Enron Executive to Supreme Court: I’m being unjustly prosecuted

By Michael Ruhl, University of New Mexico – Talk Radio News Service

Today one of Enron’s former executives found himself back in the lime light as the Supreme Court heard his case of being unjustly prosecuted. F. Scott Yeager, an executive at Enron Broadband Services, was caught up in the hunt for white-collar wrongdoing after the Enron scandal. He was charged with wire fraud, securities fraud, insider trading, money laundering, and conspiracy to engage in securities fraud and wire fraud. The original trial saw Yeager acquitted of three of the charges, but the jury couldn’t agree on the charges of insider trading and money laundering.

The United States government then tried to re-try the insider trading and money laundering charges, since the jury was undecided on the matter, something that Yeager says violates his rights against being prosecuted twice for the same matter. Yeager moved to have the case thrown out. He argued that he is protected by collateral estoppel, which prohibits the same issue from being tried twice, and is similar to double jeopardy. Yeager’s legal team relied on a good-faith defense in his initial trial, saying he was not guilty because he had a reasonable belief in his company’s financial stability. The argument for collateral estoppel was that since he was acquitted based on the good-faith defense, it would not be possible to prosecute him on insider trading, since the jury established he could not have illegality at the heart of his actions.

Both the District and Circuit Courts denied Yeager’s motion to have the case thrown out. Yeager then took the matter before the Supreme Court, in Yeager v. United States.

The Justices were undecided in the courtroom about whether or not the acquittal on the similar charges was enough to remove Yeager from any shadow of wrongdoing. Justices Samuel Alito and David Souter felt that he might have been acquitted for other reasons than simply the good-faith defense, although it was self evident that they could not know with certainty why the jury did what it did. The counsel for the United States said that the jury should have said Yeager was not guilty on the two undecided charges if they really meant it. Chief Justice John Roberts showed concern at the effect this decision could have on the Seventh Amendment in the Constitution, which protects the right to jury trials. Roberts questioned whether or not retrial of the undecided charges would undermine the jury’s decisions in the acquitted charges. Although Justice Stephen Breyer did not display a firm position on the case at large, he did say that he can’t think of why this wouldn’t be a second trial, and why collateral estoppel should not apply.

The Court is expected to return a decision on this case in May or June of this year.

How to drive less: you can't afford the gas

People are driving like a bunch of idiots, and they're driving a million miles an hour. That was the statement of Representative Don Young (R-AK), at the House Subcommittee Transportation and Infrastructure hearing on "Rising Diesel Fuel Costs in the Trucking Industry." His overall sentiment was the United States can never drill the way into total independence, but we can drill our way into more stability. However, Young said, it doesn’t solve the problem. He said that all Congress was doing was sitting around and talking, while we're misusing the fossil fuels we have left. Congress, Young said as he stabbed his finger into the air, needs to stop pandering to the general public because they're not looking at solutions. He said he had a solution to make people change their driving habits: he's going to promote a tax of one dollar on every gallon of gasoline.

The overall message of the hearing is that supplies need to increase, and demands need to change. It’s nice when people are talking about windmills, John Mica (R-FL) said, but we need a long term and short term policy to help this issue. The short term policy: you don’t need to be a Harvard PhD to figure out that we need a short term increase in supply. To do that, we’ll need to tap some of our domestic resources. At some point, Mica said, people are going to say “we’ve got to do something about these costs,” and the only solution is to increase our supply. The people demanding change are going to end up right outside the building, voicing their concerns.

Mr. Tyson Slocum, Director, Public Citizen’s Energy Program, said there are some areas that remain immune, such as the financial companies. There are several variables the influence supply and demand, but there is no question that Congress can take steps to provide relief. Everyone talks about oil industry profits, he said, but in addition, by far the oil companies largest expenditure was buying back their own stock. Comparatively low expenditures were on providing consumers with long term relief, such as exploration.

The "Enron loophole," as it is reffered to, was brought up repeatedly and eventually Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-OR) expressed an interest in regulating the market. Can we do away with the Enron loophole, he asked, adding that speculation seemed a likely culprit in the high costs of gas and diesel prices. He suggested taking the excess costs from the CEO's pensions.