washington. glad to have you. here right now in south carolina, there are major developments in alex murdaugh s double murder trial. the prosecution now respond ing after the defense presented its closing arguments yesterday. defense attorney jim griffin made an emotional plea when wrapping up his presentation. there are two words that justice demands this thises case and those two words are not guilty. the oath you have taken in this case it requires a verdict not dwlt. on behalf of alex, of buster, on behalf of maggie and on behalf of my friend paul, i respectfully request that you do not compound a family tragedy with another thank you. just before closing arguments began, the judge remove d a jurr for discussing the case outside of the trial. diane gallagher is outside of the court in south carolina. diane, what more did the defense say today as they were presenting to the jury in these final hours of this trial? reporter: jim griffin spoke for about 2 hours and 15
washington. glad to have you. here right now in south carolina, there are major developments in alex murdaugh s double murder trial. the prosecution now respond ing after the defense presented its closing arguments yesterday. defense attorney jim griffin made an emotional plea when wrapping up his presentation. there are two words that justice demands this thises case and those two words are not guilty. the oath you have taken in this case it requires a verdict not dwlt. on behalf of alex, of buster, on behalf of maggie and on behalf of my friend paul, i respectfully request that you do not compound a family tragedy with another thank you. just before closing arguments
mind. i think it goes to its consciousness of guilt that he lied about being at the kennels before the murders. but griffin blew up the timeline it s all about this phone. we re all dead because we re not using our phone now. that s effective. is that lie really that material? does it even matter or is it consciousness of guilt if at the same time he s denying the kennels, he s pressing for data that is exculpatory that show he was not with maggie at the time. and on this nonsense about my baby, we don t know what maggie and paul were doing. these are not facts and evidence. this is boarderline prosecutoril misconduct. he s misleading the jury. i think a jury can make an infrempbs that they want to protect her son, but it s not a fact in evidence. and it s very misleading.
more than one inference on a specific fact, you have to find it on the pseudoof innocence, not guilt. these are really important instructions for this jury. and listen, it s ironic that in a double murder trial that it s the defense coming forward with the science and the lack thereof as opposed to the prosecution presenting the science and being beyond a reasonable doubt. i think the argument today was very effective. i think he hit all the points. there s a lot of criticism about not as dynamic, but neither side was. at least we didn t have professor waters slouched over. i found that to be so offensive yesterday. you want to play a portion of the chief prosecutor, his closing arguments to the jury. he is describing here the moments in which maggie and paul were murdered. listen. sees what happens and comes running over there running to
the third aspect of his argument is law enforcement. they have the entire time throughout this nearly six-week trial tried to characterize the investigation into the murders of paul and maggie murdaugh as messy, sloppy, incomplete. they said today that law enforcement failed miserably with their investigation and pointed out that in part, they believe that s why alex murdaugh was indicted in the first place. three out of the four things that you ll be deliberating on for the indictments aren t true. and there s no loaded gun. we re left with the lie we are left with the lie. he did lie. he told you he lied. and he told you why he lied.