A note to SC judicial system and Murdaughs: You’ve lost the public’s trust

This story first published July 30, 2021.

Immediately after a double murder rocked the powerful Murdaugh family two months ago, in a dark corner of Colleton County, someone I know put this on Facebook:

“You’ll know a Murdaugh did it if no one is arrested.”

That’s sad, but a typical reaction. It shows how little faith the people have in the criminal justice system, and that’s a terrible thing.

In the eight weeks since Paul Murdaugh and his mother, Maggie Murdaugh, were shot and killed, the trust in the system has only gotten worse.

The people have been stiff-armed by the authorities and told to go away, there’s nothing to see here.

But that’s not where it started. The murders were the second stunning event to drag this murky aspect of Lowcountry life into the light of day.

Justice is different for some

The people have seen two distinct brands of justice.

One would be for the Murdaugh family, which ruled the criminal justice system in Beaufort, Jasper, Hampton, Colleton and Allendale counties for 85 years. Three generations of Murdaugh men served as the area’s solicitor. And the family has kept their hands in the solicitor’s office even after that.

The late Randolph “Buster” Murdaugh Jr. ruled with an iron fist. Everything went through him.

When his great-grandson, 20-year-old Paul Murdaugh of Hampton, was charged with three felony counts of boating under the influence following a drunken fatal crash near Parris Island in the wee hours of Feb. 24, 2019, he was never processed in a jail, never handcuffed, never forced into an orange jumpsuit, and allowed to roam the state and avoid any checks on his alcohol intake.

We saw that sham play out at the Beaufort County Courthouse as a powerful state senator was brought in to represent him when he pleaded not guilty in May 2019.

What we did not see until the recent release of sworn statements in court documents is the special treatment Murdaugh got on the night of the boat crash that killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach of Hampton.

The boy’s father, attorney Alex Murdaugh, raced to Beaufort Memorial Hospital along with his own father, family patriarch and former solicitor Randolph Murdaugh Jr. There, Alex Murdaugh interfered with what was already a jumbled investigation by law enforcement, according to sworn testimony in depositions and other court filings only recently released.

This type of justice is not available to all of us.

Two years later, the Murdaugh boy still had not stood trial when he was killed on June 7 at a family-owned hunting compound.

Backlogs and secrecy

The courts move so slowly here that it’s a stretch to call it justice at all.

The solicitor’s office currently has a backlog of 6,000 cases. Witnesses forget and die, and some suspects not named Murdaugh rot in jail awaiting the guarantee of what our Bill of Rights calls a speedy and public trial.

14th Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone says he’s short-staffed and cites the court shutdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the backlog was already at 4,000 before the pandemic.

The Murdaugh murders have also shown the world a criminal justice system entrenched in secrecy, even as the spread of cockamamie rumors has become a cottage industry.

Maybe they’re not cockamamie — who would know? Authorities have said zero about what they think took place or what a motive may have been.

The Colleton County Sheriff’s Office released one sentence to the public at the outset of an investigation that was within hours taken over by the State Law Enforcement Division.

Then the public was told it was not in danger, even as two people had just been gunned down and there were no arrests or any hints about suspects.

How can they assure us that no one is at risk? Why did they say that? And nothing else?

Most of us give the “thin blue line” the benefit of any doubt, but they have not earned the public’s trust. We may turn out to be wrong, but at this point we simply don’t trust them, and that’s a tragedy.

The Charleston Post and Courier sued the state police to get the incident reports and other public materials associated with the murders. Then SLED produced a heavily redacted document that shed virtually no light on the situation, and, sadly for us peons, a judge upheld that censorship as appropriate.

Meanwhile, the solicitor’s office failed to respond to our reporters’ questions for three weeks as they sought answers about the ongoing relationship between the solicitor’s office and the Murdaugh family. Due to the Freedom of Information Act, some specifics were finally produced.

The troubling part in all of this is that the criminal justice system does not seem to know it has lost the public’s trust, or seem to even care.

David Lauderdale may be reached at LauderdaleColumn@gmail.com.

This story was originally published July 30, 2021 at 11:39 AM.