Alex Murdaugh back in court after murder convictions were overturned — full video

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: All right, we're here for a status conference. I'm going to get the clerk to call the case, please. [00:00:15] Speaker 2: In the matter of the state of South Carolina versus Richard Alexander Murdoch, indictment number 2022, GS-1500592, 3-5-9-5. [00:00:32] Speaker 1: Thank you. All right, Mr. Waters, how are you? [00:00:37] Speaker 3: Good morning, Your Honor, good to see you. [00:00:38] Speaker 1: Good to see you. Now, let me ask you, I know some of your counsel at the table, but I don't know all of them. Can you please just let me know who the state's team is? [00:00:53] Speaker 3: So I have David Fernandez, Assistant Deputy Attorney General, David Fernandez. He's my number two in the state grand jury selection. I have my boss, Mr. Don Zelenka, who is here. I know. We have John Matters as well. [00:01:05] Speaker 1: I know Mr. Matters. [00:01:06] Speaker 3: I see you, Your Honor. I may see you at various times. We have Assistant Attorney General Walt Whitmire, Senior Assistant Deputy Attorney General Melody Brown. [00:01:16] Speaker 1: All right, welcome. Let me, Mr. Harpooling, can you tell me, I think I know just about everybody at your table, maybe not everybody, but can you introduce the defense? [00:01:28] Speaker 4: Mr. Guard, Your Honor. This is Jim Griffin. [00:01:32] Speaker 1: Mr. Griffin. [00:01:33] Speaker 4: Bill Barber. [00:01:35] Speaker 1: Mr. Barber, good to have you. [00:01:36] Speaker ?: Mr. Barber, good to have you. [00:01:41] Speaker 1: I've made some notes on a status conference, and I'll let y'all talk in just a little bit, but I want to go over what I want to go over, because I want to make sure that all the discovery in this case is complete, and I made some notes, and let me tell y'all, I don't know anything about the first trial, so when you tell me something, please be complete when you tell me, because don't assume that I know, because I don't. I want to know about phone records. Do we have all the phone records, and are they complete? Text messages, cell phone extractions, and if there's any supplemental extractions, video recordings, whether there's ballistics, firearms, are we complete in that? Fingerprints, toxicology. I think there was a blood splatter expert last time. I just want to know where we are with these discovery items. I'll let the state address that, please. [00:02:59] Speaker 3: Yes, ma'am, your honor. So we have provided, and obviously provided well in advance, of the first trial, a very extensive discovery. I'm not aware of anything in the items that you mentioned, that the announcement provided to the defense, and if anything, the defense has more than the state does, because a very heavy privilege review was done, for example, on Eduardo's phone, and formerly being an attorney, and that sort of thing. So my understanding, complete extractions were provided to them, whereas the prosecution team, the investigative team, only received the privilege review, some kind of extractions in place to dispose of the message. As always, we are constantly auditing and looking at everything, but I'm not aware of any discovery from the very extensive productions that were made, not only from just the murder investigations, but also from the very extensive states and career associations as well. So we have provided those, and obviously I'm not aware of anything in the categories that you mentioned, that are not being provided to them. [00:04:03] Speaker 1: And not anything that needs to be reanalyzed, or anything that the court would be waiting on? [00:04:09] Speaker 3: At this time, no. Now, as you're aware, and we, of course, sent our responses to everyone last night, to this defense motion that was filed late last week, came in the office Sunday to write those, that one of those is their request for independent testing on DNA. So we put in our motion, and I actually got an email from Mr. Griffin this morning, that if they want to have their defense expert reach out to SLED as to specifically what capabilities they think they have and what they're supposed to do, happy to facilitate those conversations and discuss those with defense and then with your honor if necessary. Right now, that's kind of where we stand on that. And, of course, any other issues that arise along those lines, we're very reasonable, and we're perfectly willing to discuss those with the defense, and if there's something that we can't agree on, obviously we'll raise those. [00:05:04] Speaker 1: Okay. All right. Mr. Harpoulian or Mr. Griffin? [00:05:07] Speaker 4: I want to address everything but the DNA issue. Right. [00:05:12] Speaker 1: I'll talk about the DNA later. [00:05:16] Speaker 4: So we don't know what we don't know. And I'll give you an example. Let me hand this up to your honor. I'll hand copies too. Your honor, this is a transcript of an interview done for a guy named Chapman and another officer who were folks that arrived on the scene to begin with, to process the scene, and were very involved in forensics of processing the scene. And if you go to page six, Chapman, who was in charge of the scene, says this, this is a television interview on March 13th, 10 days after the verdict in this case. He says, in response to the question, I believe you had some help in the aftermath. Or rather, yes, Captain Chapman, you know, the disposal of weapons, the moving around a vehicle. We heard so much about the SLED and HE's office, and they don't have anything. It's all circumstantial. So I pose this question to you here. It was a clean crime scene, staged crime scene, clean crime scene. We expect to find more evidence or less. And that's what's kind of hard to get people to understand, is we didn't find a lot. But why we didn't find a lot? Because it was clean. I mean, it was manipulated. There's evidence removed from the scene. Now, this is 10 days