And Justice for All
EDITORIAL, NYTimes on
the Web, May 26, 2006
Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, the
former chief executives of Enron, had their day in court. Both had
high-priced legal talent to defend them and the chance to take the stand and
tell their side of the story to the jury. Yesterday, that jury found both
of them guilty of criminal conduct for their part in the spectacular collapse of
Enron, the first in a series of corporate scandals that shook the country's
faith in its business leaders.
Mr. Lay was convicted on six counts of fraud and conspiracy and four counts of
bank fraud. The jury, which acquitted Mr. Skilling on nine counts of
insider trading, convicted him on 18 counts of fraud and conspiracy and one
count of insider trading. These onetime corporate superstars could very
well end up dying behind bars. The thought of aging men withering away in
jail cells is a sad one, but no sadder in this case than in any other.
We as a society have a destructive tendency to think of crimes like holding up a
convenience store or selling drugs as very serious and destructive to the social
fabric, while looking more tolerantly at corporate malfeasance as simply
businessmen being a little overzealous. Just because there isn't a gun
doesn't mean there isn't a crime.
It is easy to see Enron as a symbol of an era of corporate lying, cheating and
stealing. From the company's implausible rise to its cozy political
connections to its crooked E logo, the energy giant and its cast of colorful
characters always appeared to be the stuff of theater. But this was no
morality play. This was about the real costs for normal people who
suffered because of the machinations in the executive suites at Enron.
For one example, think of the employees at Portland General Electric, an Oregon
utility company acquired by Enron four years before it went bankrupt. Many
longstanding employees there lost huge chunks of their retirement funds and
still face an uncertain old age. All because their business was snatched
up by a company with a rotten core.
We hope the jury's verdict deters other corporate kingpins from breaking the
rules. As Paul McNulty, deputy attorney general, put it in a news
conference shortly after the verdict was announced, "No one, including the heads
of Fortune 500 companies, is above the law." At the same time,
white-collar criminal cases can be difficult, paper intensive and hard to
explain to juries. We expect the verdict in the Enron case to encourage
prosecutors to pursue them.
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