The year just begun should be a great one for fans of reality courtroom dramas. Today and tomorrow I hope to discuss five possible judicial spectacles of 2023, arranged in (increasing) order of political salience. FIRST: the Murdaugh murder trial. Alex Murdaugh is a prominent member of the tort plaintiffs' bar (and a defense-oriented tort law reform group has called South Carolina a "judicial hellhole for defendants") -- the Murdaugh family has powerfully benefitted from a permissive attitude toward forum shopping by the bench in that state. In February 2019 one of Alex's sons, Paul Murdaugh, recklessly piloting a boat, caused the death of his friend Mallory Beach. The Beach family, in a civil lawsuit, claimed that Alex and Paul's older brother, Buster, were negligent and responsible for the death of their daughter in providing Paul with alcohol prior to the accident. Fortunately for the Beach family, the state has lots of other tort lawyers. The litigation...