re: Investigators When they KNEW Murdaugh lied (Page 112)

They are blowing it in multiple ways. First you ask the question and only allow the witness to answer yes or no and then you decide whether to let the witness explain. They are letting this guy word vomit all over the place.

Now the jurors are forced to listen to this idiot explain away his lies. Catch him in the lie and move on.

Allowing him to control his own narrative is either going to give a juror or two a reason to believe his bullshite or it going to annoy them. Could go either way.

Getting AM off his routine would be to shut him down. That will annoy him. He feels in control when he runs his mouth. Shutting him up will get the reaction most of us are looking for. It will take away his control and we will see the man capable of killing his wife and son. Instead of the awe shucks good Ole country boy hes presenting.

You can't go into a murder trial with nothing but circumstantial evidence blow the grand jury then have your case be mostly about how the defendant was a bad dude

They've spent more time on the financial stuff then actually tying the evidence together in a way that is concise they've also blown the evidence they have

Ex: seems like it would be pretty easy to place AMs and Maggie's phone at the same place at the same time through gps if he stupidly threw it out of the car window ( also why was it not dusted for prints

I still fail to see a clear motive. He had plenty of money available to him at the time to afford his habit. So it wasn't about money.

They have presented no evidence to show he had any history of being violent.

They have presented no evidence his house of cards was about to fall. At the time of the murders no one knew of his addiction or of him stealing from clients.

They have almost no physical evidence against him.

All they have is opportunity. As he was there.

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I believe there's actually exculpatory evidence that puts AM's phone and Maggie's phone a little less than a mile apart when the camera comes on briefly

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That would make sense even with the states own timeline and AMs though. So idk if that helps them

Considering everyone's phone is basically a tracker I'm shocked that they can't figure out exact location

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He had plenty of money available to him at the time to afford his habit. So it wasn't about money.

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I don't know about that. Sounded like he was in a shite ton of financial crisis at the time of the murder. Pretty sure he was disbarred at that point and no longer practicing. But the prosecution didn't really go into that as much as they could have.

He wasn't confronted about his thief of clients until til September. After the murders.

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Was there any insurance policy on Maggie and/or Paul, and who was the beneficiary?

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No.

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They are blowing it in multiple ways. First you ask the question and only allow the witness to answer yes or no and then you decide whether to let the witness explain. They are letting this guy word vomit all over the place.

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You have watched too many crime dramas. The witness is always allowed to explain their answer as long as they are being responsive to the question. You can usually get the judge to compel a yes or no answer but they aren't going to prevent them from an explanation.

Everyone from the judge to the bailiff knows yes/no questions on X are designed to be manipulative and the attorney is not going to get away with compelling a yes/no answer then talking over the context and moving on to the next yes/no question. You also have to be careful about hammering yes/no questions because you will get an inevitable badgering objection and if you are being an arse it will often be upheld.

Judges are going to let witnesses (especially criminal defendants) explain their answers. You ask then follow along and object for non-responsive when appropriate. Then once they are talked out you revisit the yes/no question and compel if need be. Then you allow that yes or no to continue to reverberate while you quietly "fumble" for the next question. That pause cements the answer in the jury's mind and when you call back to it later in X or closing it magnifies the import.

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I guess we'll see in closing if that's what they're going with.

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It's sad that we don't even know the state's narrative 5 weeks into trial. Truly an abomination.

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dude was a junky. he wasn't thinking rationally.

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Yeah that would have been a great argument to make if the state was competent