of prosecution legacy in his family… I felt like he believed he could look at that jury and really convince them. But I felt if I got him talking he would eventually lie and they would get to see that in real time.”
Defense lawyer Dick Harpootlian defended the choice to let Murdaugh testify, saying his credibility was beneath query due to monetary wrongdoings. He stated the protection group plans to attraction the sentence inside 10 days.
In a separate case that has not but gone to trial, Murdaugh faces 99 costs stemming from a slew of alleged monetary crimes, together with defrauding his purchasers, former legislation agency and the federal government of tens of millions.
“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, referring to proof concerning the monetary crimes launched on the homicide trial. Murdaugh, he added, all the time needed to take the stand.
Harpootlian instructed Mahaz News it was “inexplicable that he would execute his son and his wife in that fashion, in my mind.”
Another protection lawyer, Jim Griffin, stated placing Murdaugh on the stand confirmed the jury his consumer’s “emotions about Maggie and Paul, which are very raw and real.”
Still, placing Murdaugh on the stand was a dangerous transfer, in accordance with authorized consultants.
“His testimony was very poor. In fact, I think it was borderline atrocious,” jury marketing consultant Alan Tuerkheimer instructed Mahaz News. “Jurors don’t like it when witnesses are being questioned and they don’t answer and what he kept doing continually was going beyond the scope of the questions.”
Tuerkheimer added that Murdaugh “kept trying to interject his own narrative. He was evasive, I thought he prevaricated a lot and his testimony was self serving and jurors do not like that. He should have stuck to quick yes or no answers when he was being crossed.”
Tuerkheimer additionally questioned the effectiveness of Murdaugh incessantly referring to his lifeless spouse and son as “Mags” and “Paul Paul.”
“It’s effective if it’s genuine and it just did not come off as genuine. Look, lawyers love to testify. They use words to persuade people. And once he was on the stand, he just couldn’t contain himself,” Tuerkheimer stated of Murdaugh.
“And when he was using those terms in trying to endear himself with the jury, they just didn’t think that it was authentic. They rejected it and it was a Hail Mary that he had to testify. And, like most Hail Marys, it didn’t work.”
On Thursday, after greater than a month and dozens of witnesses, the jury convicted 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.
The subsequent day, after his sentencing, Murdaugh – sporting a brown jumpsuit and handcuffs – was escorted out of a courthouse that after symbolized his household’s historical past of energy and privilege within the area.
“For him the chance of convincing one or two jurors that he might be a liar, he might be a thief, but he’s not a killer, was worth taking that risk,” protection lawyer Misty Marris instructed Mahaz News Saturday. “But in my opinion, the testimony was what actually sunk him.”
Source web site: www.cnn.com
