Why Prosecutors Are Reaching Back To Alex Murdaugh's 2023

**Tony Brueski** (0:01)
This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Dreeke.

**Tony Brueski** (0:08)
Let's go talk about another case. This is having a hearing later in the week, and we'll be covering it Friday morning. Alec Murdaugh is back in front of the new judge, Debra McCaslin, and the paper has been flying all week. The prosecutor has just filed to use his own 2023 testimony against him. Every admission read straight to the new jury. They're also asking the judge to ban any talk of another suspect and keep the polygraph evidence out entirely.
Yeah, I know you guys aren't confused about who you think killed Maggie and Paul. I don't think I am either. But a lot of you guys want to know whether the state's new playbook actually seals this or blows it. I understand the arguments going in here. We don't want any talk of third party.
And we also want to keep things that are going into the jury to be of a certain ilk, if you will. We don't want to... The certain things we want to add in here like Alex testimony about his deceptiveness, about everything he said in the first round. Will it make it in? That's what this pre-trial motion is going to be all about. And we'll see where it goes. The state wants... One of the questions is to read his 2023 testimony to the new jury. The I lied to investigators for a year and a half. That sort of stuff, in his own words.
The listener who made the comments at Part of Me is cheering. Let his mouth convict him twice. But if I'm being honest, if the judge says yes, hasn't the retrial basically already happened? I know if you're letting in testimony from that previous trial, is it?
Should his full testimony be played back or read back in a new trial for everyone to take in? And does it, what did I guess even have the same weight that it did in round one where suddenly we learned at the last minute that Alex Murdaugh had been lying the whole time? Because we didn't know that until he went on the stand. That element of shock and suspense is now just part of the story. It's not part of the actual, oh my god, moments in the court. Robin, what do you think? Should the judge allow a piece of that testimony or that whole testimony in to the new trial even considering that that trial was viewed to be not valid? And we gotta go from square one.

**Robin Dreeke** (2:43)
I don't know why you wouldn't. I mean, it's, again, just channeling my inner Bob Mata, who we love and I learned so much about what defense does and what their whole role in these things is in upholding the Constitution, make sure it's legal and fair. And you can imagine, you know, the suppression things are gonna put in there and they're gonna try to suppress everything they possibly can. But I don't know if it was in there before, they'd have to come up with another reason to suppress it. I mean, you can see why they're not doing as much financial stuff because that was deemed in the appeals court as too much. But and I don't know why or how you'd be able to get rid of this.
I think it's completely appropriate to have in there because just because it's being retried, doesn't mean you can't do the same things you did last time. That's what the defense is gonna try to get rid of and toss out. But that's also what the prosecution is gonna hold on to if it worked before. And you can see their whole intention behind everything. They're trying to do all they can to remove all the reasonable doubt that could be presented to the jury. Well, I think that's it.

**Tony Brueski** (3:43)
I think it's about the way it's being presented to the jury. It's on the record now. So if he were to go back and say, no, I wasn't down at the kennels, he'd be impeaching himself. That's on the record that could be brought into play, which the judge may make a ruling like that of like, well, if you open the door to it, we can call you out on it.
Or it may be something to the effect of, well, here's the record of what you say happened. Follow that record, that story that you've admitted you did. And we don't necessarily have to go, and by the way, he lied about it for all that time. And then finally, the play at issue is whether or not going to the jury and saying you lied about it for all of that time, when it's now just flatly on the record. So it would kind of impeach him a bit. But he's not really trying to be impeached in a second trial, if he just followed through with the story.