after the trial. This is not what Chapman testified to. And if Chapman has evidence there were other people in the scene, that he had assistance under their theory, or there were other people there, we need to have that furnished to us. And we have other witnesses that testified at trial are saying something totally different, indicating there's evidence believed that somebody else was at the scene, or there were other people at the scene. I mean, this guy's the chief guy in charge of the scene along with Rutland in the process of that night. We need, and we're in the process of doing this to determine if they did it in other states or the reports. So we don't know what we don't know. We don't know what we don't have. We need some period of time to try to process that. And Your Honor, I say this, and no emphasis on trying to, we're not alleging that the state has hidden anything from us. We do know there are people that came to see us that said they had important information. We have no ability to investigate we don't have subpoenas, we don't get a grand jury, we don't have a search warrant. And two or three of those people we sent to SLED. Did they follow up? One was, one had extraordinary evidence about a tie-in between Paul's murder and the murder of a young man named Stephen Smith. But we have no, we had no, I can't compel anybody who didn't come anywhere. We sent that to SLED. Did they investigate it? Did they investigate it? And I must tell you, there are a lot of pieces of information out there that, and maybe they just stopped once they got the conviction, didn't do anything else, that it's inconsistent with our desire to get a, to get a conviction, have a conviction held so they didn't follow it up. Maybe it does need to be followed up, but we're going to have to go back and look at all of that. We're going to have to determine whether or not additional materials developed since the trial. And of course, you know, all of us were shot by the court of court's conduct in the trial. I know we were, I know the state was. But it's hard for us to go back and look at, and we haven't done a thorough check of it, all the testimony and read it all, not in the sense of an appeal, which we've done, but in the sense of, I mean, in criminal cases, we don't have depositions. We don't have them here. We have a transcript of every, but not every, I'm sure they're going to get rid of some of these witnesses who are horrible for a time around and get additional witnesses. But most of the witnesses, we have their transcript, their depositions. I don't need to go back and read all of that when we can get a sense of how you process, like you were in a civil case. So I can't say that we've got it all. I can't say that we don't have it all. Again, I don't know what I don't know, but I think we will be very diligent. And one of the other things we talked about how Murdoch's access to that information in a way that makes it convenient for him and doesn't include anybody else. We'll talk about that. That's another question. We'll talk about that. [00:10:23] Speaker 1: I'll get to your motions in just a little bit. What I really want to know is about phone records, text messages, cell phones, video recordings, toxicology, fingerprints. You have all that discovery. [00:10:41] Speaker 4: We're not sure. But we need to review it as if we're getting ready at a brand new. I can't. We looked at it five years ago, four years ago. It doesn't mean we know we have it. We'll be diligent in doing that. But certainly, I would think it'll take us some period of time to review that. Yeah. One other point and just sort of reminding me, we did not have OnStar data on Mr. Murdaugh's vehicle until halfway through the trial. That is not anything we call it. That is GMC's not furnishing it. We had to do that on the run. We want to go back and analyze that. I do want to emphasize the Attorney General about it at the same time we've got it. No inference to anything improperly. [00:11:48] Speaker 1: Okay. [00:11:49] Speaker 4: So, part of what we need to do, we need to hire additional experts based on some of the views we now have on some of the witnesses both the state and the defense staff. and they need to examine those reports to determine whether we have everything. So, it's going to take a little bit of time, Judge. I can't tell you today we have everything but we don't know. [00:12:18] Speaker 1: Okay. Let me ask you, Mr. Waters, what about the OnStar data? Do you have all of that? [00:12:24] Speaker 3: Yes, ma'am. So, Your Honor, we actually sled and sent two search ones to GM well in advance in the trial and were told we ain't got none. and I think what happened was during the course of the trial we actually had the FBI buy a suburban and essentially reverse engineer the black box in the suburban in order to provide us a telemetry data which of course was all provided to the defense. I think when that testimony came out during trial somebody at GM was watching and they were like, uh-oh and so in the middle of the trial I get a phone call saying, you know, about all that OnStar data actually we got a bunch of we immediately advised the judge advised the defense provided that to a useful form they assessed it and agreed to go forward because each hour we're curious about what had to ask yet. So, that was nothing with the fault of the state and we immediately engaged in what we needed to do to ensure the defense had access to all that information. That's insane we don't know what we don't know well I know my applications are and if I have knowledge of something that's disposable then it's been disclosed and so to imply that there's something out there I mean we're always constantly auditing that and doing our obligations but I take discovery obligations very, very seriously as far as these musings I haven't watched this TV interview the musings of some captain about you know whether the scene was cleaned well there was evidence