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The legal war over Alex Murdaugh’s upcoming retrial is already taking shape with defense attorney Dick Harpootlian hinting at possible new evidence and lead prosecutor Creighton Waters signaling an impending fight over whether the disgraced lawyer can get a fair jury in South Carolina.
In separate interviews with Fox News Digital, Dick Harpootlian, Murdaugh’s longtime defense attorney, and Creighton Waters, the lead prosecutor who secured the original guilty verdicts, previewed different visions for the upcoming retrial.
The interviews came days after the South Carolina Supreme Court unanimously reversed Murdaugh’s convictions in the killings of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, ruling that Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca “Becky” Hill improperly influenced jurors during the six-week trial.
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Now both sides are preparing for a second courtroom showdown.
Alex Murdaugh sits in the Colleton County Courthouse with his legal team, including Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin, as his attorneys discuss motions in front of Judge Clifton Newman during a December 2022 hearing. (Tracy Glantz/The State/Tribune News Service/Getty Images)
Defense to push for venue change, expanded jury screening
Harpootlian said the defense plans to seek a venue change, attorney-led jury questioning and potentially sequestration of jurors.
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“We now have the ability to get people’s social media, their Instagrams, all of that,” he said. “And we’ll scour that before they ever get a chance to appear.”
He argued that jurors in the original trial had effectively been conditioned to distrust Murdaugh before he testified.
“They’d already been pre-conditioned,” Harpootlian said, referring to testimony that Hill encouraged jurors not to believe Murdaugh.
Prosecutor Creighton Waters questions Alex Murdaugh during Murdaugh’s murder trial at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro on Feb. 24, 2023. (Grace Beahm Alford/Staff)
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Waters contended that widespread public familiarity with high-profile criminal cases has become unavoidable.
“The genie is out of the bottle,” Waters said. “We’re not going to be able to go back with that.”
He argued that publicity alone cannot disqualify prospective jurors.
“If it were otherwise, anytime you have a sensational case, then the defendant would just get away with it because of the fact that, well, okay, we can’t find anybody who hasn’t heard about this,” Waters said.
Instead, he said, the justice system depends on jurors’ ability to follow their oath and decide cases based solely on evidence presented in court.
“We depend on our citizens to do what their oath requires them, put aside things that they might have read in the media or in a podcast or whatever, and base their evidence and their decisions solely on the evidence that’s presented in the courtroom,” Waters said.
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Defendant Alex Murdaugh testifies as prosecutor Creighton Waters cross examines him during his murder trial at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, S.C., on Feb. 24, 2023. (Joshua Boucher/The State/AP)
Will Murdaugh take the stand again?
When asked if Murdaugh will take the stand again in his retrial, Harpootlian said: “That’ll be a game day decision. We need to see how the case develops.”
Harpootlian said during the initial trial, Murdaugh decided to take the stand and testify under oath.
“The decision to take the stand is his. He’s a lawyer, and he has defended criminal cases and prosecuted them. So he understands [the process],” Harpootlian said. “But we reviewed everything with him and gave him our recommendations.”
Alex Murdaugh talks with his defense attorney Jim Griffin before his sentencing at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro on March 3, 2023, after being found guilty on all four counts. (Andrew J. Whitaker/The Post and Courier/Pool)
Harpootlian signaled that the defense strategy may look dramatically different this time around.
“We’ll get subpoena power for the second trial, and we can begin to put records together to help either refute or support what we’ve heard,” Harpootlian said.
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Harpootlian repeatedly attacked prosecutors for spending enormous amounts of time focusing on Murdaugh’s financial crimes.
He argued prosecutors intentionally portrayed Murdaugh as morally reprehensible before jurors fully evaluated the murder evidence itself.
“So, by the time we got to the real evidence, [the jury] wasn’t interested in hearing it because he was such a horrible, evil man, and a liar. So that was about assassination of character. It wasn’t about motive.”
WATCH: Lead prosecutor in Murdaugh case says ‘genie is out of the bottle’ in retrial
Prosecutors defend original strategy
The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that prosecutors could still use some financial-crime evidence at retrial because it was relevant to motive but criticized prosecutors for spending roughly 12.5 hours presenting inflammatory details with limited value.
Waters defended the original strategy, saying that both Judge Clifton Newman and the Supreme Court accepted the logic of the state’s motive theory.
“We presented a lot of evidence over six weeks,” Waters said. “Putting in that financial evidence is evidence of motive.”
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Alex Murdaugh attends his sentencing at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro on March 3 after being convicted on all four counts in a double murder trial. (Andrew J. Whitaker/The Post and Courier/Pool)
Defense targets the investigation
Harpootlian also launched a blistering attack on the murder investigation itself, accusing state investigators of suffering from tunnel vision immediately after arriving at the crime scene.
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“They decided that night he was the guy and everything they did after that excluded any other thought,” Harpootlian said.
He argued investigators failed to properly preserve or pursue critical forensic evidence.
“They didn’t try to take fingerprints. Didn’t try to get DNA. Didn’t preserve Maggie’s phone in the way it’s supposed to be,” he said. “It’s just a comedy of errors.”
It’s just a comedy of errors.
Alex Murdaugh talks with his attorneys Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin during his sentencing for stealing from 18 clients at the Beaufort County Courthouse in Beaufort, S.C., on Nov. 28, 2023. (Andrew J. Whitaker/The Post And Courier)
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The defense attorney also previewed his potential retrial strategy including family’s cellphone data, vehicle information and disputed timelines surrounding the killings.
“We’re going to be getting some additional forensic cell phone people for the second trial,” Harpootlian said.
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The original prosecution relied heavily on cellphone and video evidence, particularly a kennel video recorded by Paul Murdaugh shortly before the killings in which multiple witnesses identified Alex Murdaugh’s voice in the background.
But Harpootlian argued the state’s timeline remained less certain than prosecutors claimed.
“We don’t know whether Alex was down there an hour before they were killed, 30 minutes before they killed. We don’t know, and they don’t,” he said.
He also questioned on Maggie Murdaugh’s cellphone, which was later found discarded along a roadside.
“At the time that phone was thrown out of the window a half a mile away, he’s cranking his car,” Harpootlian said. “So how can he be a half a mile away when it’s thrown out the window?”
“So somebody threw it out the window. It just wasn’t him.”
Defense attorney Dick Harpootlian and prosecutor Creighton Waters shake hands at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro on Friday, March 3, 2023, after Alex Murdaugh was found guilty on all four counts. (Andrew J. Whitaker/The Post and Courier)
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Waters declined to discuss specific evidentiary disputes ahead of retrial.
“The defense has different rules, they can go in a little bit and sort of litigate the case in the media,” he said. “Because we’re back at square one and he is innocent until proven guilty, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to litigate this piece of evidence or that piece of evidence prior to a retrial.”