What the SC Supreme Court Told Prosecutors — and Why It Matters for the Murdaugh Retrial
Most of the coverage of the SC Supreme Court's unanimous decision overturning Alex Murdaugh's murder convictions focused on Becky Hill, the Colleton County clerk of court, who “placed her fingers on the scales of justice” so she could sell a book. That part of the ruling was straightforward, and the court's language was appropriately pointed.
But buried in the same 27-page opinion is a second message. One that is nominally directed at the trial judge but in its level of detail reads as a pointed critique of the prosecution team. And as a former federal prosecutor who spent years fighting to get as much evidence in front of a jury as possible, it's the part of the ruling I keep coming back to.
What the Court Said
The justices found that trial judge Clifton Newman allowed prosecutors to go “far too long and far too deep” into evidence of Murdaugh's financial crimes. The court acknowledged that the financial crimes were legitimate motive evidence, the theory being that Murdaugh killed his wife and son to escape the mounting pressure of his years of theft and fraud. And fairly, the court directed its primary criticism at the trial court, stating that “the trial court should have limited the State's presentation of this evidence.”
That could have been enough guidance. The Supreme Court went further though.
What Came Next Is Interesting — and Arguably Misdirected
To illustrate its point, the court pulled a specific exchange from the trial transcript:
State: Why were you the personal representative and not your brother?
Satterfield: Because my brother is a vulnerable adult and he has a disability.
Court: Can you repeat those words for me?
Satterfield: That's my brother, he's a vulnerable adult and he's not able to function as a normal human being to deal with stuff like that.
State: He's a vulnerable adult?
Satterfield: Yes.
The court characterized this testimony as having “zero probative value” and said it “adds nothing to the theory of motive.” It then tallied the total time the state spent on financial crimes evidence (“12.5 hours of actual testimony before the jury over ten days of trial”) and offered its view on the prosecution’s efficiency and effectiveness: “We are convinced the State could have effectively presented evidence to support its motive theory in a fraction of that time.”
Why It's Unusual That the Court Addressed Prosecutors Directly
Here's what most people reading this ruling will miss: appellate courts don't typically talk to prosecutors or trial attorneys. They talk to judges.
The normal appellate posture is to review what the trial judge did, such as admit or exclude evidence or sustain or overrule objections, and determine whether those rulings were correct. If the court finds error, it reverses and remands. The trial judge then applies the appellate court’s guidance on remand. Prosecutors are not the audience. They are not the ones who rule on evidence. The judge is. If anything, prosecutors are encouraged to follow all trial court rulings, including presenting evidence if it is properly admitted.
So when the SC Supreme Court directs its language at the prosecution, telling them specifically how they must present their case on retrial, how much is too much, and what they cannot do again, it is stepping outside the traditional appellate role. The court is not just correcting a legal error. It is telling the lawyers on one side of the case how to try it differently.
Why This Is Unfair
It is normal for appellate courts to second-guess trial courts. That is a core function of the appellate process. But expecting prosecutors in a high-stakes murder case to leave admissible evidence on the table is a different thing entirely. And in my view, an unrealistic and unfairly critical standard.
The prosecutors litigated the financial crimes evidence fairly. They disclosed their theory before trial. They briefed it. The trial judge heard it all and gave them the green light. For the Supreme Court to then criticize the state for presenting evidence that the trial court had expressly ruled admissible misreads the respective roles of the judge and the prosecution. The judge controls what comes in. The prosecutors present what they're permitted to present.
Beyond that, the court's use of specific examples, its accounting of time spent on particular lines of questioning, and its characterization of the testimony as inefficient crosses into territory that feels directly critical of individual prosecutors and that ignores the permission they were granted by the court that was supposed to be managing the trial. No one should expect prosecutors to leave admissible evidence on the table. That expectation should be even lower in a complex, high-profile case where two people were murdered. I’m not sure if the profile of this case invited a different standard, but picking apart a prosecution team’s trial decisions in a unanimous reversal opinion, when the trial judge approved every step, seems unfair and will undoubtedly weigh on the minds of the prosecution team going forward.
What It Means for the Retrial
The next prosecutor who stands up in an SC courtroom against Alex Murdaugh is going to have to make harder decisions than the last one did. The financial crimes evidence is still available, the court confirmed it's probative of motive. But the new judge will have this opinion in hand, and the defense will cite it every time the state tries to go deeper than what the Supreme Court has now sanctioned.
The prosecution’s task in the retrial is to preserve the motive theory while operating within guardrails that didn't exist before. That is a more difficult prosecution, not because the evidence is weaker, but because the margin for error is smaller, and because the Supreme Court has now put its thumb on the scale in a way that will follow this case into every pretrial hearing.
As I told the Post and Courier this week, the Supreme Court's opinion sounds like a pretty clear direction. Whether prosecutors can effectively work within it, and how aggressively the new judge enforces it, will define the shape of this retrial more than almost anything else.
Nathan S. Williams is a South Carolina federal criminal defense attorney and former Assistant U.S. Attorney who served as Criminal Chief for the District of South Carolina. He prosecuted United States v. Dylann Roof, the first federal capital hate crime case in American history.
