Posted on 07/09/2006 9:04:20 AM PDT by qlangley
GARY MULGREW, David Bermingham, Giles Darby, Ken Lay, Eliot Spitzer, Hank Greenberg — the list goes on. The first three, now known as “the NatWest Three”, are awaiting extradition to the United States to face charges in connection with the collapse of Enron. Lay, of course, is — was — the founder of Enron, and a former client and friend. Found guilty of a variety of crimes, his death in Aspen last week ends the probability that he would be sentenced to spend the rest of his life in jail. Spitzer and Greenberg, the New York attorney general and the builder and former boss of AIG, the insurance giant, respectively, are engaged in one of the many legal tussles that Spitzer has initiated with a score of Wall Street’s most important companies. A common thread links the fates of these men, and many others: involvement in a legal system that is presumed to be fair, and to produce acquittal for the innocent, and stretches in jail for the guilty. But there is a wide gap between that laudable theory and real-world practice.
(Excerpt) Read more at business.timesonline.co.uk ...
"But Britain signed the extradition treaty only after receiving assurances from America that it would reciprocate. In the event, congressmen with large Irish constituencies proved eager to protect any accused IRA terrorists from extradition to the UK, and so blocked the necessary reciprocal legislation. Why Tony Blair doesn’t pull out of the treaty is a mystery, especially since his refusal to do so only provides ammunition for those who accuse him of being Bush’s lapdog.
I think that is the part that bugs them the most in the UK.
It certainly bugs me. Imagine if we had Muslim congressmen preventing extradition of the July 7 bombers. This is no different. Kennedy and his ilk do not cast honor upon the Irish nation.
-ccm
Yes, it does. The US harboured terrorists for years. Now the pledges that this treaty would be reciprocal and that it would only be used for terrorists have both been broken. Incidentally, although most terrorist supporters in the US have been Democrats - notably Ted Kennedy and Tip O'Neill, Rep. Pete King, a Republican, is one of the worst offenders.
Stelzer absolutely does not say come down on the side of the Enron looters, but in favour of the impartial administration of justice. There is no 'paean to robber barons' in the article. He says very clearly that Ken Lay was a client and friend.
You may consider that because Stelzer knows Lay, there is no requirement on the US to offer people fair trials. I disagree.
There is no part of this article that takes a shot at the US. What it points out is that not all trials in the US are fair, especially when vicious careerists like Eliot Spitzer are initiating them.
He also points out that specific pledges of reciprocity made by the US have been broken by Congress, thus releasing the UK from its obligations under this treaty.
Since the crimes alleged against the NatWest Three were committed in the UK, by British citizens against a British company, and the connection to the US is tenuous at best, there seems to be little or no basis for this trial to take place in the US.
"That said, it is not unreasonable to wonder whether the justice system has become tilted a little too much in favour of the accusers, not all of whom are immune from the preferments that go with winning famous cases against famous defendants. "
I infer this as saying the corporate crooks were victims of politicized, fame-chasing prosecution. Your mileage obviously differs.
And this to your mind is a 'paean to robber barons'. I think the only reasonable reading of this is that he thinks people - even those accused of corporate crime - should be entitled to a fair trial.
What you seem to be saying is that they are not entitled to a fair trial because if they are accused they are, of necessity, guilty. If you think that is compatible with the US Constitution, I think you are misreading it.
It's about time somebody pointed out how unfair our legal system is to the wealthy and powerful. Puh-leeze.
So are, some aren't.
It's very tempting to turn a prosecution of real abuses into a general populist attack on corporations and rich people: "They're all a bunch of crooks!"
There are certainly difficulties that, generally, the poor (or more accurately, non-famous) are less likely to face, such as being pursued purely to make the prosecutor famous. The wealthy do have the advantage that the prosecutor's massive financial advantage is less massive. But it is still a powerful factor. Have you ever heard of a prosecution being dropped because the DA's office ran out of money? Even once?
Right off hand, I can think of several cases where the targeted court for a change of venue has definitely refused to hold a trial due to the costs associated with it.
Then there are cases like JonBenet Ramsey's murder where Boulder County will only allocate very few dollars to an ongoing investigation and in some years, none at all. It happens a lot more than we realize - the Laci Peterson case was far outspent by the defense over the DA in Stanislaus County. Robert Durst's expenses far outweighed the resources of Galveston County.
Those are just top-of-mind. I never think of the People as having unlimited funds in any way at all - not even the Feds.
I would agree that investigations do not have unlimited funds, and even high profile ones can grind to a halt (though it is never a purely resource decsion, it will also be linked to lack of progress). But I have not heard of prosecutions being dropped for lack of funds.
Take the case at the heart of this article. Prosecutors think they have sufficient funds to pursue a case against British citizens, for actions taking place in Britain, against a British company. The overwhelming need for a trial in Houston seems to trump any thought of costs.