presented at trial that it was standing order on the concrete pad of the kennel that the hose was not put back the way that it normally was coiled by the person who was in charge of taking care of the kennel so he may have been talking about that but ultimately while Colleton responded initially the scene actually was in charge of the process by SLED and they had access to all that information so to sit here and apply we don't know what we don't know well I'll recognize that but I know that my obligation is to provide that information and if I'm aware of it then it's been provided and we have done that they've added 12 for the original trial and we will continue to do that and as he freely recognizes the OnStar data came in late despite our best efforts and was immediately disclosed to them they had every opportunity to process that information and they agreed you know what let's continue on so that's not anything any sort of indication so the [00:14:50] Speaker 1: bottom line is they have everything that you have [00:14:53] Speaker 3: my knowledge yes ma'am and we were very careful about going through all that [00:14:56] Speaker 1: and you don't know of anything else that needs to be analyzed at this time [00:15:03] Speaker 3: well again we have that DNA the DNA and I'm [00:15:06] Speaker 1: going to get to DNA in just a moment [00:15:07] Speaker 3: right as I expressed in our motion and Mr. Griffin has responded I'm happy to facilitate discussions and if there's some capability out there that's beyond the capability of SLED and it has a reasonable chance of providing some sort of analysis then we're happy to do that now of course if we put in our motion ultimately there's absolutely no evidence that Maggie Murdoch was in a struggle with anyone that she had any sort of defensive wounds that she would scratch any sort of attacker and we also know that it's very common how sensitive touch DNA is we're constantly shedding DNA and picking up DNA from others by shaking hands and doorknobs and all the rest of it so this is a bit of a red hearing but that doesn't mean that we are not willing to discuss with the defense anything that they want to do and if reasonable we're the first to do that because they need to come back to this court to do that as well [00:16:06] Speaker 1: okay thank you [00:16:09] Speaker 4: we know from testimony of the first trial that the chief flight officer involved admitted he misrepresented things to the rancher since the trial the case was dismissed in which he testified because the judge found he was hiding evidence and misrepresenting that that's the chief officer the judge but it raises questions with us not whether it's been retheld by the state by the prosecution but did he give them everything he had did he do what he did in the subsequent case after the trial where he hid evidence and i think we've got to go through it and look and say are there gaps here are we missing something and for us and look we want to try this quickly as possible but what we don't want to do is not be prepared based on what we now know happened at the first trial and we'll have a motion probably next week that'll expand on that a little bit we didn't feel that we wanted such a motion to reset [00:17:20] Speaker 1: well and i don't you know i really wanted to go over and see where we were with discovery i want to set a timeline i want to set out some pretrial conferences and i want to set a trial date that's why we're here today and i want to go over some of these motions i think some of them are not substantive that i could go ahead and rule on those today and be done and i will set up a pretrial i'll give y'all some dates and hope you brought your calendars and we'll set a pretrial i don't know that one pretrial is going to do it for this case we'll probably have several and that's fine the court's amenable to anything that y'all need and happy to hear what you have if you find something mr harpellian that you need to bring to the court's attention and you want to file a motion i am more than happy to hear it okay all right so let me move on to my next notes and we've kind of touched on it a little bit experts do you know how long and the reason i'm just asking is because i do want to set a trial date believe it or not overnight when i was assigned this case this case became the oldest case on my docket and anybody who knows me knows that i will move an old case and i intend to do that with this one so i'm asking mr waters expert witnesses do you know how long you need to get expert witnesses and talk to people and get everything that you need for the prosecution of this case [00:19:10] Speaker 3: yes ma'am so the vast majority of our experts agree that we are ready within reason of course to do this as as efficient as possible we do have another expert that testified from the FBI and things like that but much of that is the same and so as far as the state's position as to scheduling and i know we've already stated this publicly that we were trying to do this before the end of the year late before the end of the year or whatever it's going and so i'm not aware on the state side of the expert issues that was provided for additional in the way and all right [00:19:59] Speaker 1: mr harperling how about for the defense [00:20:01] Speaker 4: we have eight expert witnesses all of them are just beginning to get the information they need the dna when we are told may take up to six months it is unlike represented by the state critical try it before the end of the year cannot be done for us to be adequately prepared and we talked about the laptop without the laptop we can't try it next year if we have to go down there and take it with a bank box at a time almost 20,000 pages of the doctor so we came up with a way [00:20:59] Speaker 1: well surely mr harperling and he reviewed those before his first trial did he not [00:21:06] Speaker 4: five years ago I mean it's just the judge I can't remember