Did the Murdaugh Court Just Tell Eric Bland's Clients They Don't Matter?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This is Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski. Here now, Tony Brueski.

**Tony Brueski** (0:06)
The South Carolina Supreme Court didn't just overturn Alex Murdaugh's murder conviction, it took a shot at the prosecution's entire approach. The justices singled out specific testimony from financial crime victims as having zero probative value. Attorney Eric Bland built that financial crimes case. He joins us, he put those witnesses on the map and now the court is saying some of what his clients went through on that stand shouldn't have been heard by a jury at all. Like I said, Eric Bland, attorney, is joining us, host of Anything But Bland, his book as well, and Cup of Justice. Eric, welcome. The first thing I have to ask you, pretty obvious one. I'm sure you've been asked it a thousand times now. Let's see if your question, your answer has changed at all. But when the news came down, we all knew it was likely going to be happening of Alec Murdaugh getting a retrial.
When the news officially broke and it wasn't just out there in the ether, but when it hit you and it was a fact, what was the first thing that went through your mind?

**Eric Bland** (1:17)
Well, I did expect that it was coming. I was more surprised at the oral arguments. The oral arguments were in February of earlier this year. And if you're a student of the game and you know anything about appellate arguments, it was obvious based on the questions that were asked of the prosecution as opposed to the defense. The prosecution took fastballs to the chin. So we knew after the oral arguments that most likely it was going to be a 5-0 or a 4-1 vote at the best for the state. And it was clear that they had really took some serious umbrage to the decision that the former Chief Justice Gene Toal made in not granting a new trial in the January and February 2024 hearing.
We did not expect that the Supreme Court would go so hard at the former Chief Justice. What was surprising though is how hard they went against the trial judge.
It was shocking that they really went deep into how much Judge Newman went into the financial crimes and that the court felt that they went, as they said in their opinion, too far and too deep. And quite frankly, Tony, I think that by not giving the new judge guidance on how much can be let in of the financial crimes, I think if the new judge, which was selected today, goes into the financial crimes, it's going to give another opportunity for an appeal to Alex, if he should be convicted in the retrial, because they didn't put any guardrails other than to say, don't go too deep, don't go too far. What does that mean?

**Tony Brueski** (3:15)
Yeah, I mean, I think that's a big question. And obviously, we've now had several years to think about it, too, of how much was too much, was it too much? Some will say it was far too much. Some will say maybe it was even too little. Some will say it's just right. The amount that was in the original trial of Alex Murdaugh.
And there was a lot of things that the Supreme Court said, you know, this had zero probative value. One of the things they pointed out as the Supreme Court pointed to in addition to the financial testimony was the testimony of Tony Satterfield's testimony about his brother's disability as having zero probative value. You represented the Satterfield family. I mean, how do you process a court telling your clients that their pain was basically legally irrelevant?

**Eric Bland** (4:10)
Well, that's the motive. The state chose to introduce motive as being the financial crimes and the financial pressure. Remember, pressure breaks pipes or it makes diamonds. In this case, the state said it broke Alex's pipe, and I think it was wrong to say that Tony couldn't talk about the disability of his brother because it just goes to show that Alex had a clear path, pretty much a clear path to take advantage of these younger men.
And, you know, it's shocking that we have to go through this all over again. However, people need to know, you know, justice can be messy when you're chasing justice. It can be cumbersome. It can be entangled. And don't forget, John Gotti got tried five times, Tony, before they convicted him. There was four hung juries and the prosecution tried them five times.
You know, we've had a number of trials in our history that have been more than one. We had Karen Reed last year. So, you know, justice often isn't pretty, but we got to get it right. Okay. As a lawyer, I am comforted by the fact that our system works for the worst of us, not just for the best of us. And it should work the same for the best as the worst. And certainly, Alex is the worst. And from our standpoint, that's why my partner and I and Mark Tinsley and Justin Bamberg worked so hard to get him convicted of the financial crimes, because he's in prison for the rest of his life for the financial crimes. He can't get out from under those. And so he's doing 27 years in the state prison, which he has to serve 23 He's 58 years old. He'll have to serve until he's 79 in a maximum security prison.