Murdaugh testifying was a ‘Hail Mary,’ defense lawyer says

(NewsNation) — One of the defense attorneys for Alex Murdaugh characterized the decision to put his client on the stand as a “Hail Mary” attempt to convince the jury of Murdaugh’s innocence that ultimately failed.

Jim Griffin, who represented the disbarred South Carolina attorney during the double murder trial of his wife and son, said in an exclusive prime-time interview Friday on “CUOMO” that Murdaugh was insistent on testifying.

The defense team came to a unanimous consensus that it needed to be done, Griffin said, because of the financial crimes evidence the prosecution presented. Griffin doesn’t believe it was a mistake to put Murdaugh on the stand.

“He was so beat up that that point, frankly, we had to throw a Hail Mary by putting him on the stand to explain the lie, explain why he cheated, explain why he stole, and because of his drug addiction,” Griffin said. “We had hoped that jurors had experience, whether with family members or relatives, of how drug addicts lie, cheat and steal, and have an understanding of that. Obviously, that did not work.”

Murdaugh, the patriarch of a once-powerhouse legal dynasty in South Carolina, was convicted of killing his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, on their Colleton County property in June 2021. He received two consecutive life sentences.

“I am innocent. I would never hurt my wife, Maggie, and I would never hurt my son,” Murdaugh said as he addressed the court Friday before his sentencing.

Authorities said Paul Murdaugh, 22, was shot twice with a shotgun, while Maggie Murdaugh, 52, was struck with four or five bullets from a rifle. A crime scene report suggested both victims were shot in the head after initially being wounded near dog kennels on the Murdaughs’ sprawling rural property.

Murdaugh, 54, was convicted of two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime.

However, prosecutors did not ask for the death penalty, despite it being legal in South Carolina.

The jury deliberated for just under three hours following roughly six weeks of testimony.

Griffin and his team were “shocked” by the quick deliberation.

“There was so little evidence on the actual murders — there’s no murder weapons, there’s no bloody clothes, there’s no motive to the murder. So, we thought the jury would have to work through a lot of that,” Griffin said. “To say we were disappointed is a tremendous understatement.”

Murdaugh’s lawyers plan to appeal on grounds that the financial crimes evidence shouldn’t have been let in.

Prosecutors used the evidence as a motive, arguing that Murdaugh committed the murders to deflect from the impending revelation that he had stolen millions of dollars from his legal clients. He is facing some 100 other charges in separate cases related to the fraud.

Griffin called the evidence a “character assassination” that might have changed the decision for Murdaugh to testify had it not come in at trial.

“One of the things you consider is what do you open the door to when you put the witness on the stand, and here, had we put him up and none of the financial crimes had been introduced into evidence, we would have likely opened the door to introduction of the financial crimes, but that had already been done,” Griffin said.

One of the key pieces of evidence in the trial was a video taken by Paul Murdaugh that puts his father at the scene of the crime just minutes before prosecutors say Paul and Maggie were killed. The prosecution argued Murdaugh lied to police about his whereabouts that night and tried to manufacture an alibi by going to his mother’s house for about an hour after Paul and Maggie were killed.

Griffin contends the Snapchat video, in which you can hear Alex’s voice, “is not damning” in and of itself.

“You cannot take away, if you listen to the video, that this man is going to massacre his wife and son within minutes, according to the state’s theory,” Griffin said.