the case I tried three months ago it's ridiculous to require him to have a memory of each document that he looked at almost five years ago and by the way our solution to that contrary to mr. well mr. waters put the promotion is ironclad no chance of it being distributed we'll give him a laptop that's encrypted since there's no attorney client on it corrections can look at it sledge can look at it anybody can look at it and let him look at without us having to take hard copies of stuff down there and review it with him can't leave it with him under the court order because you can't take him to discovery and leave it and I'm sure the warden does not want boxers and boxers to stop sitting in his but if we have that and he could be reviewing these documents and experts as we're reviewing them I mean let's not forget he's a lawyer now he's just a barred lawyer but he has probably more trial experience than many of the folks on either side of the court so he understands what he's looking at much better than any client I've ever had so I think it's important if you're going to try to expedite this for him to have and you can talk about the laptop separately but that's going to be a condition it's going to take us at least six months to get these folks out and look at the adequate material look at the state of testimony the first time around and of course if they have a change in who they're using or taking a different approach we need to know that as soon as possible I would point out that they were giving us discovery in the last case after the first week of the trial in the second week of the trial so we can't have that happen again they say they've got it all we can assume we have it all unless they want to supplement it they supplement it sooner rather than later that allows to take the trial I mean I think what we probably ought to try to do is figure out a trial date and then back up from that what we're comfortable with is late spring early summer months to be important [00:23:32] Speaker 1: we can [00:23:33] Speaker 4: live with that given we have to go down there one of us have to go down there five days a week incarcerated two and a half hours it's a half an hour to get in so before you see it's three hours and then you only have three hours again and then it's a three hour trip back that's why the laptop is so important that's why [00:23:58] Speaker 1: okay mr griffin anything you'd like to add us to experts [00:24:02] Speaker 5: i have been in contact with the dna lab in houston i can talk more about that but when i mentioned that you know they were asked how soon do you need it and i said well hopefully we're looking at a spring early summer trial date and the answer was well we need to put a rush on it and i can talk more about the lab if your honor wants to hear it i mean they are [00:24:29] Speaker 1: i'll get to the dna in just a minute um and then we'll go forward on that all right let me talk about this computer at the um department of corrections um i did receive your response mr warders yesterday at five did you get the opportunity to look at that mr harpelian [00:25:01] Speaker 4: um [00:25:06] Speaker 1: i mean basically um i just made myself some notes um you were concerned about the state grand jury material um and talked about a protective order um and some other issues uh i agree uh about there are some sensitive issues the state grand jury material uh is protected um and should be protected and then you mentioned an order that judge newman um had i kind of think mr warders that when this case was reversed that order goes out the window and we might need a new order uh for this case uh it's my understanding that the order uh stated that the grand jury material is secret i mean that's pretty straightforward um and i know that you would like to prohibit the digital dissemination of the state grand jury material that there's no photocopying and scanning um i breezed through this um you don't want any digital copies uh and all of this while it doesn't prohibit the defendant from reviewing the case materials um you want the attorneys to um make sure that they keep in their possession the state grand jury material is there any objection to that mr herpillion [00:26:50] Speaker 5: your honor the um issue of that is what is the state grand jury material i think you know if we can designate what that is it's beyond grand jury testimony which is there's very little of that in the discovery i think they've gotten things through grand jury subpoenas that have been produced you know underlying records and whatnot and and so you know is that really sensitive grand jury material and some of us introducing evidence at the trial i'm sure of that but so no question about grand jury testimony we have no issues with that but it's just hard to say what exactly are grand jury materials when a lot of subpoena documents and information have been produced [00:27:40] Speaker 4: and your honor the issue is dissemination i mean he has a right to read [00:27:44] Speaker 1: oh absolutely i said that it does not prohibit him from reading it issue [00:27:51] Speaker 4: dissemination i mean this is we're just basically talking about kindle it's you can read on it you can't send email it's not connected digitally or cell or wi-fi it can be connected let me say this the department of corrections has been extraordinarily professional in dealing with us giving us access to that but no complaints with them whatsoever what we'd like is we'd like that laptop with the warden and corrections to have total access to it it can be inspected by sweat to make sure it can't transmit the image a message can be used in any way there is no wi-fi at this particular installation it has to be by self-service and these are not difficult technical issues and if they're concerned about grand jury testimony we have to take that out that's a very good moment of what we want him to look at and we can certainly do that separately