I’m somewhat worse than a dentist’s office; my magazines are ancient. I read a lot of books and I work a lot so it takes a while for me to get around to the magazines. That is why I am only just now reading October 2010′s Texas Monthly which features a long biopic on Anthony Graves, a man accused of a grisly quadruple murder. When I read that he had a run-in with someone at work that included him “running to his toolbox and pulling a paring knife” and threatening a coworker for stealing two doughnuts, I paused.
(Sorry it’s wet, I took the magazine into the bath with me):
That paring knife bothers me. What kind of a person carries around a paring knife? It occurred to me that in almost every true crime book I’ve read – even those who claim the defendant is innocent – there is a previous incident that causes one to look with askance at the current controversy. There’s always someone that says, “Yes, it’s true that he was arrested for drugs the day before, but he wasn’t guilty of dealing drugs on this particular day.”
With the Enron executives who were prosecuted, there was literally not a single paring knife incident in any of their pasts. Nobody remembers Jeff Skilling cheating at Harvard, or advising clients to lie while at McKinsey, or even failing to pay his portion of a bar tab. It’s the same with each of them. Joe Hirko was thought to be “the most honest man at Enron”. Scott Yeager and Rex Shelby had started companies before Enron, and there was never a whisper of controversy with either one of them. Even Andy Fastow had a past as clear as a cowboy’s conscience.
I’ve always found it odd that in the Enron Task Force’s view, Enron managed to hire criminals from the C-suite to the mailroom. But we’re supposed to believe that these men, these sweet, good, wholesome men who lived honest lives suddenly became criminals the minute they got a direct deposit from Enron Corp.
In Anthony Graves’ case, the Innocence Project found enough evidence that he was freed after sixteen long years on Death Row. But Jeff Skilling didn’t leave DNA with his supposed crime; there is nothing that can suddenly free him based on the evidence. It will have to be procedural or one can hope for a presidential pardon, I suppose.
Jeff Skilling is not a criminal. There was nothing in his past that would suggest he is capable of any criminal activity. There’s no smoking gun, not a paring knife, not even a suspicious trade.
I continue to pray the 5th Circuit makes the right decision. And soon.
