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Five trials? the scorecard


At the start of 2023, specifically in the January 9th and 10th, I wrote here that there were five major and dramatic trials scheduled for the year.

And 2023 was in fact a dramatic reckoning for lovers of litigation.  Let us block this out a bit.

1) I wrote first about the Alex Murdaugh case.  That one took place soon thereafter.  The prominent South Carolina lawyer was convicted of murdering his wife Maggie and his son Paul.  Alex M. is in prison and the inevitable appeal is underway...

2) I spoke, too, about the forthcoming trial of Robert Telles, a former public official in Nevada suspected of the murder of Jeff German, a reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. 

Evidentiary disputes have delayed matters on this one, and it is now scheduled for April 2024. 

3) Thirdly, there was Sam Bankman-Fried, a colossus in the cryptocurrency world at the time, now (given the guilty verdict in his trial for wire fraud and related matters) just a guy in the Brooklyn detention center awaiting sentencing. 

The other two were more overtly political than those.  There was --

4) the New York civil case against the Trump organization.  This one has been underway for two months now and will continue into the New Year.  The issue of liability has already been settled, though. What remains is the remediation. 

Finally,

5) I spoke of what seemed then the certainty of a trial in Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox. As my well-informed readers surely know, that one settled. Defendants agreed to pay more than three quarters of a billion dollars. The following week, the Murdoch family showed Tucker Carlson the way out. 

I have never cost an employer of mine three quarters of a billion dollars.  (Hmmmm, a great epitaph.) 

Final score out of the five?

Trials held and concluded,     2.

Trials held, still unfinished,   1.

Trials not held, settled.          1.

 Trials not held, postponed.   1.

I'll come up with a new list of five, for 2024 trial watchers, shortly.  I may re-use the Telles/German material in it, though. 


 

 

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  1. HenryDecember 21, 2023 at 11:19 AM

    I disagree that the New York civil case against the Trump organization is political, let alone overtly political. The allegations against the organization originally stem from before he entered politics. The fact that the frauds engaged in continued after he entered politics, or that he falsely alleges that the case was brought to interfere with his re-election campaign, do not make them political. If Trump were still a reality television star instead of a politician, we wouldn't think that the allegations were related to reality television.

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