By admin 
As expected, the efficient state Judge Debra McCaslin started Friday’s pretrial hearing for Alex Murdaugh second double murder trial right on time, at 10 a.m.
Read more After years of construction, Dominion says work at Lake Murray dam is complete
But over the next three and a half hours, the unexpected kept popping up.
First, there was an allegation — possibly baseless — aired by the defense that the missing assault rifle used in the 2021 killing of Maggie Murdaugh had recently been used in an Allendale County shooting. The defense made another assertion that a Murdaugh’s distant cousin, Eddie Smith, had flunked a polygraph test when asked if he killed Maggie and her son Paul.
Then Columbia attorney Joe McCulloch, who is not involved in the murder case, made an appearance, asking the judge to make available investigative records from the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division investigation into former Colleton County clerk of court Becky Hill. McCulloch represents Myra Crosby, the “egg lady” juror who was removed from the jury near the end of Murdaugh’s first trial.
Finally, the courtroom audience of some 50 media and members of the public saw a lawyer from Murdaugh’s defense team, Phil Barber, who lives in Charleston, take the witness stand in an effort to bolster the defense’s bid to have Murdaugh tried in Charleston. Prosecutors oppose that effort. Barber was questioned first by fellow defense team member Dick Harpootlian, then was cross-examined by lead prosecutor Creighton Waters.
For the present, arguments over numerous legal issues are the battleground where defense and prosecution teams try to shape the evidence in Murdaugh’s upcoming second murder trial.
Although some of the issues may seem like dry legalese, the stakes are high. Any of the matters debated Friday may determine what vital evidence the jury gets, thus leading it to decide guilt or innocence.
Murdaugh had been brought to the courthouse from a state prison in McCormick County, where he is serving a lengthy sentence for financial crimes. He did not use public entrances and entered the courtroom through a side door.
As the hearing moved along on the fourth floor of the Lexington County courthouse, McCaslin managed to deal with most of the nearly dozen issues on the agenda:
- She agreed with the defense that Murdaugh could not get a fair trial in Colleton County, where Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were shot to death in June 2021. She also agreed that Murdaugh could not get a fair trial in the other four 14th Judicial Circuit counties — Beaufort, Hampton, Allendale and Jasper.
- Because Murdaugh can’t get a fair trial in the 14th Judicial Circuit, McCaslin said she will be issuing a detailed ruling explaining why he can’t get a fair trial and naming the new county where the trial will take place. Besides Charleston, which the defense wants and the prosecution doesn’t, top places being discussed for such a high profile trial are Florence, Lexington and Richland.
- The trial will start April 5 no matter where it takes place. “I set the trial for April 5, and I intend to stick by it,” she said.
- She agreed to allow defense attorneys to take what remains of DNA samples taken from Maggie Murdaugh’s finger nails and have an expert Texas lab process them. But, McCaslin said, she wants that lab to stop after the initial processing so she can hear comments from the prosecution, SLED and defense about what should happen next. The defense team hopes the DNA will show that someone else besides Murdaugh could have killed his wife and son.
- She ruled that Murdaugh’s prior testimony relating to his financial crimes — he is serving a 40-year prison sentence for embezzling millions from clients and his law firm — in his previous trial could be introduced as evidence in his second trial. The only question, the judge said, is how much financial crime evidence should come into the second trial. She will decide that later. The judge at the first trial allowed 12.5 hours of financial crimes testimony, but the S.C. Supreme Court justices who overturned his guilty verdict made it clear that was grossly excessive.
- She also ruled that Murdaugh’s testimony from the first trial admitting he was at the murder scene around the time of the murders could be admitted.
- She ruled that attorney McCulloch can get information from SLED’s investigation into former Colleton County clerk of court Hill’s misconduct and jury tampering investigation for his “egg lady” juror client. However, the judge ruled that any identifying information about jurors will be redacted.
- McCaslin delayed making a final ruling on what digital evidence in Murdaugh’s phone now in the custody of the defense team must be shared with the prosecution team.
- Acting on a request by Harpootlian, McCaslin agreed to oversee the process of drawing up a jury questionnaire, called a voir dire, and getting the proper forms to the potential jurors and back again. Harpootlian cited possible tinkering with the juror questionnaires by Hill, who resigned her office in 2024 amid plagiarism charges for her book about the trial.
Defense takes aim at SLED
In a preview of what may be part of the defense strategy at Murdaugh’s second trial, defense attorneys took aim at former SLED agents and evidence.