From what I can tell, if these three were in on Fastow's Southampton deal (not named for anyplace in the UK-it's the name of the subdivision where Fastow and another cohort lived here in Houston), then the bulk of the money changing hands was done in the US.
If National Westminster had not enabled Fastow to fund that portion of that entity, none of this would have happened - to NatWest and its loss to its underhanded employees - or other losses within that so-called SPE. Keep in mind there were more than 3000 entities under the Enron corporate umbrella.
As to Houston's bias against Enron-related defendants - we're a pretty large metro area (5+ million) and the collective memory is very short-term. Most are Enron-weary and couldn't care less about any of it anymore, other than those directly affected adversely in the most extreme ways.
I'd venture to say that the NatWest Three would be better off going to trial here than there, JMO. Getting a British judge up to speed on this case would be a nightmare from hell.
From your description of their guilt - all pre-trial, remember - I would certainly hope that you are not one of the unbiased Houstonians on the jury. I would bow to your superior knowledge of the Houston area, though, and accept it is possible to gather an untainted jury pool. (Though I would add that Irwin Stelzer knows the US business world as well as any other commentator I know of).
We are talking about three people who are accused of a crime, not people who have been convicted of one. I would have thought, if you are to offer people a fair trial, your first inclination would be to use the jurisdiction where the alleged actions took place. To transplant the trial to a foreign jurisdiction, which neither the accused nor the alleged victims are connected to, can only undermine the fairness of the trial.
Your concern about British judges not understanding the issues is an interesting one. I have long had serious doubts about lengthy and complicated fraud trials. You will probably know that, as in the US, it is juries (who are not speialists) who weigh the facts, not judges. I incline to the view that if it is not possible for the prosecutor to explain the crime in a clear way that a jury can understand, it is not possible to hold a fair trial. Without such an assumption, the presumption that every person knows the law cannot possibly hold.
My "description of their guilt" comes from their own mouths. They admitted it to their bosses at NatWest as the Enron house of cards was tumbling down. They're the ones who brought it to the fore, thinking they'd get some clemency by doing so.
No, I won't be on their jury. I'm too sick to participate any more, but have done my jury duty here many times. At least, I always show up, but am never qualified, because I usually know someone on one or the other of the legal teams.
Yes, I think many people can be unbiased here, not necessarily "untainted". When virtually everyone has heard about a case, then voir dire goes in a bit different direction. They simply ask if the potential juror has heard about the case and if so, made up their mind about it. If they say yes (and unbelievably, some do), then they ask if they believe they can set that aside and look only at the evidence. Most people can ... and *do*!
As I said before, the Fastow dealings on Southampton took place *here* in the US, not in the UK. Yes, I know the juries decide the evidence in a trial of this magnitude ... but you can't seriously think that a British judge doesn't need to know at least the basics of the crime in question, for the logistics and planning, if nothing else.
One thing different in the UK, at least, is that they pretty much have a gag rule in force en perpetuity - so nobody on either side is going to be talking to the media until the trial is over.
>>My "description of their guilt" comes from their own mouths. They admitted it to their bosses at NatWest as the Enron house of cards was tumbling down. They're the ones who brought it to the fore, thinking they'd get some clemency by doing so.
I don't know exactly what the defendents have previously said. But you seem to be well-enough informed about the legal process to know that there still has to be a fair trial. Such facts as are already in the public domain may be entirely insufficient to full judgement as to their guilt in law.
>>No, I won't be on their jury. I'm too sick to participate any more, but have done my jury duty here many times. At least, I always show up, but am never qualified, because I usually know someone on one or the other of the legal teams.
Sorry to hear about the first point.
>>Yes, I think many people can be unbiased here, not necessarily "untainted". When virtually everyone has heard about a case, then voir dire goes in a bit different direction. They simply ask if the potential juror has heard about the case and if so, made up their mind about it. If they say yes (and unbelievably, some do), then they ask if they believe they can set that aside and look only at the evidence. Most people can ... and *do*!
I agree, I think that on the whole the jury system works pretty well. It is not merely the least-worst system, but actually pretty good. I am very dubious about claims that it needs to be set aside in complex fraud trials. If the 'offence' is too complex to explain, it is not, in my view, a valid charge. (As you probably know, we don't do the voir dire thing here).
>>As I said before, the Fastow dealings on Southampton took place *here* in the US, not in the UK. Yes, I know the juries decide the evidence in a trial of this magnitude ...
Every account I have heard says that these people are charged with defrauding their employer in the UK.
>>but you can't seriously think that a British judge doesn't need to know at least the basics of the crime in question, for the logistics and planning, if nothing else.
Of course not. But judges are fairly smart people. If you can explain things to a jury, you can explain them to a judge. If not, drop the case.
>>One thing different in the UK, at least, is that they pretty much have a gag rule in force en perpetuity - so nobody on either side is going to be talking to the media until the trial is over.
Or the jury, at all. On the whole I think that is a pretty good thing.
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