Jury selection has begun for the trial of jailed Texas financier R. Allen Stanford. Judge Hitner narrowed the jury pool from 80 to 32. Attorneys are expected to make the final selections on Tuesday morning.
Since his arrest two and a half years ago, Allen Stanford has been assumed guilty, and he’s been compared to Jeff Skilling. In most media reports, the similarities between the two are too compelling to deny: both lived in Texas and both were accused of financial crimes. Those two merest wisps of coincidence are plenty for journalists and pundits, who have gone stir crazy in the last twenty-four hours to squeeze Skilling’s name into the narrative. A particularly galling example is here, the website of the local NBC affiliate.
Hitner promised the potential jurors that the trial will take no longer than six weeks, but prosecutors and defense attorneys have said they will each need a month to present their cases. Stanford’s attorneys say they expect the financier will testify.
KPRC Local 2 legal analyst Brian Wice said putting Stanford on the stand is a bad move.
“Think back, the last two defendants in high profile white collar crime cases that took the stand — Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling. We all know how that movie ended,” Wice said.
This is a casual line but I think the fact that it was so easily tossed out there says something about how Skilling and Lay really are viewed by most people. It is interesting to me that Wice called it a “movie”. Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay were not actors. They were not in a movie. Only their visages, meant to represent evil, were on display in The Smartest Guys In The Room. There was no actual “Jeff SKilling” or “Ken Lay” in that movie. That movie illuminated none of either man’s interior life.
And yet this “legal analyst” who really should know better, fell back on the easiest, laziest, most irresponsible metaphor possible. Furthermore, it is a lazy comparison. Just because Skilling and Lay testified and were not successful doesn’t mean that anyone who does will have the same outcome. The fact that Skilling and Lay testified and were still found guilty should not frighten innocent defendants; it should enrage them.
But Wice isn’t alone and I don’t mean to single him out as a bad guy. Most people probably rely on the same weak thinking. So Mr. Wice can take cover in the group – he is just one of hundreds who are speaking the same lines, reporting the same point of view, and reinforcing the same tired old cliches.
Lay and Skilling had evidence withheld that could have impeached Andy Fastow who did bring down Enron. Their testimony did not convict them it was the prejudiced jury pool as you point out which was corrupted by the media. Stanford sounds like he did bad things and knew he was doing them but that is what the media has told us. We will see what he says when he gets on the stand. Then it will be up to the media to report what he said in a fair and honest manner. Not very likely. We will see.
What an unfortunate name the Judge has…