Popular Justice
As everyone knows by now, Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were found guilty of all charges in the Enron case. This result is highly popular, to judge from editorials across the country.
I didn't follow the case closely, though from what I do know my guess is they were guilty. But I'm always a little nervous when a verdict is too popular.
Most cases are unknown to the public at large, so big cases take on extra significance since the public's trust is implicated. However, while the system should, ideally, please the people, they often have opinions based on superficial knowledge. A truly impartial verdict, in other words, will sometimes anger the public--especially in criminal cases where the prosecution has a heavy burden.
In other other words, what we don't want are judges or jurors swayed by public sentiment, rather than the facts of the case. Maybe Martha Stewart was guilty, maybe not, but we don't need jurors who say it was a victory for the little guy. Maybe the accused members of the Duke lacrosse team are guilty, maybe not, but we don't need a prosecutor who moves forward with a very weak case because the voting public demands "justice."
So I suppose Lay and Skilling got what they deserved. I just hope it was for what they did, and not what people thought they did.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:54 AM
3 Comments:
Actually, only Lay was convicted on all counts, Skilling on most counts, but not all. In particular, Skilling (me softly) was found not guilty on insider trading charges and a few other counts. (He was charged with 20+ counts, but who's counting?) The evidence was admittedly largely circumstantial but significant in scope. Meanwhile the defendants offered the, um, creative defense that nothing illegal had actually happened, and if it had, they knew nothing about it. Lay also added the credulity-straining line of defense that Enron was, in fact, brought down by a "run on the bank", precipitated by the media. (There's that evil media again.) Doesn't exactly pass the sniff test, the reasonable man test or any other test that involves common sense, intuition, or the consciousness of higher mammals. Lay showed off his true hubris by refusing to ask for a postponement while his lead attorney recuperated from heart surgery. It would have certainly been granted, but he was so anxious to get the trial over with and show the world how he had been "wronged" that he charged ahead with his "B" team lawyer and totally imploded on the stand under cross examination.
Thanks for your clarifying comments. It's always nice to hear from Guys all around the world.
I tried to come up with a punning title like "Skillful Lay" but nothing quite worked.
Anyway, I was both so annoyed with and tired of the Enron scandal that I figured I'd sit out the trial and wait for the results. I don't know if anything would have helped these guys, but from what you say it's clear they didn't help themselves.
The fear in such cases (though apparently not here), where the law sometimes turns on arcane financial definitions, is that a jury of average citizens will have trouble and just go with their gut.
To me these guys are bigger criminals than some street muggers, because they ending up mugging millions of people. They should serve a day in prison for every single person they screwed over.
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