As the hearing opened, defense attorney Jim Griffin told the judge about a posting on Fits News site that alleged a blackout assault rifle used to kill Maggie Murdaugh may have surfaced in a killing in Allendale earlier this year.
Lead prosecutor Waters told the judge he would be “flabbergasted” if that allegation were true.
Following Friday’s hearing, SLED issued a press release saying that fired blackout cartridges from an April homicide in Allendale were entered into a national firearms database and no match was found — the implication being that Griffin’s allegation was not supported.
A key mystery in the Murdaugh murders of Paul and Maggie is that the blackout assault rifle that killed Maggie and the shotgun that killed Paul have never been found. That missing evidence has allowed the defense to argue that others — not Murdaugh — did the killing.
Read more After years of construction, Dominion says work at Lake Murray dam is complete
Later, defense attorney Harpootlian asked the judge if Murdaugh’s cousin, Eddie Smith, who has been charged with various crimes in connection with Murdaugh, has a cooperation agreement with the prosecution.
“There are no secret agreements,” Waters told the judge.
Smith, Harpootlian said, was asked during a polygraph session with law enforcement if he killed Paul and Maggie. “He failed it!” Harpootlian told the judge, his voice rising. Meanwhile, Murdaugh, asked the same question, passed “with flying colors,” Harpootlian said.
Waters told the judge that Smith has no deal of any kind with the prosecution and outlined the numerous reasons why polygraph results are not admissible in trials, except in narrow circumstances.
McCaslin said she will not admit evidence about polygraphs in this case and might declare a mistrial or cite Harpootlian for contempt if he brought the issue up before the jury without her permission.
Harpootlian and Griffin also raised questions about the honesty of David Owen, the former SLED agent leading the investigation in the first trial, as well about evidence in a criminal case Owen testified in after he retired. Harpootlian wanted to know if Owen had ever been disciplined and asked the judge for help in get hold of Owen’s SLED personnel records.
Change of venue
In ordering the trial moved from the 14th Circuit’s five counties, McCaslin cited four circumstances:
- In Murdaugh’s first trial, only one of every seven jurors was found qualified to be a juror — an “exceptional rate” of juror disqualification, the judge said.
- Widespread community prejudice and the longstanding association of Murdaugh’s family with the institutions of those counties. For nearly 100 years, Murdaugh’s great-grandfather, grandfather and father were 14th Circuit elected prosecutors, or solicitors, a position of immense influence in the area’s social, law enforcement and political systems.
- The state Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year, which ruled that former Colleton County clerk of court Hill improperly influenced the jury, depriving Murdaugh of his constitutional right to a fair trial.
- The pervasive publicity surrounding this case.
- McCaslin added her decision was supported by a Thursday decision by state Judge R. Keith Kelly transferring a case linked to the Murdaugh family, Renee Beach vs. Parker, from the 14th Circuit to Spartanburg County in the Upstate. That case had been in Hampton County.
- That decision, McCaslin noted, was amply supported by supporting data and research, data that would apply to Murdaugh’’s murder case.
- “The same publicity … that justified transferring Beach is present here,” McCaslin said.
Murdaugh, who must serve 40 years in state and federal prison after pleading guilty to numerous financial crimes against his clients and former law firm, has always contended he was innocent of killing his wife and son at their rural Colleton County estate, Moselle, in 2021.
After a six-week jury trial in Colleton County in early 2023, Murdaugh was convicted of two counts of murder and sentenced to two consecutive lifetime prison sentences by now retired Judge Clifton Newman.
In May, Murdaugh’s murder convictions were overturned by the S.C. Supreme Court because of jury tampering by Hill.
On Friday, Murdaugh appeared in court garbed in street clothes and unshackled. His lawyers had successfully argued to McCaslin that since the hearing was broadcast nationwide by Court TV, potential jurors would be tainted if they saw him in a prison jumpsuit.
Thus, Murdaugh, 58, with his ginger hair turning white, and wearing a Navy blazer over a shirt and tie, and dark gray slacks, was the image of respectability in Friday’s hearing. His blazer had gold buttons, and he wore brown dress shoes with gray socks. He did not speak and instead whispered at times with Harpootlian, who sat beside him at the defense table.
The next hearing in the case is Nov. 13, which court officials noted was a Friday the 13th — a universal symbol of bad luck.
Read more Legal team for Nolan Wells’ family accuses DA of not operating in good faith
“That’s too funny,” said McCaslin, as the hearing wrapped up.