Trials and Tribulations

This week there was what I consider to have been extensive unwarranted attention given to the murder trial in South Carolina of Alex Murdaugh. Unwarranted because it seems to me this is at best a matter of local or regional interest.  In the end, those who followed it learned one important lesson for all the coverage they saw or read: Do not carry your cell phone around when engaged in murdering your wife and son because, if you do, you leave a digital footprint easier to trace than Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumb trail.

Alexis de Tocqueville long ago wrote of Americans’ fascination with courthouse trials, calling it “another theater.” That was even before sensational television coverage, and while I do not pretend to understand this, I suppose it’s related to desire in our national character to see evil punished and justice done.

I understand more clearly that the media covers some criminal cases — usually the more sensational ones — which do not involve prominent Democrats more than it covers others. On the other hand, I get it that when the target is a prominent Republican, especially anyone in any way connected with Donald J. Trump, the coverage of the cases is far from objective and ignores the strengths of the defense. So I was heartened to see that General Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, has sued the Department of Justice for $50 million in damages for its malicious prosecution of him in 2017. Paul Svab offers up a useful summary.