SC - Paul Murdaugh & mom Margaret Found Shot To Death - Alex Murdaugh Accused - Islandton #27

[bestill]

Oh snap!!!! He wants to testify, but AM wants to dictate what the State can cross him on!!! Seriously!?!?!?!

Of course he wants special rules, Murdaugh rules, on his cross.

 

[arielilane]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1628403958778847232

 

[arielilane]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1628404150609514497

 

[Aquarian]

The 5th? Come on!…

 

[Carolina Girl]

Good morning all. Looks like the Judge will not issue an order telling the Prosecutors what they can ask.

 

[Batman's Mommy]

The 5th? Come on!…

RIGHT!?!??
Why even take the stand?
Geez…..

 

[Aquarian]

These people are something else. The gonads they have !! Lol

 

[arielilane]

The Jury is now present.

 

[meanddblj]

Please - - - can we get the defendent to only say what we want him to say and plead the 5th to everything else. WTH kind of lawyers are they? OMG!

 

[Katrinepa]

Oh snap!!!! He wants to testify, but AM wants to dictate what the State can cross him on!!! Seriously!?!?!?!

YAY! Judge says NO WAY to Defense 'That's Unheard of to me.' Celebrate good times...

 

[Loveallmyhorsesdogsandcats]

Newman, "this is unheard of to me" lol

 

[meanddblj]

these lawyers testifying for AM probably need to be invstigated IMO

 

[arielilane]

https://twitter.com/AveryGWilks

Court is back in session. Defense attorney Jim Griffin rises and says the defense team is still deciding whether Alex Murdaugh should testify. But they first want an order preventing the state from cross-examining AM about his alleged financial crimes.

Griffin: “If he testifies about the murders, is he then subject to cross-examination about the financial crimes?”
Prosecutor Creighton Waters: “First of all, obviously the general rule is that cross-examination is wide open” and we can ask whatever we want.

Waters: The alleged financial crimes go right to the heart of AM’s credibility and speak to whatever he says on the witness stand. He cites a lot of case law to back up his argument.

Waters: The alleged financial crimes go right to the heart of AM’s credibility and speak to whatever he says on the witness stand. He cites a lot of case law to back up his argument.

This feels like one of those fights the defense has no expectation it can win, but a point that it has to raise to put on the record for later.

Judge Newman cites several rules and then sides with prosecutors, saying he won’t issue a ruling in advance limiting the scope of cross-examination.

Judge Newman: “For the court to issue a blanket order limiting the scope of cross-examination, that’s unheard of to me.”

Griffin asks if AM can answer questions about the murders but assert his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to refuse to answer the state’s questions about the financial crimes. Newman says he is willing to have that discussion later.

The defense calls its fifth witness, Alex Murdaugh's former law partner at PMPED, Mark Ball. Ball now works with the Parker Law Group. He has been a lawyer for 33 years.

 

[Katrinepa]

Please - - - can we get the defendent to only say what we want him to say and plead the 5th to everything else. WTH kind of lawyers are they? OMG!

CLOWNS!

 

[meanddblj]

Seriously how will JG be able to show his face after this trial?

 

[MrsWatson]

The defense really thought the judge would be fine with that?

Laughable.

 

[arielilane]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1628406257462956033

 

[Edvis]

MOO: But the projectile/acoustic engineer was tilted by the circumstances of the undertaking: he relied on measurements taken by a third party with some fairly crude equipment, as well as the position of the ejected casings as found and recorded by SLED to draw a conclusion about the position of the shooter....That reduced the casings that corresponded with that bullet path to (1) of (2) and that much was a pretty safe conclusion. He was applying highly accurate measuring and plotting techniques to extend in a very accurate manner from some pretty rough cut initial dimensions. The consequence of doing that is inherently suspect.
Where he pressed the boundaries was to extend that to make a determination about the physical characteristics of the shooter. In fact he demonstrated the criticality of the angular measurement of trajectory by extending (2) lines from the penetration point on the quail cage, one at 1.5 degress off horizontal and one at 3-degrees off horizontal....and quite clearly the 3-degree line at the nominal distance to the shell casings could only correspond to a shooter lying on the ground. So the 3-degree measurement was probably bogus; there was little reason to put great faith in the lower number; and that should have been the end of the discussion of that bullet path. Note he said he read the angular measurements from the SLED photographs so obviously there were at least (2) different readings. Instead he employed the 1.5 degree path to draw a conclusion about the height of the shooter....and its my opinion that that was playing outside the lines.
Also note: he could not take reliable measurements himself some 15 months after the incident: the nature of the material of the cage was such that even changes in humidity would shift the primary hole with respect to that through the hangar wall so all angular measurements would be suspect.
The shot into the dog house was actually closer to accurate because the travel distance was shorter; any variation in the measured angle of incline would result in a smaller zone of possible locations than it did in the shot that hit the quail cage.
Why the impression was ever created that there were (2) shooters is beyond me. The ballistics on shell casings defined that the casings found in that area were fired from the same weapon. So the weapon was passed hand to hand? I think the entire confusion got started when he placed (2) of his silver images on the same slide, which got hammered on cross examination like he was purporting a pair of assassins, both the same height.
He did not make shaky inferencs from the shotgun path: his conclusions were basically sound and did not raise much challenge. The whole incident is in fact more well defined: only (2) shots, the second did deplorable damage...

There were other errors in the presentation: He plotted the speed-time graph from 0 to 16 minutes, which by the On Star data should have been 9:06:50 to 9:22:37 PM. That little discrepancy caused all the fencing around with the laptop, some snippety exchanges and the associated discrediting of the rest of his analysis. This not a technical error but one of presentation clarity.

The acoustic analysis was actually pretty well done, although using the exact weapons with the exact same ammunition would have be somewhat more precise. The was probably neglible: for practical purposes the reports would not have represented a disturbance of any identifiable kind to anyone inside the house. Filtering could have been applied to the recorded sounds to isolate the frequency band associated with the reports but the point was established. Its relevance in this trial is a little tenuous in my mind.

MOO but I believe the basic issue here is that this witness tried to cover too much ground: Between projectile paths and acoustics and the flight path of the cell phone the defense would probably have been better served if they had spread the assignments to some additional parties or pursued corroboration for some of the key points here.

IMHO of course....

Thanks for this info and seen where Inspector Gadgit was trying to go with his plumb bobs, angle of rod's and lasers but when inquired about weapons used, ammo and ballistics I dropped my plumb bob and walked away. It was like a kid saying I've handled guns, shot guns and looked at guns along with his lack of knowledge of ammo and wrong ammo used in testing. Some of us vet's give that a stink eye in itself knowing there's more to it. The pounds taken to pull a trigger can come into play on impact point's, just a pull of a trigger can move shots up to a foot or more depending on the distance. It was clear where he was headed with the testing even though some points were accurate, a shorter shooter was needed to fit his bill though even a taller person just leaning against something can create a dramatic bullet impact change. Thank you for the information and good read.

 

[bestill]

Imagine the precedent if the Judge had agreed to their request! They really do think they are special.

 

[meanddblj]

getting on the stand will be his downfall cause as soon as the prosecution gets him heated the true AM will come out. It does with him jus sitting at the defense table - I have never seen such evil seething