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A real head scratcher
The Stanford Financial Group scandal has been anything but typical, but yesterday's developments may have been the most bizarre yet. The big news, other than the hospitalization of R. Allen Stanford, was the guilty plea that Stanford's right-hand man...
What's the purpose of the Madoff sentence?
When Bernie Madoff was sentenced a few weeks ago, my reaction was that it is utterly absurd to imprison a 72 year-old white collar criminal for 150 years. I mean, really -- what's the point? Herb Hoelter agrees: Bernie...
The Fifth Circuit rules in the Skilling appeal
In this current anti-business climate, not many folks were expecting that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals would set aside former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's conviction. On the other hand, not many folks expected this decision, either. In the...
Westar Energy convictions are overturned
In this scathing 43-page decision, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set aside the convictions of former Westar Energy executives David Wittig and Douglas Lake on every count and ruled that most of the counts could not be retried....
Professor Podgor on the trial penalty
As noted in this prior post, one of the most perverse elements of the government's criminalization of business in the post-Enron era has been the trial penalty -- that is, the substantially longer prison sentences that executives face if they...
Jamie Olis resentenced to six years
U.S. District Judge Sim Lake resentenced Jamie Olis to six years in prison this afternoon (Olis has already served about 2.5 years in prison) in the latest chapter of the three year saga that has become arguably the starkest example...
Judge Young swings for the fences again
Doug Berman's remarkable Sentencing Law and Policy blog notes another key sentencing decision from U.S. District Judge William G. Young of Massachusetts, the jurist who declared the federal sentencing guidelines unconstitutional a few months before the U.S. Supreme Court issued...
Hope for sanity in sentencing of business executives?
Although just one case, at least one federal judge has concluded that the resentment and scapegoating that has driven the criminalization of business during the post-Enron era has gone too far. In this thoughtful sentencing memorandum relating to the conviction...
The Fifth Circuit's latest skirmish with SCOTUS over death penalty cases
Although the conflict flies below the radar screen outside legal circles, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court have been engaged in a caustic war or words (see articles here and here) over the past several...
Lay-Skilling, Week Seventeen
Remember that point made in the previous week summaries about the predisposition of the leaders on the jury determining the outcome of the trial of the corporate criminal case of the decade? Well, in a strong indication that this trial...
Hope for Jamie Olis?
This previous post highlighted the egregiously disingenuous approach that the Justice Department has taken on the market loss issue in order to promote an absurdly long prison sentence for former mid-level Dynegy executive, Jamie Olis. Now, the Third Circuit in...
Steffy on the sad case of Jamie Olis
Chronicle business columnist Loren Steffy -- who blogs over at Full Disclosure -- does not generally share my view that government has gone overboard in the post-Enron era of criminalizing merely questionable business transactions. However, when it comes to the...
Finally, some justice for Jamie Olis
The sad case of Jamie Olis has been a frequent topic on this blog as an egregious example of the injustice that has resulted from the government's increasing criminalization of business in American society. Last night, after many months of...
Calculating damages in criminal cases against energy traders
One of the hot button legal issues in white collar criminal prosecutions these days is the calculation of the financial damage resulting from the defendant's allegedly criminal actions. Inasmuch as the federal sentencing guidelines correlate the length of a sentence...
SCOTUS declines to clarify sentencing guidelines decision
In a surprising development, the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday declined to clarify its its decision earlier this year in U.S. v. Booker (previous posts here), in which the Court struck down the mandatory nature of the federal criminal sentencing system....
A masterful performance
Inasmuch as I had to appear at an hearing in federal court early this morning, I stuck around after my hearing to attend the sentencing hearing of former Merrill Lynch executive Daniel Bayly in connection with the Enron Nigerian Barge...
Fifth Circuit issues its first post-Booker decision
In its first decision since the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in U.S. v. Booker that overruled the mandatory nature of the federal sentencing guidelines, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on this past Friday explained how Booker issues are to...
Indicted Duke trader cops plea bargain
Brian Lavielle, one of three former Duke Energy Corp. natural gas traders who were indicted last April for booking phony trades to increase bonus compensation, pleaded guilty in Houston Thursday to falsifying books and agreed to cooperate in the federal...
A hopeful sign in the Enron Nigerian Barge case?
Yesterday brought perhaps the first sign that a more measured approach to sentencing in white collar criminal cases may be in the offing since the current trend of criminalizing questionable business transactions began with the meltdown of Enron in late...
The sad case of Jamie Olis gets even sadder
This Dallas Morning News article reports that the sad case of Jamie Olis, the mid-level Dynegy executive who was sentenced to a 24 year prison sentence last year for attempting to prove his innocence on accounting fraud charges, has taken...
More on the SCOTUS sentencing guidelines decision
The dust is settling on the U.S. Supreme Court's decision yesterday in United States v. Booker and United States v. Fanfan that the federal sentencing guidelines are unconstitutional because they violate a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to be tried by...
SCOTUS rules on sentencing guidelines
The Supreme Court ruled today in this decision in U.S. v. Booker that the federal sentencing guidelines must satisfy the standards of the Sixth Amendment as applied in the Court's earlier ruling in Blakely v. Washington. Accordingly, the Supreme Court...