with hard copies we'd be happy to put out there and do that [00:28:50] Speaker 1: well let me tell you well Mr. Waters let me hear from you first [00:28:53] Speaker 3: yes ma'am so we really as far as the protect board we really have two things there was the state grand jury investigation and ultimately there was the standard protective order he's played guilty to all those offenses there's nothing to be heard about that but necessarily as that state grand jury investigation was going things came up that were ultimately irrelevant to the murders it was much bigger than they say he did not I don't have the number of your honor but it was at least twenty witnesses multiple subpoenas and so all of this was in that evidence as well as Judge Newman issued a second in my recollection protective order as related to just sort of the murder evidence as well so there's been two separate things but they all blend together so all of this evidence is sensitive on top of that murder evidence is in fact very very sensitive and frankly we've been trying to protect you from improper dissemination because it's worth a lot of money now one thing SCDC is adamantly opposed to is having an inmate have a laptop they are absolutely 100% opposed to that and I have to remind you that this is an individual who already had his tablet and we'll just take it away from misuse of that this is an individual who was caught receiving contraband that was asked from a family member to rule and so this is not a guy who is and this is also a guy who's been convicted over a decade of fraud now they say that these things can be locked down and I understand these issues very well because the state grand jury made a point to partner with SCDC to fight the problem of the fraud and corruption from there and it's done with the use of devices this is a very severe security issue and no matter what protections are put in place there's always ways around those and SCDC has experience with that so the fact remains is he's an enemy and SCDC is adamantly opposed to their big map talk that he has access to and toward this idea that SLED is going to be able to review attorney communications and work product on that I don't understand how that's going to happen now SCDC is happy to accommodate the defense and to any meetings they have and no one says that the defense can't bring down digital evidence to review with them while it's under their supervision and then take it with them when they leave that is absolutely the way it should be that ultimately this information whether state grand jury or not is too sensitive to have an inmate despite what protections are put in place at the laptop because frankly the reality is inmates are constantly and successfully violated whatever protections are put in place despite everyone's best hours and you're doing a great job that's just the next thing is [00:31:41] Speaker 1: okay [00:31:42] Speaker 3: please watch one [00:31:43] Speaker 4: I had a serious email and I don't see the Department of Corrections here today I had email change with Ward at a particular institution and he has raised those suggestions he just and we bring another laptop and he can't have cellular or wifi capabilities so that's what this says so and I all due to respect the Department of Corrections if we don't get the ability I mean if Mr. Griffin and I or Mr. Barlow or Ms. Box have to go down there three hours down sit with him for three hours three hours back we're talking about at least the end of next year not the beginning of the following year to get this support we can't we can't be working on experts we can't be interviewing witnesses while we're tied to sitting there and babysitting him while he's reading a laptop that doesn't have any capability to communicate and we'll be happy to have sweat inspected we'll be happy to have Department of Corrections inspected but you know the idea we bring laptops in we would give it as you can see permission to bring laptops in laptops are brought in all the time the question is can he keep not he but can the warden keep it or some office at the institution keep it and give it to him when he needs and he honored I gotta say this idea of bringing him in here chained up the idea of not letting him have access to a laptop the idea of opposing everything we're trying to do to expedite this process I understand it's Mr. Waters job to legally prejudice the defendant but this is beyond the tale this is beyond the tale I've asked you to remind Mr. Waters that he has an ethical duty to see that justice is done not get a conviction thank you Mr. Hartford I don't [00:33:57] Speaker 1: okay we're not going to go there [00:33:59] Speaker 3: and I have no intent to prejudice anyone prejudice suggests a decision on the improper [00:34:05] Speaker 1: and the court doesn't take it that way Mr. Waters all right let me tell both of you I took the liberty of calling the warden and talking to him about the laptop situation and because I too used to practice law I remember terabytes of discovery that I had to carry to my clients to go see and I know that it can be cumbersome and I would imagine the discovery in this case is a lot how many pages do we have Mr. Waters [00:34:45] Speaker 3: half of a [00:34:50] Speaker 1: terabyte okay I talked to the warden he will not allow a laptop and for safety reasons he said he would quote make available a conference room council may bring their computer they could have a law clerk come or the attorneys could come to their sales they could look at it he could review his discovery they could bring their own laptop however somebody must be with him his concern was having a laptop in his cell no other no other inmate has a laptop in their cell they do have access to an iPad that has Westlaw on it now I just have to be honest with you I didn't even think about asking him if you could download any discovery on that iPad I don't know if that's available but I certainly will call and