As Alex Murdaugh prepares to stand trial in January for the double murder of his wife and son, his lawyers are asking a federal judge to think of the optics—and allow the disgraced former South Carolina lawyer to appear in court without shackles. In a Wednesday night filing, defense lawyers for Murdaugh insisted there is “no specific, special need to shackle Mr. Murdaugh in the courtroom” during court proceedings of the televised case. Defense lawyers added that the former lawyer—who is accused of fatally shooting his wife, Maggie, and his son, Paul, last June—has not “engaged in any behavior suggesting he is a threat to the courtroom or will somehow escape from it.” “Most murder defendants do not have TV crews filming every pretrial hearing,” the motion adds, noting that the jury pool may see those hearings before the trial begins at the end of January.