Alex Murdaugh and brothers seek delay in trial about boat crash until after murder trial
Accused and disbarred South Carolina attorney Richard “Alex” Murdaugh and his two brothers are seeking to delay the trial for a wrongful-death lawsuit involving their family until after the double-murder trial for Alex Murdaugh is complete.
A trail date of Jan. 9 has been set in Hampton County for the wrongful-death suit filed by the estate of Mallory Beach, who died in a February 2019 boat crash involving Murdaugh’s boat allegedly piloted by his intoxicated son Paul. Murdaugh is a codefendant in that suit, and he's scheduled for a criminal trial two weeks later.
Murdaugh faces two counts of murder and weapons charges for the shooting deaths of his wife, Maggie, and son Paul at their Colleton County home, Moselle, in 2021. He is scheduled to stand trial on Jan. 23 in Colleton County.
Attorneys for Alex Murdaugh and his brothers John Marvin Murdaugh and Randolph Murdaugh IV have filed separate motions of continuance for the lawsuit's trial seeking to give counsel more time to prepare and to allow Alex Murdaugh to time to better defend himself.
John Marvin Murdaugh and Randolph Murdaugh IV are named in the lawsuit as representatives of the estates of Maggie and Paul, respectively.
The other defendants in the suit are Gregory Parker as Parker's Corporation, the owner of the convenience story accused of selling alcohol to minors involved in the boat crash; Alex Murdaugh; and Richard Alexander Murdaugh Jr.
Alex Murdaugh's attorneys claim constitutional rights in jeopardy
On Oct. 7, Murdaugh’s civil defense attorney M. Dawes Cooke Jr. of Barnwell Whaley Patterson & Helms LLC filed a “renewed motion to stay discovery and continue trial” in Hampton County Common Pleas Court.
The motion contends that allowing the civil trial to proceed Jan. 9 will unfairly impact Murdaugh’s constitutional rights to a fair trial in that proceeding as well as in the murder trial later that month.
Specifically, according to motion, Murdaugh must either use his Fifth Amendment rights during the civil trial, which could impact his defense of that case, or waive those rights, which could produce information that could impact the murder case.
The civil trial is expected to take one to two weeks during the “most critical time in preparing the defense of the murder trial, a time in which Alex Murdaugh must be constantly available to his criminal attorneys to assist in the preparation of his defense,” according to his motion, and that would “effectively deny him the legal defense in the criminal trial to which he is constitutionally entitled.”
Murdaugh’s motion also claims that “the glaring media spotlight” on the civil trial would have an impact on the murder trial.
“…One cannot overstate the impact that a televised trial in this case, conducted on the eve of Alex Murdaugh’s murder trial, will have on potential jurors in the murder trial, making it even more difficult to select a jury from within the Fourteenth Judicial Circuit,” according to the motion.
Why do Alex Murdaugh’s brothers want to delay the Beach suit?
On Oct. 10, attorneys for John Marvin Murdaugh, as personal representative of the estate of Margaret Kennedy Branstetter Murdaugh, filed a motion of continuance in Hampton County Court of Common Pleas seeking to delay the wrongful-death suit that names the estate as a codefendant.
On Oct. 12, attorneys for Randolph Murdaugh IV, as personal representative of the estate of Paul Terry Murdaugh, also named codefendant, filed a similar motion.
The law firm of Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd, P.A. was originally representing all of the Murdaugh defendants and estates, but after Murdaugh was indicted on July 14 for the June 7, 2021, murders of Maggie and Paul, the courts granted Haynsworth’s motion to withdraw as counsel during an Aug. 11 hearing due to conflicts of interest.
Since that date, the Haynsworth firm has transferred the boat-crash case files to new counsel for the Murdaugh estates, files which include “60 depositions, and in excess of 21,220 pages of documentation,” as well as “in excess of 1,284, audio clips, video clips, and photographs,” according to the motion.
The motions ask for a continuance due to the “enormous” amount of documentation to review, which puts the new counsel in an “impossible position." The motion says the Beach plaintiffs have had more than three years to prepare for trial while other attorneys have had only five months.
John Marvin Murdaugh is represented in this matter by William A. Coates of Rose, Cassidy, Coates & Price, P.A., while Randolph Murdaugh IV is represented by David W. Overstreet, Michael B. McCall and Joshua A. Umbarger of Earhart Overstreet LLC.
Beach estate attorney responds to Murdaugh family’s motions
Judge Daniel DeWitt Hall, who is presiding over the Beach lawsuit, has not yet scheduled a hearing date to consider the motions.
Mark Tinsley, the Allendale attorney representing the estate of Mallory Beach, has not filed a counter-motion in opposition to the requested continuance.
“I don’t know what Judge Hall will do with this. At the last hearing it didn’t sound like he would be receptive to it, but I guess we will see,” said Tinsley. “Whether we try it January 9 or in early February, there’s not a lot of difference. I just need to know the date.”
Murdaugh criminal defense team wants access to his 401k funds
In another motion attached to the wrongful-death suit last week, Murdaugh’s criminal defense lawyers are requesting the use of Murdaugh’s 401k retirement funds to pay his legal bills.
Murdaugh, who is also facing more than 90 financial and drug-related charges and 11 other lawsuits, had his assets ordered frozen and seized by the courts at Tinsley’s request and placed into a receivership potentially to be used to compensate victims.
On Oct. 13, Murdaugh attorneys Richard Harpootlian and Jim Griffin filed a motion for relief from this temporary injunction in the Beach civil case “to allow Murdaugh to pay attorneys’ fees and costs from his 401k retirement account to defend against murder and related charges…”
According to the court filing, the receivership cannot access money in this 401k account until it is withdrawn or liquidated, so Murdaugh’s attorneys need court permission to liquidate it specifically for Murdaugh to have money for legal fees, as is his 6th Amendment right.
Tinsley said Monday that he did not intend to file an opposition to this request.
“I am not opposing that,” Tinsley said. “We would not be able to attach those funds after we get a verdict, so we are in agreement for Alex to access those funds as long as all the costs associated with that are also paid from the 40lk funds. Additionally, by allowing the liquidation of the account, the balance of the funds will go to the receivership to be available for my clients.”
Alex Murdaugh remains jailed in Richland County’s Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center on a $7 million bond he has been unable to meet.
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Alex Murdaugh and brothers seek delay in trial about fatal boat crash