check and see if that's acceptable to him if that's the case I'm going to have Mr. Waters draw me up a proposed order on the state grand jury material I haven't looked at Judge Newman's yet but I will please run that proposed order by Mr. Harpulian and Mr. Griffin I will check on the downloading on an iPad but I'm not going to allow him to have a laptop computer in his cell it's for safety reasons that's out of my control I think it's not only for the safety of the others at the institution but probably Mr. Murdoch for your own safety okay [00:36:48] Speaker 4: we're not proposing he have it in his cell we're proposing that the warden have it and give it to him to go to a conference room and look at it there does that make a difference [00:37:01] Speaker 1: well I'll ask I'll ask him but when I read your email here this seems like he could go to his cell he could keep it in his cell I know good and well that the warden is not going to allow that I talk to him personally [00:37:19] Speaker 4: okay [00:37:21] Speaker 1: we'll follow up on that and I'll next pretrial or if I can I'll probably let you know before pretrial but if he says no and it's for security reasons then the answer is no I'm not going to allow it you understand Mr. Arpillian [00:37:42] Speaker 4: Mr. Waters he'd let [00:37:47] Speaker 1: a paralegal go all he wants is the name of the person and you're more than happy and he said he's not going to limit you to three hours they can stay eight hours if they want he will make a conference room available so he could see the material it does not have to be a lawyer okay that [00:38:14] Speaker 3: you know [00:38:22] Speaker 1: I want him to have all his discovery he's entitled to all of it you know it's safety concerns it's if you can have a law clerk or a paralegal go down then you're satisfied Mr. Harpillian that'll help you out [00:38:42] Speaker 4: not limited to three hours it makes that two and a half hour trip down and two and a half hour back worthwhile okay [00:38:50] Speaker 1: well then I will verify that and send y'all an email tomorrow on that if that's okay all right perfect all right now let me go through I had a motion filed for the defense and I just want to put this on the record the defense wanted the defendant to be unshackled in the courtroom I received a response from the state they objected then I had a response from Mr. Harpillian where he withdrew that motion that still stands Mr. Harpillian [00:39:40] Speaker 4: yes your honor although we may renew the motion our reason for this is jurors potential jurors are watching this right now it's going to be wherever this goes it's going to be difficult to get a juror and to the extent that bringing him around in a jumpsuit shackled like an animal impact their view it's going to make it more difficult for us to get a jury now again Mr. Waters' argument is specious he's not dangerous he's only stealing money now Judge Newman let him come to the courtroom in three clothes and unshackled I know Mr. Waters feels compelled to get every advantage he can but this is one this is our ability to get a juror so I would ask that he would be allowed to come into the courtroom unshackled in I will call them street clothes so are you [00:40:35] Speaker 1: renewing your motion now just want to make sure [00:40:39] Speaker 4: he could sit [00:40:59] Speaker 1: down [00:41:29] Speaker 3: he's he's he's inmate this is again SCDC's policy for nonjury court he's not only in place for 27 years but an additional 40 years in federal court and he's also indicted for a double murder so this is a basic security consideration again the intent is not to prejudice anyone the intent is the security of every time someone is transported out of court it is a security risk and the first two goals of any escape attempt is to own strained and in civilian quarters so I'm here to represent what is basic policy and procedure for inmates serving long felonious sentences with SCDC I completely understand that we have a jury the calculations are different and that is going to be a different thing to do the remedy for all of that ultimately is going to be our process it's going to be jury selection it's going to be instruction from the court which the jury are going to follow and I know our citizens can [00:42:34] Speaker 1: okay thank you all right I'll take it under advisement and I'll issue an order on that let me move on to the DNA again I just received the state's response yesterday at 5 p.m. I read it and I'm going to save it for the next pre-trial because this is what I want to know I'd like to know how long Mr. Griffin it's going to take to analyze exactly what it is you're asking for and I believe it's genetic [00:43:18] Speaker 5: yes yes your honor and the state's response says give us somebody to talk to at the lab [00:43:27] Speaker 1: okay [00:43:27] Speaker 5: and I'll convey to them this morning the CEO of Othram's name email and telephone number they have received the VP of law enforcement division at Othram between his cell phone number and the client intake person that we use now that I've been interfacing with and they will be better able to answer specifically how long it will take we've agreed to pay for it and just background information [00:44:02] Speaker 1: I'm going to let you pay for it [00:44:03] Speaker 5: these murders happened in 2021 we're in 2026 2021 there's no such thing as artificial intelligence in 2021 this genetic genealogy was just on the ground floor in 2026 we are light years ahead and so what we're asking for didn't really exist in 2021 it does exist today and Othram is the leading lab that performs this analysis they did last year in 2024 the statistics are that they cleared 200 cold cases on behalf of law enforcement around the United States and the country they work with law enforcement every day the most high profile case they did was at the University of Idaho the Moscow Idaho murders that took place about the