Monday
Mar012010
Former Enron Executive Argues Against Biased Juries, "Honest Services" Law
Monday, March 1, 2010 at 5:21PM
Today in the Supreme Court lawyers for former Enron executive Jeff Skilling argued that the federal law criminalizing depriving someone "of the intangible right of honest services," one of the laws under which Skilling was convicted in 2006, was unconstitutionally vague and should be thrown out.
Skilling's lawyer told the Justices that the "honest services" law applies so broadly that it must fall under the Constitution's prohibition against vague laws. The lawyer, Sri Srinivasan, gave the example of an employee who uses office computers for personal use, contrary to an office policy against personal use. Srinivasan asked whether that is a violation of federal law, prompting Chief Justice John Roberts to respond that the law may be broad, but it is not vague.
The Justices overall seemed much more interested in Skilling's challenge to the method by which his jury was picked, possibly because the Court heard arguments about "honest services" in two cases this past December. When the jury was picked for Skilling's trial, each potential juror was asked to complete a 14-page questionnaire, and some jurors were then questioned directly by the judge for an average of 4.5 minutes. Srinivasan argued that that a brief interview was not long enough to properly determine if jurors would be able to give Skilling a fair chance. In addition, Srinivasan pointed to several jurors who indicated they had some pre-existing opinions of Skilling on the form, but were not asked to explain why they felt they could still give Skilling a fair trial.
Several of the Justices, most notably Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, seemed to agree that there was something wrong with the trial judge's lack of follow-up, but all the Justices were hesitant to overrule an experienced trial judge who seemed to otherwise know what he was doing. Justice Sotomayor is the only sitting Justice who has served as a trial judge. Additionally, Justice Breyer did not seem to know what kind of future guidance the Court could give trial judges as to what kind of juror questioning is needed.
The Supreme Court will decide the case before its summer recess.
Skilling's lawyer told the Justices that the "honest services" law applies so broadly that it must fall under the Constitution's prohibition against vague laws. The lawyer, Sri Srinivasan, gave the example of an employee who uses office computers for personal use, contrary to an office policy against personal use. Srinivasan asked whether that is a violation of federal law, prompting Chief Justice John Roberts to respond that the law may be broad, but it is not vague.
The Justices overall seemed much more interested in Skilling's challenge to the method by which his jury was picked, possibly because the Court heard arguments about "honest services" in two cases this past December. When the jury was picked for Skilling's trial, each potential juror was asked to complete a 14-page questionnaire, and some jurors were then questioned directly by the judge for an average of 4.5 minutes. Srinivasan argued that that a brief interview was not long enough to properly determine if jurors would be able to give Skilling a fair chance. In addition, Srinivasan pointed to several jurors who indicated they had some pre-existing opinions of Skilling on the form, but were not asked to explain why they felt they could still give Skilling a fair trial.
Several of the Justices, most notably Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, seemed to agree that there was something wrong with the trial judge's lack of follow-up, but all the Justices were hesitant to overrule an experienced trial judge who seemed to otherwise know what he was doing. Justice Sotomayor is the only sitting Justice who has served as a trial judge. Additionally, Justice Breyer did not seem to know what kind of future guidance the Court could give trial judges as to what kind of juror questioning is needed.
The Supreme Court will decide the case before its summer recess.
Reader Comments (1)
If you want to call yourself a journalist, perhaps you should start acting like one. You fail to provide readers with any context or history of this case whatsoever. You call Skilling a "former Enron executive," which understates the significance of who he is. He was the former Chief Executive Officer. You don't mention the significance of the Enron case itself - one of the largest corporate scandals in American history - and somehow you don't seem to know, care or mention that Skilling was previously convicted on 19 charges (one of which used the honest services law to further a conspiracy charge) and that he is currently serving a 24-year sentence in a federal prison.
Readers of this bit of hackery are merely given a very dry account of what certain justices think about jury selection and so forth.
Your writing also lacks flair and is full of run on sentences, but I digress.
Perhaps you should practice reporting on a Girl Scout cookie sale before trying your hand at something that is clearly above your journalistic paygrade.