Jury Selection To Begin in Enron Trial

HOUSTON – Of the more than 100 potential jurors slated to pack a cavernous federal courtroom in Houston today, attorneys must ferret out a dozen who aren’t already convinced that Enron Corporation founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling are crooks and liars.“If we get 12 people who haven’t made up their minds, we like our chances,” Mr. Skilling’s lead trial lawyer, Daniel Petrocelli, said last week after a flurry of last-minute efforts to move the trial to escape a potentially hostile jury pool failed.Michael Ramsey, Mr. Lay’s lead lawyer, was less optimistic, calling Houston a “bad venue to try to pick a jury.”Bad or good, Houston is where Messrs. Skilling and Lay will be tried, four years after Enron collapsed in one of the biggest scandals in American corporate history. The crash left thousands jobless and slammed Wall Street with billions in losses.Jacob Frenkel, a former federal prosecutor, said the biggest concern is choosing a panel that aims to draw conclusions based solely on what they hear in court and avoid getting consumed with participating in the showcase trial.“These cases are not about books, movies, and blogs. You have two corporate executives who are basically putting their lives in the hands of these jurors,” he said.Jury selection was slated to begin this morning, and U.S. District Judge Sim Lake told attorneys he expects a panel to be seated by day’s end.Judge Lake twice shot down defense attempts to move the trial, not persuaded that massive publicity or vitriolic comments about Messrs. Lay and Skilling from some potential jurors on questionnaires revealed a pool too poisoned to be fair.Mr. Skilling faces 31 counts of fraud, conspiracy, insider trading, and lying to auditors for allegedly lying about Enron’s financial state before the company crashed. Mr. Lay faces seven counts of fraud and conspiracy for allegedly perpetuating the scheme after Mr. Skilling resigned in August 2001. Both have pleaded not guilty.The judge also repeatedly rejected defense pleas to allow attorneys to individually question potential jurors. The judge said he’ll do it, and allow attorneys to inquire further of individuals based on initial answers.“I’ll ask the questions in a neutral, nonargumentative manner,” he said.More intense individual questioning could stretch the process over several days, but it can reveal bias jurors don’t know they have, said Howard Varinsky, a jury consultant who has advised attorneys on jury selection in several high-profile criminal cases, including those against Martha Stewart, Scott Peterson, and Michael Jackson.“The problem with high-profile trials is that you have jurors wanting to be on because it’s their moment to interface with fame,” Mr. Varinsky said. “They fool themselves into thinking they can be fair.”He said so-called “stealth” jurors who say they can be fair when their minds are already made up are rare. The key is unearthing bias in people who don’t know they are biased, he said.“If both sides get rid of unfavorable people and they wind up with people in the middle, then the verdict will be based on the evidence. If it’s done incorrectly, cases can be won or lost during jury selection,” Mr.Varinsky said.Mr. Frenkel added that a fair jury is in the government’s best interest as well.“The last thing the government wants is a guilty verdict and then to have an appellate court a few years from now saying, ‘Do it again,'” he said.

Jury Selection To Begin in Enron Trial

Jury Selection To Begin in Enron Trial

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