What Would Eric Bland Tell Prosecutors to Cut From the Murdaugh Retrial?

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

**Tony Brueski** (0:06)
The prosecution convicted Alex Murdaugh the first time by spending two weeks building a portrait of a desperate man drowning in financial crimes, who killed his wife and son to buy himself a little breathing room. The Supreme Court just told them that they can't do that again. At least, not that much. Just lay off a bit. Meanwhile, the defense is teasing new evidence, an unknown DNA profile, and a full alternative suspect strategy. The question isn't just what the two trials look like side by side, how different they're going to be or similar. It's whether the state's case survives without the scaffolding that held up the first time. Joining me to discuss is attorney Eric Bland, host of Anything But Bland and co-host on Cup of Justice. Eric, welcome.
Let's talk about some of the things that Harpootlian has said recently. And obviously, he's representing his client. He's going to make the statement he's going to make, saying that they've uncovered additional evidence and need subpoena power to develop it. Of course, I know.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:19)
That's the civil case.

**Tony Brueski** (1:20)
You've been inside the case for years. I mean, what could they have that's genuinely new in your scope of knowledge here?

**Eric Bland** (1:32)
Well, Dick said that they were going to prove who the murderer was before the first trial, and that never happened.
It rang a lot like OJ., you know, who said he was going to spend the rest of his life finding out who killed Ron and Nicole, and it turned out he spent the rest of his life on the golf course. So, you know, we were a little suspect of Dick saying what Mark Garagos did, that we're going to prove who the murderer is. The defense never has to prove that. So that was not a smart thing that I think Dick should have said. However, Dick, don't forget, has used this civil system now to sue Becky Hill in the state, and it opens up discovery that he can't get in a criminal case. So he's going to use a lot of discovery in his civil case to see if he can uncover through subpoena information that's relevant to his defense that this was a murder committed by others in connection with retaliation for Paul killing Mallory in the boat case. Now, look, we've waited for this evidence to come forward. If two people, if there were two killers, one who used a shotgun and another used a high-powered rifle, they're the dumbest executioners I've ever seen. I don't know any executioners that come on to a Southern property in the dark of night without their own weapons and the plan is going to be, I'll break into the house and I'm going to steal the weapons of the owner and then go kill the wife and the son. Now, executioners bring their own guns.
But Dick is going to subpoena around the edges. Obviously, you can't subpoena and use the Freedom of Information Act against SLED to get their information. But there's a lot of local law enforcement agencies and DNR and different things that maybe they would have a file that would show that there were threats made to Paul or Murdaugh after Mallory's death. So I think it's advantage, defense, and I say that even before the civil case, because the defense now knows how to retry the case. They're going to not make the same mistakes that they made before.
Now they're going to have discovery from Becky's civil case that they could use.
And the presentations could be different. One of the things is, Alex probably won't testify in this second trial. They'll go on the fact that the state has improved guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But here's the question. Can Alex's testimony be used against him if he takes the fifth? That's an interesting thing because don't forget, he was already subject to cross-examination, and he testified under oath. So if he takes the fifth, our law says that you possibly can use his testimony against him. Remember, he said, I lied. I lied about the Kennel video and sent it in front of the jury. So there's a lot of interesting pretrial rulings that are going to have to take place.

**Tony Brueski** (4:45)
That's another interesting thing about this case is that was a bombshell in the original trial because, oh my gosh, he's on the stand and last minute he's going up, and oh my God, he's telling you he lied about all this stuff.

**Eric Bland** (4:58)
Oh my goodness. He lied to his son, Tony.

**Tony Brueski** (5:00)