Alex Murdaugh is on trial for murdering his wife and son. O.J. Simpson was on trial for murdering his ex-wife and her friend.

The fateful parallels are uncanny. And they became even more so when Murdaugh’s jury took a field trip to the crime scene, just like Simpson’s jury did.

The Alex Murdaugh murder trial

More to the point, the evidence showed that Murdaugh is every bit as guilty as Simpson. Murdaugh is a double murderer, too!

But Murdaugh had a dream team, too. And, like Simpson’s dream team, they outwitted prosecutors and bedazzled the jury. The one significant difference is that Murdaugh took the stand. I hope that proves damning.

As self-assured and arrogant as Simpson is, even he knew better. Yet Murdaugh tried to acquit himself. But he only ended up incriminating himself.

‘After an exhaustive investigation, there is only one person who had the motive, who had the means, who had the opportunity to commit these crimes, and also whose guilty conduct after these crimes betrays him,’ prosecutor Creighton Waters said during his closing arguments.

‘No one knew who he was. No one knew who this man was. He avoided accountability his whole life. He relied on his family name. He carried a badge and authority. He lived a wealthy life,’ Waters said.

(Daily Beast Crime and Justice, March 1, 2023)

Even so, I expect the parallels to diverge with Murdaugh getting off – not scot-free but with a hung jury. He still faces life in prison, though. That’s because Murdaugh admitted to all kinds of financial crimes during his testimony, including stealing millions in settlement money from his clients.

UPDATE

The jury finds Alex Murdaugh guilty!

March 2, 2023, at 8:43 pm

I was wrong.

A South Carolina jury has found once-prominent attorney Alex Murdaugh guilty on all counts in the deaths of his wife and son.

Jurors deliberated for about three hours before convicting him on two counts of murder and two counts of using a weapon during the commission of a violent crime.

(NPR, March 2, 2023)

The reason I was wrong is both simple and embarrassing. I failed to account for the unique role Simpson’s celebrity played among Blacks. Then there was the role the legacy of racism played for his predominantly Black jury. This combination made jury nullification irresistible in his case.

In contrast, the prosecutor acknowledged that Murdaugh was not a celebrity. And his mixed jury had no common experience or legacy. That made jury nullification a non-issue.

But the Murdaugh jurors shocked everyone by taking so little time to reach their verdict. They took three hours after a six-week trial. Except that this was yet another parallel. The Simpson jurors took only four hours after an eleven-month trial.