Judging Freedom - Alex Murdaugh GUILTY

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here with Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, February 2nd, 2023. It's about 7 40 in the evening here on the east coast of the United States in New Jersey. It's also 7 40 in the evening in South Carolina, the place from which we bring you breaking news now, which is the verdict of two lesser charges involving the possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose and the possession of a weapon during the commission of a felony. In South Carolina, the penalty for this level of murder is a minimum mandatory of 30 years. He would have the opportunity to seek parole after he serves two-thirds of that time unless the judge sentences him to 30 years without the opportunity for parole. The judge has the opportunity to do that. This is a case that captivated the interest of the country because the evidence was so grisly and

the facts were just so contrary to nature that a person would blow the brains out of his wife and his son because he feared that they were aware of his drug habits and drug trafficking and his stealing. This is just crazy. And I'll be honest with you, you've heard me say this before on this case, I predicted a not guilty verdict. I did not think that the government made a very strong case. The chief investigator made many, many fundamental errors in his investigation. He bespoiled the murder scene, meaning he walked through it and disturbed it before anybody else could check all of his determinations. Standard that you have another investigator check your determinations in a murder case. And the chief investigator admitted that they never considered anybody else who did it.

It's standard to look for other defendants as well. Nevertheless, I didn't see all the evidence. The jury did. It's a very quick verdict. Usually quick verdicts, they deliberate it for fewer than three hours. Usually quick verdicts mean not guilty. So obviously he's not guilty. They're not going to waste their time going through all the evidence in the case. The trial was on for six weeks. There were more than 90 witnesses who testified and hundreds and hundreds of pages of documents. But the jury is allowed to begin to make impressions about the quality of the evidence. It's only human. As you observe that evidence

coming in, you're not supposed to draw any definitive conclusions until all the evidence is in and the judge explains the law to you. So I don't know when these jurors made up their minds, nor do I know what happened during the deliberation. But the jurors accepted the government's argument. Here is the actual public announcement of Mr. Murdoch's guilt and then some comments from the judge, which I'll explain afterwards. Guilty verdict signed by the forelady 3 to 23 when the motion was renewed the court found that the evidence was sufficient for the jury to find the defendant guilty the jury has now considered the evidence for a significant period of time and the evidence of guilt is overwhelming and I deny the motion. Mr. Murdoch, you now having been found guilty of two counts of murder involving your wife and your son,

two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime, the burden now comes upon the court to impose a sentence. Shortly thereafter, the judge said that he wouldn't impose the sentence now or tonight because the lateness of the hour, even though he has very little discretion, the only discretion that he has is 30 years or 30 years without possibility of parole. And I got to tell you that without possibility of parole is often disturbed in the future with the passage of time if the prison authorities believe that the behavior of the prisoner is deserving of parole. I don't know how the behavior of a double murderer could be deserving of parole,

but that's the type of thing that the courts will look at 10, 20 years from now. The defendant is 55 years old, so this is effectively a life sentence. Now, the judge was talking about motions. After the jury got the case, the defense lawyers made an application called a motion to the judge saying, judge, we want you to dismiss the jury on the grounds that no reasonable jury could convict on the basis of this evidence. And the judge denied that motion. Then after the conviction is announced, the same motion is made. That's not being redundant or ridiculous. The law requires in order to appeal this stuff, you have to make motions at the trial level. So in order to argue to an appellate court that a trial judge made an error, you have to give the

trial judge the opportunity to make the error. So if the error in judgment was the verdict is against the weight of the evidence, you have to give the judge the opportunity to rule on that. It was a very, very skimpy ruling that he made. Normally when judges rule that the evidence of guilt is overwhelming, they characterize the evidence and go through it and summarize it. This is a very experienced judge, so I assume he will do that at another time. If he fails to do that, that's not going to negate the guilt, but it's going to complicate the appeal. I didn't think he was guilty because I thought the state's allegation of motive was absurd, that a human being would slaughter his wife and child because

they learned that he became addicted to drugs. But this is a bad guy. I mean, he admitted on the witness stand that he committed 99 other crimes. Theoretically, he could be tried on all 99 of those crimes. He could be spending the next seven or eight years in that courtroom, that very same courtroom. As a practical matter, I would think that since he's going to spend probably the rest of his natural life in jail, his lawyers will arrange for him to plead guilty to those crimes. He'll get some sort of a redundant sentence, and then he'll be a prisoner for the rest of his life, and he'll just be warehoused in the jail. The state will be finished with its prosecution of him. If he wants to give the state a hard time, well, he has the right to a jury trial on each one of those 99, and he can force the state to try him, even though he's admitted guilt in his cross-examination. In this case, the state, if he doesn't plead guilty on those theft charges, the state will be forced to try all 99 of those cases.

It's a quirk in the law. If they wanted to try it as one trial, they should have issued one indictment. Instead, they went to a grand jury 99 times and got 99 different indictments. But I'm getting far afield here. Alex Murdoch, guilty of murder, one of the more horrific murders in the modern era of blowing the brains out of one's wife and child. It's unthinkable. More as we get it. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.