...or maybe we've come back to reality.
Today in Houston, Ken Lay took the stand in his defense in the much touted Enron fraud case. Lay, former CEO of Enron has been charged with six counts of fraud and conspiracy, while the last CEO, Jeffrey Skilling faces 28 counts of the same plus insider trading, and perjury. Together they face a maximum of over 300 years in prison, though most insiders expect that each will do about two dime stretches.
The title of this post, taken from Macbeth, was meant to express my cynicism at these proceedings. Frankly, I am surprised at the amount of time that each defendant in this case faces. I figured that the penalty for white collar crimes don't add up to those of the more violent, so-called blue collar crimes like murder, or theft. Of course I think I can be forgiven in this regard considering that, for ages in America, fair is foul, and foul is fair when it comes to our court system, and, even beyond the law itself, the inequity between wealth also creates an unfair practice of the laws that some how do make sense. If these men do get two decades in jail, it will only be because of the popularity of the case, and the fact that federal prosecutors feel pressured to make an example of these two crooks. They want to make us believe that these are a few of the bad apples on the tree, rather than the whole tree being rotten. Much of this is because of the sheer wealth of the system itself. Those who are charged with the enforcement of policies are far too close to the money, and enjoy being close to that money, to be efficient in their employ, and those who should call for further enforcement are too far away, and kept too far away, to even think about the importance of that enforcement. It seems that ordinary people are obsessed with building more jails, and placing more cops on the street rather than adding more auditors and agents to the SEC. Every other person seems to want higher and stricter penalties for minor drug offenses, but fraud, graft, and embezzlement are completely left off the radar, even though these are the crimes that affect the poor, on average, more than some hoodrat who sells a dime bag of pot to an undercover cop. Literally, because of the actions of these two men and another handful of their cohorts, Americans will be paying millions to clean up their mess, not to mention their former employees who are still searching for work, while tattooed with the stigma of Enron on their resumes. And we are only talking about Enron by the way, we haven't even started on Worldcom, Tyco, etc, etc...and those are only the ones we know about.
Personally, I hope Skilling and Lay get every second of the maximum penalty. If only for the way that maybe, hopefully, it will deter other fat cats from become as obscenely greedy as these men. Proponents of harsher sentences for crimes like robbery and drug peddling are constantly making that argument, and while I don't quite believe it, it does seem to be the overwhelming trend of thought in our country, and, if one believes that, then one should also believe that a harsher sentence should fit the harsher crime. If one values money and hard work then one should also believe that for every year you give a dope peddler you add two to the embezzler. If not, then fair and foul will become one and the same.
2 comments:
If the jury convicts Lay and Skilling, I hope they get the cell next to George Ryan.
Most white-collar crimes are federal, not state, and are governed by federal sentencing guidelines - which I believe were just held to be advisory, not mandatory, because according to the federal defense bar, they're pretty harsh. (I honestly couldn't say, myself - though I am a prosecutor, I have no knowledge or experience with federal courts - a fact for which I am profoundly grateful.)
I suspect you're probably right about the SEC, etc., not having enough enforcement tools at their disposal - investigators, prosecutors, etc., but I also suspect that a lot of why you don't hear much about white-collar crime is because the details involve boring accounting evidence and obscure defendants.
One further point - while the act of selling a undercover cop a dime bag may not cause a lot of damage, the undercover buy was put in place because the seller sold a hundred dime bags to locals, and his drug business trucks in all the attendant violence and decay that follows.
I would agree about the dime bag thing, except I haven't seen too much pot violence. I suppose in NYC there's such a demand for weed that the field is wide open for dealers. The Cocaine trade (sold over in Washington Heights and Inwood) is also relatively calm since most places don't want a strong police presence on their streets. Of course this is more about our drug laws then our white collar laws, but I think they could both use amending...alot of amending.
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