A Jury of our Peers

Ignorance claim did not sway Enron jury

By Vikas Bajaj and Kyle Whitmire
The New York Times
FRIDAY, MAY 26, 2006

One after another, the jurors spoke and, in different voices, it all added up to the same thing.

The jurors said they found the testimony by Lay and Skilling in their own defense - which many legal experts had warned could prove to be their undoing - both revealing and damning.

Freddy Delgado, an elementary-school principal, questioned how the two men could testify that they "had their hands firmly on the wheel" at Enron and then say that they did not know about the improper accounting and the intensifying financial problems?

After all, parents hold him accountable for their children's welfare and safety. "I can't say that I don't know what my teachers were doing in the classroom," Delgado said. "I am still responsible if a child gets lost."

"So I would say that to say that you didn't know what was going on in your own company," Delgado added, "was not the right thing."

After sitting through a 16-week trial and listening to 56 witnesses, the jurors finally had a chance to speak. And gathering together in a sixth-floor room at the federal courthouse here, several blocks from Enron's former headquarters, that's exactly what they did.

In other high-profile cases, many jurors quickly dispersed to avoid reporters. But all of the Enron jurors, including the three alternates, attended the hourlong session. Facing dozens of reporters and TV cameramen, they calmly and patiently answered questions, appearing unburdened and frequently cracking jokes. If they had any doubt or hesitation about the verdict they had reached in the biggest corporate corruption case in recent American history, they didn't show it.

The jury included people of widely different backgrounds - a dairy farmer, payroll manager, two engineers, a ship inspector, county court clerk, personnel manager, retired sales assistant and dental hygienist - but they drew on their own life experiences, making clear that they thought of themselves as responsible for knowing everything about their jobs. Certainly, richly paid corporate executives should, too?

They respected Lay's charitable, civic and political standing in Houston and Washington, they said, but ultimately concluded that he put his own financial welfare ahead of his duties to shareholders and employees.

As for Skilling, jurors said they found his professed memory lapses and unfamiliarity with certain details incredible for someone who prided himself on having command over every area of Enron's operations.

"It is hard to believe," said Deborah Smith, the jury forewoman, "that someone, such a hands-on individual, could not possibly know the things that were going on within the company."

When the verdict was announced, Lay tried to console his sobbing wife while Skilling looked expressionless at the judge, turning briefly to search the faces of the audience.

But Nancy Thomas, who is retired and whose police officer husband is recovering from a stroke, shed a few tears as the verdict was read. Later, she said: "This is an emotional thing, there are too many people involved in it. There are human beings; there are families."

In the end a quiet sense that justice was done.