first week of our trial college kids were massacred in a house at the University of Idaho they had a DNA sample they ran through CODIS came up nothing there was nothing the state of Idaho police department like SLED had a contract with Othram they sent the test Othram Othram does this genetic genealogy DNA analysis and it comes back to a family member who had done a DNA test ancestry test of the person who committed these murders Brian Coburg that's how they solved the Moscow murder cases was through Othram lab the difference between and they say they don't have enough samples to get through CODIS and I've talked to the lab about that and that's not an issue CODIS uses analysis called STR this analysis is SNP and they call it SNPs they have CODIS has 20 data points SNPs has half a million data points that they analyze now it takes a while to do that and so you know we're going to have to see what the lab says they've asked me to get information from sled as to you know they like to see the electrode bargram or mixture proportions so they can have a better handle on it and I'd ask Mr. Waters to give us a name so that these experts can interface but what they're doing in Houston Texas they don't do in South Carolina at the sled lab and there are handfuls of labs around the country and they are they're certified they work with law enforcement I don't know that they've worked specifically with sled they're familiar with sled when I spoke with them but they have a whole division [00:46:56] Speaker 1: so you need an expert's name or whoever has this sample to see if there's a viable sample that you can send and they [00:47:08] Speaker 5: can work with the extract that sled used when they did their STR analysis they can work with that out there they told me but [00:47:17] Speaker 1: Mr. Waters can you give him a name so he can move forward [00:47:22] Speaker 3: that's what I put in my motion your honor please give us a name and I'm happy to have sled reach out and talk to them about what their supposed capability proposals are and any procedures and I've been made tribute to that information I'm happy to discuss those with the defense and I gave [00:47:51] Speaker 5: him three names and contact information this morning and I've asked a name that I can send back to my folks I do want to address this red herring argument the DNA that we're talking about your honor came from Maggie Murdoch's left fingernails that was tested by sled with this STR analysis the DNA sample number 70 that we're asking to be tested it it positively was not Alec Murdoch any of the other folks who were who they took buccal swabs from went through a long list not them except for one potential and that potential the ultimate result was it's 11 times more an unknown male so they know it's a male than it was this person that's how they do things in their DNA analysis and Mr. Waters said where there's no evidence of struggle but there was a shell casing under Maggie Murdoch's body from the gun that killed her I mean that shell casing and that gun had to be in very close proximity Maggie Murdoch's cell phone was missing from the crime scene was DNA transferred at that point in time and so we don't think it's a red herring we think it's very important it may turn out to be you know innocuous we don't know but it's worth looking into [00:49:31] Speaker 1: I haven't said no this is what I do want you to do though Mr. Griffin I want to know how long it's going to take to analyze what it is that you're asking for and even if I expedite it I'd like to know how long it's going to take and I'd also like to know if there's even a viable sample that they can get and we will discuss this at our next pre-trial anything Mr. Waters you're going to give them the name of the person that's led that he can get in contact with let's see if there's a viable sample [00:50:17] Speaker 5: and the lab has told me if there's not a viable sample we'll tell you that but they work with a lot less than okay well let's [00:50:28] Speaker 1: let's start with that let's make sure we get a viable sample and then we'll go forward and we're going to go forward at the next pre-trial I promise you the pre-trial is not going to be [00:50:38] Speaker ?: to be [00:50:38] Speaker 1: that far away all right let me move on to the motion for change of venue the defense filed a change of venue motion the state has not had the opportunity to answer yet so I'm going to give them time in the meantime before our next pre-trial if at all possible if y'all agree on a change of venue please give me some suggestions if y'all can agree on it if you can't make your own suggestions and then I will decide for you if we go that route [00:51:26] Speaker 4: even in spite of the acronym here that we haven't been able to talk to each other and we have already talked about this and I think we'll have continued discussions and depending on when you said your next pre-trial [00:51:45] Speaker 1: can answer for me we [00:51:48] Speaker 4: try if I don't have yes [00:51:57] Speaker 3: your honor of course without taking a specific position right now right this morning that we can take some things around and like you just said if we agree great that's [00:52:10] Speaker 1: right don't have a problem with that okay perfect all right now let me address I see Mr. McCullough sitting out there and then I also have another they're both the same protective order but they're wanting two different things that's right they're two different things right as far as but I think before we go there mr. [00:52:41] Speaker ?: mr. [00:52:41] Speaker 1: harpoolian i believe mr. worters am i correct in stating that you're working on a response to both of these there might be some redactions that you wanted and you're going to submit that to the court okay and i'll be able to address that at the next pretrial conference [00:53:04] Speaker 3: right [00:53:17] Speaker 1: because i did yeah and i did receive something from