Scrushy Civil Case Far Cry From Criminal Trial

The contrast between the two trials came into focus last week as Judge Allwin E. Horn watched video testimony recorded months before. The lights were dim in his two-story, art deco courtroom; there were plenty of empty seats in the gallery.

A pastor who preaches at a TV church funded by Scrushy nodded off on one bench; cardboard boxes full of documents filled another. The jury box was empty save for a few lawyers for shareholders.

Back in 2005, Scrushy and his wife Leslie were accompanied by a contingent of preachers and supporters who held prayer sessions during breaks in the testimony. Scrushy proclaimed himself an ordained minister, adding to the surreal feeling.

It wouldn't be hard to mistake the current trial for a dispute over some arcane contract clause rather than a trial over one of the largest corporate scandals in U.S. history.

A law professor who has followed Scrushy's legal troubles for years, Donald Cochran, said there's not much precedent for comparing big criminal and civil trials that focus on the same issues, save for one: the O.J. Simpson case.

The former NFL great was famously acquitted of murdering his wife and another man in 1995, but jurors in a later civil trial ordered him to pay $33 million.