Month: March 2023

After deliberating for three hours on Thursday, a jury of seven men and five women convicted 54-year-old Alex Murdaugh of two counts of murder in the fatal shootings of his wife Margaret, 52, and their youngest son, Paul, 22, in June 2021. The disgraced South Carolina lawyer was accused of murdering his wife and son to gain pity and distract from financial crimes threatening to topple his reputation; he faces 30 years to life in prison without parole. The jury also convicted Murdaugh of two counts of possession of a weapon during a violent crime, which carry five more years in prison.

The verdict followed a lengthy trial that began in late January and included nearly six weeks of testimony from 75 witnesses, including Murdaugh. Lawyers for Murdaugh moved for a mistrial after the verdicts were read, which was denied by Circuit Judge Clifton Newman, who said that the verdict was a matter for the jury and that there was enough evidence to have found Murdaugh guilty: “The evidence of guilt is overwhelming, and I deny the motion.”  Thanking the jurors, Judge Newman said their verdict was support by the evidence: “All of the evidence pointed to only one conclusion. That’s the conclusion that you all reached.”

Sentencing will take place begining 9:30 a.m. Friday in South Carolina’s Colleton County. Prosecutors have indicated they will spare Murdaugh the death penalty, and instead seek life in prison without the possibility of parole. Murdaugh faces 30 years to life in prison for the murder charge.

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On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine, chatting briefly on the sidelines of a G-20 meeting in India. A Senior State Department official said that the encounter between the two top diplomats involved less than 10 minutes of discussion. Blinken and Lavrov’s last in-person meeting was last January in Geneva.

Blinken urged Moscow to reverse Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision last month to suspend New START, the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty; saying that the treaty is in the interests of both the countries and that the world expects the nations to behave responsibly when it comes to nuclear security. The treaty was originally set to expire in February 2021, but President Biden reached an agreement with Putin to extend New START for five years shortly after taking office. Last year, the United States and Russia committed to create a new agreement “to achieve deeper, irreversible, and verifiable reductions in their nuclear arsenals.”

On Thursday during a press conference, Blinken said he urged Russia to return to implementing New START during his meeting with Lavrov:  “Mutual compliance is in the interest of both our countries, it’s also what people around the world expect from us as inferior products…I told the foreign minister that no matter what else is happening in the world in our relationship, the United States are always ready to engage and act on Strategic Arms, just as the United States in the Soviet Union did even at the height of the Cold War.”

Blinken also stressed the need for the Kremlin to release U.S. citizen and former Marine Paul Whelan, who was arrested in Russia in 2018 and sentenced to 16 years in jail on espionage charges. Blinken noted: “The United States has put forward a serious proposal. Moscow should accept it. We’re determined to bring Paul and every other American citizen who is unjustly detained around the world home. We won’t rest until we do.” Blinken and Lavrov’s last phone call occurred last July when they discussed a proposal for the release of Whelan and WNBA star Brittney Griner.

Additionally, Blinken underscored continued U.S. support for Ukraine, and stressed that Ukraine and the U.S. want Russia’s war to end on that basis. Referring to his conversation with Lavrov, Blinken told reporters: “End this war of aggression. Engage in meaningful diplomacy that could produce a just and durable peace. [Ukrainian] President Zelenskyy has put forward a 10-point plan for a just and durable peace. The United States stands ready to support Ukraine on the diplomacy to end the war on this basis. [Russian] President Putin has demonstrated zero interest in engaging, saying there’s nothing to even talk about, unless and until Ukraine accepts and I quote ‘the new territorial realities’ while doubling down on his brutalization of Ukraine.”

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