Making History and Setting National Records in USA v. Richard Scrushy

By: Donald V. Watkins

Copyrighted and Published on February 2, 2026

Staring Down the Barrel of 85 Felony Counts and 650 Years in Prison

Twenty-one years ago today, the Wall Street Journal published a front-page feature article on HealthSouth Corporation CEO Richard M. Scrushy’s selection of Donald V. Watkins to lead his criminal defense team in a case where he faced an 85-felony count federal indictment and up to 650 years in prison.  

Scrushy, who was innocent of the financial fraud charges alleged in his November 4, 2003 indictment, demanded a trial by jury.

By Scrushy's January 2005 trial date, our defense team had knocked out 27 of the 85 counts using a Blitzkrieg of laser-guided, precision-designed, pretrial motions. All of them hit their targets. We called this technique,"laser litigation."

Knocking out 27 felony charges in a single-defendant case using "laser litigation" was our first national record in American jurisprudence.

Leading the Defense Team

“When Richard Scrushy went on trial last week in federal court here, the lawyer standing up to defend the former HealthSouth chief executive was James ‘Jim’ Parkman III.  With his good-ole-boy manner and deep southern drawl, Mr. Parkman is more accustomed to representing defendants accused of driving drunk than executives facing 58 counts of corporate corruption,” the WSJ article said.

“But he has help. Sitting at the defense table is the real legal mastermind of the case: Donald V. Watkins, a wealthy attorney, banker and entrepreneur from Birmingham. Although Mr. Watkins hasn't regularly practiced law since 1999, he has spent the past 20 months overseeing Mr. Scrushy's defense. Working closely, the two men have pursued an aggressive, and often unorthodox, defense strategy that has cost more than $23 million so far.”

Our team’s “unorthodox” defense won the remaining 58 felony counts.  

On June 28, 2005, after five months of trial and 21 days of jury deliberations, Scrushy walked out of the federal courthouse in Birmingham a free man.  We defeated an battalion of federal prosecutors, support personnel, collaborating SEC personnel, and FBI agents from Washington, Atlanta, and Birmingham on all 85 charges.  

The final score in Scrushy's case was 85-0 in our favor. No white-collar criminal defendant before or since Richard Scrushy has defeated 85 felony charges in a single-defendant case.  

This shutout of government prosecutors on 85 felony charges established our second national record in American jurisprudence.

The Jury's "Not Guilty" Verdicts Stunned the Nation

The Washington Post called the "Not Guilty" verdicts a "miracle," while the New York Times referred to them as a "stunner."

The July 25, 2005, edition of Fortune Magazine profiled the case in a feature article titled, “Donald Watkins: The Man Who Saved Richard Scrushy.”  

An October 1, 2006, Texas A&M University, Texas Wesleyan Law Review published an article for law students and practitioners that featured my creative and "unorthodox" criminal defense techniques for complex white-collar criminal cases.  Law schools around the nation now teach these litigation techniques.

​My lead defense counsel's role in Scrushy’s landmark case is featured in a May 11, 2020 Netflix documentary series titled, "Trial by Media," Episode #4, "King Richard."  

Finally, February is Black History Month. It is worth noting that an African American lawyer (retired), whom the Wall Street Journal declared was "the real legal mastermind of the case," holds the national record for winning the most felony counts (85) in a single-defendant criminal trial. This record has stood for 21 years and is not likely to be broken -- ever.