WALTERBORO, S.C. — News 19 has been closely following the Alex Murdaugh trial for the past four weeks.
Today, with a break from court, we looked into the process of how this widely watched case got to trial in the first place.
How fast a case gets to trial depends whether or not all parties are ready with evidence, wtiness scheduling, etc. for a case to get on the court's docket.
As legal director Sarah Ford explains, the process behind the Alex Murdaugh trial looks a whole lot different than in other cases.
A case making it to trial is at the liberty of several factors: Is evidence ready? Does the defense want to make a plea deal?
But in the case of Alex Murdaugh, all those factors came together in a coordinated effort in order for it to get to trial in a little over a year and a half after indictments.
Sarah Ford is the legal director at the SC Victim Assistance Network. For about eight years of her career, she's specialized in advocating for victims of sexual assault, domestic violence and violent crimes.
She says the amount of time it took the Alex Murdaugh double murder case to make it to trial has been a unique case in and of itself.
"The speed at which they've been able to take this case from indictment to trial has been incredibly fast. I would say with COVID, especially the average time for cases to be tried is two and a half, three years, easy. It's not unheard of for victims to wait three, four, five years even before their case is called for trial. So the fact this case happened in 2021, the summer of 2021 and now at the beginning of 2023, we're four weeks into a trial is pretty amazing," Ford said.
She explains there are a few reasons for this: The high profile nature of the case, the power and privilege of Mr. Murdock, and the repertoire Alex's defense attorneys have.
Ford explains she made a motion for a speedy trial recently and she didn't get the result she wanted, explaining that apart from Alex Murdaugh's exceptions, justice takes time.
Typically trials have 20-25 witness instead of over 200, Ford explains.
She adds that in her office, they still have cases from eight years ago that still need to be tried.
"It's deeply rooted in our constitution to have a speedy and fair public trial," Dayne Phillips, Columbia-based defense attorney said.
Ford says she believes more cases need to get to trial faster.
"We do need more prosecutors, we need more public defenders, we need more people to move the court system along faster, because if we continue to let cases sit, and I know no one's wanting that to happen, but that is what the result is, then successful prosecutions will be less and less," Ford said.
Ford says her office is currently working on over 300 cases.