Chapter 1: What is the background of the Alex Murdaugh case?
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Who gets to be a citizen of the United States at birth? When it comes to sports in school, who gets to compete with the girls? And how much power does the president actually have to hire and fire at independent agencies? These are some of the key questions before the U.S. Supreme Court this term.
And as any good lawyer knows, whether you win or lose in the highest court depends on the facts, the evidence, and how you frame your arguments. But that's not the only thing that matters. I'm Laura Jarrett, senior legal correspondent at NBC News.
And this month, in a new series for our Here's the Scoop podcast, I'm talking to legal experts and lawyers whose past legal victories are now the building blocks for the biggest cases still left to be decided. I want to know how they convinced the court they were right when the stakes were high. What special sauce locked it in? And what could be different this time around?
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Chapter 2: What were the key moments leading to Murdaugh's trial?
It just doesn't make sense. It's very hard to fathom.
Well, which begs the question that when you've got them all being pretty jovial on that infamous video down at the dog kennels, you're then having to believe that that tenor of that conversation turned quickly because they're dead on it. Dead moments later. So then who did kill them? And that is something that the defense has said that they've got some leads on who it possibly was.
Now, they did not present those at the trial where he was found guilty. So we'll see if they come up with more.
And as we get towards – I want to talk about the next step in all of this, but I'm so curious what you thought, what people, you know, who are watching the trial, covering the trial, Alec really – is emotional or appears to be very emotional on the stand to the point where like actual snot – pardon my language. That's not a bad word, but it's kind of gross. But it's coming out of his nose.
And I mean, I just thought to myself, oh, wow, like, you know, normally – let's say he wasn't, you know, being looked at for these murders, I probably would buy it, you know, because he did look very emotional. But given that he's on trial for a double murder, what were people's thoughts about these tears and his nose and all of it?
I just think they didn't believe it. Okay. But during the trial, I think Haley and I observed that, you know, he... Sometimes would rock back and forth. I mean, I think he had... I think the blow your nose thing, frankly, was something we had seen during the trial.
I sent you ladies the screen grab as I was watching it this weekend, because I kept seeing you in the gallery. And of course, that led, Carol, to our text conversation about those horrible benches in courthouses across America, and they are the most painful thing to sit on for hours on end.
If we're headed for another six weeks trial chiropractically, I'm not sure I can survive.
I mean, I've seen this in trials before where some people will bring in like, you know, almost like the little baseball pads they bring to baseball games or they give out at baseball games.
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Chapter 3: What were the major revelations during the trial?
Carol's been at Dateline a little bit longer. I would say even for us, the media attention on this case has been unprecedented.
Yeah, it really has. I mean, and what did the justices say? The South Carolina justices, something about stardom with Becky? Yeah.
It was Justice Jean Toll who said that she was called by the scion of celebrity.
And the justices ultimately agreed. The defense team, Alex's defense team, has really hit the ground running with this. And we have an extra clip from Craig's interview with the defense team that we can take a listen to.
All 12 jurors are called in to testify. They're asked if they were, in fact, coerced. They're asked if they felt pressured, influenced to vote guilty. What did they say? Most of them said no.
Only takes one no. I mean, the Supreme Court case directly on point. If she attempted to influence one juror, That's enough because you're entitled under the Sixth Amendment to a fair trial, not a pretty fair trial. A fair trial, 12 jurors who are not being influenced by extraneous influences. And one juror said that it did influence her. But what's important is our Supreme Court.
followed the law that says you don't get to ask jurors, you know, what went into the mix to make up your mind. That's an unanswerable question after the fact. And so one of the things that the opinion does is says you don't go there. What you have to do is you have to look at the conduct, the comments, the context in which they were made, and would that affect
you know, a reasonable juror, not how it affected those individual jurors. A hypothetical reasonable juror.
You know, that is a really interesting quote because ultimately the Supreme Court decided, you know, even though you had 11 people say I was not influenced, how can you unhear that? For the ones that... All of them did not hear Becky say any of those things. But for the ones that did, even though they said it didn't influence me, I think the feeling is... Should you be forced to unhear that? No.
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Chapter 4: How did the courtroom dynamics affect the trial's outcome?
You might just come away with your own glass half full.
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