sled an email from sled [00:53:23] Speaker 3: where [00:53:27] Speaker 1: is he okay i did receive your email and just get me an answer on that and we'll decide at the next pretrial end okay those were all my bullet points so let me ask the lawyers did i miss something is there something you would like to add [00:53:53] Speaker 3: one thing your honor had mentioned is the location of pretrial hearings and from the state's perspective we're happy to come wherever your honor happens to be okay [00:54:06] Speaker 1: we're [00:54:07] Speaker 4: more than happy to come wherever you are although this production of these hearings might not dictate certainly suggest you come to a venue like Washington County where there's plenty of room and have extraordinary i think [00:54:25] Speaker 1: they've done a really good job with security and with the press and being organized and this is my home county any let me just ask and throw this out there mr. waters is there any objection if we hold pretrial here the reason being we have a big courtroom i already have security set in place we i think the clerks and both clerks and security have done a really good job this is not the only courtroom in this courthouse so i won't disrupt holding court in lexington which i would not want to do to any county sometimes i go to really small counties and i don't think it would be good to hold a pretrial there does it suit [00:55:26] Speaker 3: from the state's perspective you know again being a long-time ag i've been pretty much all of them and as an ag lexington is like the second home obviously convenient it's not [00:55:48] Speaker 1: far for anybody to travel mr. harpelian okay and i will try to make sure that when we arrange these pretrials that we will try to be here in lexington anything else mr. waters [00:56:04] Speaker 4: defense that's all we have but if we could talk about that schedule for the next pretrial [00:56:13] Speaker 1: oh i'm getting ready for it right now let me tell you what i have i've gone through my calendar and so it's hard to get lawyers together especially when i have this many lawyers so let me throw some dates out to you august the 13th and the 14th july 29th the 30th or the 31st [00:56:44] Speaker 4: july [00:56:48] Speaker 1: 29th [00:56:50] Speaker ?: i'm [00:56:52] Speaker 3: scheduled to be out of state from the 29th through okay [00:56:58] Speaker 1: then let me move on to august 13th and 14th [00:57:03] Speaker 5: we have a mediation on the 13th the 14th available august [00:57:11] Speaker 1: the 14th it is that will be our next pretrial now with that said i'd like to have all motions by august the 7th if i could i like to read my motions i like to be prepared so if i could have your motions i understand that some of them are late you might think of something at the last minute that's fine but please please don't file something at 10 o'clock at night and expect me to rule on it in the morning okay [00:57:51] Speaker 3: no you're fine mr waters [00:57:59] Speaker 1: you're fine i was not planning on on ruling on those motions now had i been i might say something different but um please don't do that to me okay um now let's talk about a trial date um the only other information i would like to know is how long this dna is going to take um i would like to know that but i'm going to tell y'all i'm thinking april the fifth uh and this being i'm trying to get through easter and i know how hard it is to pick a jury when you've got spring break that's usually right before easter um it is the march is it the 28th i think it's it's the week it's march 28th so i'm thinking april fifth you know i know that we'll have a new attorney general coming in uh y'all mr harpoonian has already told me it's going to take six months to get experts prepared and ready to go that would give the new attorney general time to um look at his case in case he's going to be here and join us um do i and and let me tell you this tell both of y'all i think y'all know me pretty well when i set a trial date i don't do continuances this i don't do it uh better be a really good reason so uh how does april the fifth sound mr waters [01:00:00] Speaker 4: mr harpoonian we'll be ready with some contingencies if the dna takes longer for instance or i will [01:00:13] Speaker 1: have that information by next pre-trial if i need to extend it out a couple of weeks i will if that's the case please do not think that this case is going to be tried a year later because it's not we're going forward [01:00:28] Speaker 4: i understand [01:00:45] Speaker 1: technology changes overnight overnight i understand mr griffin anything you'd like to add [01:00:53] Speaker 5: yes your honor the um the supreme court reversed this case on misconduct by clerk of court but the supreme court also addressed financial crimes evidence and and depending on how much of that or any of that comes in will determine the length of the trial in many respects there's newman last time would not rule pre-trial on that issue and and it's going to be an issue that we're going to have to brief and argue with your honor as to you know we don't think any of the financial crime evidence should come in at trial and so i'm just flagging that that it would be helpful to us i believe in the and to know if we're going to have to defend against that during the trial or are they going to be able to put it up and so i'm just asking maybe some earlier dates that you can have you know you'll address those issues [01:01:52] Speaker 1: we will we will i'll i'm just going to tell you i'd like to address all pre-trial matters beforehand because when i say april the 5th we're picking a jury and going forward all those issues should be decided by then [01:02:09] Speaker 3: thank you [01:02:20] Speaker 1: i appreciate it anything further before we adjourn mr waters and mr harpelian [01:02:28] Speaker 4: all right [01:02:30] Speaker 1: perfect have a good evening [01:02:58] Speaker ?: and mr