jonna spilbor joins us now. your thoughts?prised. i believe this verdict is going to be the swiftest of the o.j. verdict which i think was around four hours. not expecting this after a six-week trial with the amount of evidence, even though my opinion some of the evidence was extraneous about his financial crimes. i'm very surprised that they didn't at least quote, unquote, sleep on it. and, you know, reading the tea leaves, i can't say whether this is going to be good or bad for the defense. i just think it's awful quick for the length of this trial, which means they had their mind made up probably before closing arguments today. >> bret: yeah. what about that? a jury that comes back that quickly, doesn't really have any questions. you know, listened to all of this testimony and then the close and the rebuttal. they even went out to the scene, the crime scene itself. i mean, they have been through a lot in this trial. >> you know what i think, bret? i think if they believed the testimony of the defendant himself, if they beli

jonna, first of all, were you surprised by the verdict, the time of deliberation? and do you think the dethe fence attorneys can appeal -- defense attorneys can appeal with success? >> so i was very surprised about the swiftness with which the jury came back. i'm not so surprised about the verdict itself, but i do think i agree with the defense counsel's assertion that they're going to file a notice of appeal because that financial information, all that extraneous, that trial within a trial that we all watched is something i agree, an appeals court is going to look at it carefully. sit back for a moment. if you did pay attention to the trial, how differently would we and the jury view alex murdaugh if we didn't have all of that, if we didn't learn how horrible he was as a partner, as a lawyer and as a person in that regard? if that weren't there and we were just left with the evidence about the murder, would this verdict have been different? that is something that an appeals court is going to take a hard look at. arthel: okay. meanwhile, i want the play some sound

paul morrow and jonna spilbor and phil holloway. the judge said your family controlled justice for over a century in this part of the state. so go ahead. we have the fate on murdaugh and we'll see if he can file an appeal. right now you look at two consecutive life sentences behind bars until the rest of your natural life. >> dana: thank our guests for being here with us and watching it and we'll have a lot more after these quick words. >> good morning, your honor. i'm innocent, i would never hurt my wife, maggie, and i would never hurt my son, pawpaw. thank you. thank you. x refund of up to $26,000 per employee. all it takes is eight minutes to get started. then work with professionals to assist your business with its forms and submit the application. go to getrefunds.com to learn more. ♪ zyrteeeec...♪ works hard at hour one and twice as hard when you take it again the next day. so betty can be the... barcode beat conductor. ♪ go betty! ♪ let's be more than our allergies! zeize the day. with zyrtec. do you struggle with occasional

jonna spillbor joins me. lot of, this i was getting into youtube and watching what's going on here. i want to play the animation that the paltrow said put forth. watch this very closely. there's no audio on it. i can give you the play by play. you can see sanderson and paltrow coming down. then you can see boom. okay? that shows in the lower left-hand side him coming behind her and she falls on top of him. but it looks like he skis in to her, jonna. how is this going? >> to be white honest, i think paltrow has the stronger case. she was a great witness. you can tell she's a good actress. she's a great witness. the medical experts and the other experts were strong in her case. they said look, what happened to her is consistent with the physics. in other words, what she said happened is physically possible. what he said happened couldn't possibly happen the way he said it did. so when you think about how a good of a job her attorney did with really making the plaintiff, terry sanderson look like a liar with his

. >> bill: jonna spilbor is watching with us and listening.onna, wow, at such a critical stage in this trial where the defense is about to deliver their argument as to why murdaugh should not be found guilty of double murder what do you make of this move? >> well, then there was one because if we lose this juror, i think we're down to one alternate. depending how long deliberations take and who else gets sick this is -- we're really on unsteady ground right now. and also my question is, who did this juror talk to? look, don't think these jurors don't go home and talk to spouses over dinner about their thoughts. you know that's happening. you don't get caught doing it. you shouldn't be doing it. who did this juror talk to and how could you not know that you cannot speak about this case outside of that courthouse or even inside the courthouse at this stage in the game? it's very frustrating as an officer of the court myself after a six-week long trial with all of this evidence coming down to this is very concerning. >> bill: stand by and we'll s

jonna, let's start with randy and get to the stephen smith case, which people are intrigued by.. john martin did testify on behalf of his brother, alec. randy said he's sad and confused and he wants to know what his brother knows and what he didn't tell them. >> i agree with that. randy doesn't necessarily agree with the jury's verdict in this case. he's supportive of his brother to a certain extent. he does think that alec murdaughs knows more, perhaps know whose did it, has some more connection than he led us. we all know he's a liar. if you watched the trial, you know that alec murdaugh is a liar. he also had a relationship with maggie and paul. of course he wants to know what happened to them. i don't believe he buys that his brother pulled the trigger. >> and the family name got dragged through the mud in this. randy is also an attorney in town. he may be trying to separate himself from this crew a little bit. one of the interesting things and randy in the smith case, he showed up after stephen smith was found dead in the middle of the road a few miles from the murdaugh hou

