Well, after hearing the closing arguments and the jury instructions, I am now ferklempt. Both sides put on great arguments, although I think the Prosecution's rebuttal closing was weak. But those jury instructions the judge gave were very stark. Combining that with what was heard in defense closing, I am now leaning more towards a hung jury or an acquittal.
It seems that the time of death presented by the Prosecution was based on the phone records? WTF! Why didn't all the forensic folks establish a time of death outside of the "armpit measurement"? Good grief.
Quite a complicated case for sure.
It was a complicated case with no firmly established a time of death, only supposition on the part of the prosecution. No reasonable motive, and zero hard evidence.
What was firmly established beyond a reasonable doubt, however, was that the defendant was opiate addicted at the time of the murder, a white collar thief who had stolen from clients, partners and friends and lied. These were personal problems both victims were aware of at the time of the murders, though the general public was not until after the murders. It was also well known by the time the murders took place that the defendant's murdered, younger son had recklessly crashed a boat into a bridge, and a 19 year-old girl had died as a result.
By inference then, by the time the murders took place, it would have been impossible for these two, accused and one of the victims, not to have had created numerous enemies; yet it seems nothing was mentioned of this.
The prosecutions case rested on inability of the defense to eliminate any possibility, no matter how remote, that the defendant could have committed the murders. If the defendant is actually guilty, it was either quite a remarkable feat to pull off a double murder by, strangely enough both rifle and shotgun, and leave not a trace of gun or blood evidence that could definitively point to the defendant, or else the complete lack of hard evidence was an example of remarkably incompetent police work. We won't know which. As an educated person I could never in good conscience convict anyone under such circumstances, even if I could not rule out that the defendant may have indeed committed the crime.
Startling was the total lack of any reasonable motive plus the testimony of family friends that the defendant was deeply in love with his wife, loved his son, and was emotionally close to both. I fear that the Murdaugh trial has spoken more of the risk of U.S. juries not understanding the meaning of "beyond a reasonable doubt" then it spoke to guilt or innocence.
The Murdaugh trial suggests rather strongly, I would think, that the standard jury findings in U.S. criminal courts should be changed from the present "Innocent", or "Guilty Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" to "Not Guilty", "Guilty" or "Unpoven".
U.S. criminal courts are very far from perfect. For general information re trial error in criminal cases see: innocenceproject.org