Fifth Circuit upholds vague Commodity Exchange Act reporting law
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans issued this decision on Friday in the case of former Dynegy trader Michelle Valencia that upholds a controversial law that the Justice Department has used to charge a group of Houston...
Nigerian Barge jury finds $13.7 million market loss
The jury in the Enron-related criminal trial known as the Nigerian Barge case concluded the market loss hearing by determining today that the sham barge sale that was at the center of the trial cost Enron shareholders $13.7 million. In...
The Nigerian Barge market loss hearing
After convicting four former Merrill Lynch executives and a former Enron executive of wire fraud and conspiracy charges yesterday, the jurors in the Enron-related trial known as the Nigerian Barge case heard from opposing expert witnesses today regarding the market...
Nigerian Barge Jury convicts five out of six defendants
The federal jury in the Enron-related criminal case known as the Nigerian Barge case acquitted a former Enron accountant today and found her five co-defendants guilty of wire fraud and conspiracy charges. The jury cleared former Enron accountant Sheila Kahanek...
Are you ready to rumble? -- First Enron criminal trial begins Monday
After three years from Enron Corp.'s demise into bankruptcy, dozens of indictments and plea bargains, and an unprecendented government and media campaign to demonize former Enron executives, the first criminal trial against former Enron executives will begin Monday in Houston...
Quattrone sentenced to 18 months in prison
Former CSFB Silicon Valley investment banker Frank Quattrone was sentenced to 18 months in prison for obstructing a probe of how IPO stocks were doled out. The sentencing follows his obstruction conviction in May, which was largely based on an...
Ken Lay's Washington Post op-ed
In this Washington Post op-ed, former Enron chairman and chief executive officer Kenneth Lay makes the following disclosure and asks a very reasonable question: At my request, my lawyers have filed motions in federal court asking for an immediate and...
Update on the sad case of Jamie Olis
David Gerger, appellate counsel for former Dynegy finance employee Jamie Olis filed Mr. Olis' appellant's brief with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals this week in which Mr. Gerger contends that Mr. Olis' conviction and 24-year prison sentence should be...
Nigerian Barge case postponed again
The Enron Task Force's recent decision to re-indict the defendants in the Enron-related Nigerian Barge case has caused another postponement of the trial in that case. The trial, which was scheduled to begin on either August 16 or 17th, has...
Blakely Redux
With strong prompting from the Justice Department, the issues regarding the validity of federal and state sentencing guidelines generated by the U.S. Supreme Court's recent Blakely v. Washington decision are going to be teed up again soon in the Supreme...
Blakely decision prompts revised Enron indictments
The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Blakely v. Washington (prior posts here) -- which has called into question the Constitutionality of both state and federal sentencing guidelines -- has prompted Enron Task Force prosecutors to re-indict defendants in the...
Martha Stewart's sentencing
As readers of this blog know, I am not an admirer of Martha Stewart, but I believe that the recent prosecution and conviction of her is an injustice. The result of that injustice is equally disturbing. As American Enterprise Institute...
More on the sad case of Jamie Olis
This LA Times article is the best analysis that I have seen to date regarding what occurred in the sad case of former mid-level Dynegy accountant Jamie Olis that resulted in the absurd 24 year sentence for Mr. Olis. In...
Seventh Circuit decision on Blakely
Highly-regarded Circuit Judges Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals wrote the majority and dissenting opinions in this recent decision (U.S. v. Booker) interpreting the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in U.S. v. Blakely. In...
Update on Lay indictment
It looked like a video campsite outside the Federal Courthouse in Houston on Thursday as the media gathered to observe the spectacle of former Enron Chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay being led into the courthouse in handcuffs. Mr. Lay pled...
SCOTUS sentencing decision reviewed
In this article, the Wall Street Journal ($) does a good job of summarizing the initial reactions to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last week in Blakely v. Washington, a decision that could have major implications for the federal sentencing...
Enron criminal defendants: This is your Judge!
One U.S. District Judge is doing something about the federal sentencing guidelines. Here is the opinion. Here is a follow-up NY Times article on the opinion....
Thoughtful piece on criminalization of business
Professor Ribstein -- who is the blogosphere's foremost commentator on the troubling trend in the government's criminalization of business -- points us to this interesting this New York Times Magazine article in which novelist Mark Costello (most recently ''Big If'')...
The new definition of "cooperation"
This timely Wall Street Journal ($) article reports on the government's new pressure tactic in investigating and prosecuting business crimes -- pressuring businesses to condition the business' support of its employees who are under investigation on the employee's cooperation with...
More on the sad case of Jamie Olis
This Wall Street Journal ($) article is the most thorough report yet on the sad case of Jamie Olis, the 38 year old former Dynegy mid-level tax manager who was convicted and recently sentenced to over 24 years in federal...
Professor Volokh on Congressional review of District Judges compliance with sentencing guidelines
Professor Eugene Volokh, constitutional law professor at the UCLA School of Law and founder of the Volokh Conspiracy blog, pens a provocative op-ed in the LA Times regarding the swirling controversy over Congressional review of federal district judge's implementation of...
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