. >> bret: well, philip holloway, jonna spilbor we appreciate you coming on last minute here as we get word that the jury has reached a verdict in the alec murdaugh trial in south carolina murdering -- accused of murdering his wife and son. for continuing coverage of this as the verdict comes in, we go to "jesse watters primetime" right now. jesse. >> jesse: thank you, bret. ♪ >> jesse: the fox news alert, a verdict has been reached in the trial of south carolina attorney alex murdaugh. murdaugh is accused of murdering his wife and his youngest son in an effort to cover up financial crimes. jury deliberations began just this morning so it looks like we are reaching a conclusion to this six-week trial. let's bring in jonathan serrie with the latest. jonathan? >> i had there, jesse. we got word from the pool liaison in the court that the jury reached a verdict at 6:41. announced that they had done so to the clerk. and now they are just waiting for court personnel to return to the courtroom, in which the jury will announce its verdict. they went in to deliberations at 3:50 eastern time th

well you mentioned anthony mendez and he's he's passed his wife is the widow is still alive i believe jonna mendez. but they've written books about their work with the cia. what was his role, tony mendez was the chief disguise here at cia, and he was also part of the exfil transition team. we have a painting here that shows him and his partner. his partner still undercover to this day. so you don't know about his partner. that's also a bit of something here at cia. it's very different. it's you might learn about one part of the story, but there's a whole part of the story that might take years or even decades before you find out the whole story. and one day, perhaps this partner will tell his side of the story and you'll learn even more about the of argo is tony mendez is work on display here in the museum. if you look through the artifacts of argo you can see what tony did. in fact, he did the artwork for, the variety ad. he was a graphics artist. he after he retired became a painter. so it's great to have his. tradecraft on display here at cia. so back to the argo operation and tehran, th

want to bring in jonna spilbor, defense attorney. you have been with us from the beginning on this.of last night? it was something, right, three hours done. >> you know, not a lot surprises me but this does. specifically the speed with which this jury came back. think about it you guys. we had six weeks of testimony, somewhere around 75 bit necessarys, countless exhibits. an entire trial inside a trial and this jury came back with a unanimous guilty verdicts. how carefully did they deliberate in this very convoluted case and what turned them? if they had their minds made up when they went back into the deliberation room, when were their minds made up? because look, the prosecution did a great job painting alex murdaugh as a liar, cheat, the lowest of the low kind of lawyer. i still see gaps in the evidence. i wonder what did it for this jury? >> dana: you listen to allen wilson, the attorney general of south carolina. listen here. >> criminal justice system in the world. our criminal justice system worked tonight and gave a voice to maggie and paul murdaugh. >> dana: the other thing

we bring in criminal defense attorney jonna spilbor. i will put the timeline on the screen here.'t read it all. she died in 1999. there was an appeal. they did dna testing in 2022 and uncovered two alternative suspects. then the charges were dropped against him and yesterday they reinstated his murder conviction. does he go back to prison now? >> this is really interesting. imagine if you ever think you are having a bad day, be this man who spent 23 years or close to 23 years in prison for a crime he said he didn't commit. got sprung. before he finished his victory lap the court said oops, my bad, come on back. will he have to go back behind bars? the short answer is no. this is a formality that was not followed and the court is now going to try to correct that. basically doing a take two of the hearing that got him released in the first place. why is that? it's because maryland, new york basically every other state in the country has victim rights laws. in this case, the victim rights laws were not followed. specifically the victims' family had a right to be at this hearing wher

larry kudlow, jonna spilbor and bret baier in a new hour of "america reports."g island brewers. harvests their own ingredients, on their own turf. there's a story in every piece of land. run with us on a john deere mower and start telling yours. do you ever worry we'll live forever? no, it's literally never crossed my mind. what if we live to like 100? that's 35 years of being retired. i don't want to outlive our money. and i have been eating all these stupid chia seeds! i could totally live to be 100! why do i keep taking such good care of my- since we started working with empower, we're able to get all our financial questions answered, so we don't have to worry. so you never- no. never. join 17 million people and take control of your financial future to empower what's next. start today at empower.com ♪ i wanna hold you forever ♪ hey little bear bear. ♪ ♪ ♪ i'm gonna love you forever ♪ to have and to hold from this day forward. ♪ you don't... ♪ c'mon, bear. ♪ you don't have to worry... ♪ ♪ be by your side.. ♪ ♪ i'll be there.. ♪ ♪ with my arms wrapped around...

from one branch o government to another one, i unusual unorthodox, and in thi case unprecedented >> jonnaent and tweets from republicans, let's speak about the george soros backed alvin bragg no soros has made his way into right-wing circles, identified as a globalist, on places like breitbart. they even took the wor globalist out, they just put a globe next to somebody's nam for some go cobe code going on with soils linked. >> code, it's flat out any antisemitic douglass hills they've been doing this for wild soros viktor biden leader of hungry picked him out o hungry now or bans authoritaria acolytes in the united state had a cpac meeting in hungry they will pick this up for the oldest jewish antisemitic trop in the book the jurors are pulling the strings and this one it's pulling alvin bragg strings so to call alvin bragg an animal that's the line that trump used about it which is the oldest racial slur in huma history. dehumanizing people that you rejects, that's what course of the not seized it by calling jews vermin. meanwhile they're using th other trope, puppet master lashes broth

jo jonna spilbor was last week when she said that was a problem. how about the hair? >> i think it's significant. you would have thought that if maggie had some hair under her fingernails or on her hand that they would have tested that. what the defense argument is that they focus on alex exclusively and didn't do anything else to find out if anybody else killed these two people other than the focus on alex. they feel that was wrong and clearly they believe that should lead to reasonable doubt. >> harris: now before we go back to the trial, last week when you and i were together and alex murdaugh was on the stand you said this is compelling. this side right now has the advantage of a great defendant on the stand. looking back at all of that, how much of that made a difference for these closing arguments today for the defense and we'll go back to the case. >> well, we will find out when we get a verdict in this case as to how much alex being on the stand was compelling in this case. but i do believe, harris, that they had to put alex on the stand because alex had to ex