Well, it's floodin' down in Texas...

And so begins the next chapter in The Enron Chronicles. Yes. Well. I hardly know where to begin. First off, I thought the judge was rather optimistic in thinking he'd have all jurors picked and ready to go by the end of the day. This day. A one-day pick-'em session for a case that took 4 years for prosecutors to put together. But he did it.

I love the defendant counsel's view: finding impartial jurors in Houston, where Enron was based, will be difficult, if not impossible. Ya think? I mean, in a town of 4 million people, what are the odds that Juror X will have some connection to laid-off, ripped-off Enron ex-employee Y? Not too low, I'd say. Even if the connection is tenuous, like "I didn't really know anyone specifically but I stood by while my local economy tanked," it's not likely to me that anyone would be utterly impartial.

Yet I think the issue of impartiality misses the point. It isn't whether they would be impartial that should be the defining issue. In order to be truly impartial, you'd have to be wooden. You'd have to be a clod of dirt. Flat-lining. Is that who you want for your jury? I'll take 12 people with IQs in the plus column, thanks. I'll take 12 regular people who understand that literally thousands of people had their futures ruined by the horrendous malfeasance of these guys. (TrogDigression: my favorite datum in all this is that a jury consultant hired by the defense to study potential juror responses, noted that among 280 questionnaires, the word "greed" appeared 272 times.)

Fellow Trogs know that people like, say, Antonin Scalia aren't impartial about issues that are important to them. But that isn't to say that Justice Nino or any of the other Supremes are incapable of justly applying the law.

A judge tries the law; a jury tries the facts. If we can extend that capability to the Supreme Court, is it any less believable that a jury of 12 randomly selected registered voters would be capable of serving out their civic duty regardless of whether or not they had a personal opinion in the matter?

If the facts are shown to be with Misters Lay and Skilling, and their story holds, that's great for them. The truth, as I see it, is that "we didn't know" is a damn thin veneer and it won't fly. But it wouldn't fly whether people had a personal agenda or not, b/c it's a crap defense and no one believes it. The jobs of a CEO and a chairman are to know.

Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/business/businessspecial3/30cnd-enron.html?hp&ex=1138683600&en=6daa9c0db084e66e&ei=5094&partner=homepage
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/30/business/JURY.php