I had read earlier this week, hell, maybe even last week, that the prosecution had a case based purely on circumstantial evidence and that it didn't seem to be an airtight circumstantial case. That was the reporter's take.
Purely circumstantial cases can be quite compelling--and also beguiling. Virtually the only time a criminal prosecution is overturned on appeal for a lack of evidence is when it is a circumstantial case, in whole or significant part, that is, where there is no direct evidence. Compelling and beguiling because it is in circumstantial cases that the prosecutor can convince herself that he has more than she has.
On the flip side, for the defense, you don't put your client on the witness stand is wholly/largely circumstantial cases. You are then creating direct evidence for the prosecutor. A wise criminal defense attorney once told me that there are more people on death row for having lied to the jury than who actually committed murder.
So off the earlier report I had read and now with Murdaugh on the stand for a second day of cross, I am tending heavily toward thinking it a grave mistake for the defense, probably at the insistence of Murdaugh, a former criminal trial lawyer himself, to have the defendant testify in his own defense.
