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 speedy trial on the charges I face. To facilitate this, I offered to forgo discovery and to waive a jury trial, leaving it to a judge to determine my guilt or innocence.
Why, then, is the Department of Justice not willing to agree to an immediate and speedy trial?

And as one who should know, Mr. Lay thinks he knows the reason — politics:

My July 8 indictment was announced at a news conference in Washington. The acting attorney general, James Comey, referred to what had previously been known as the Enron Task Force as “The President’s Corporate Fraud Task Force.” Never mind that the phones are still answered “Enron Task Force” and that’s what the letterhead on the stationery reads.
Comey described the Enron investigation as the most prominent among those being overseen by this presidential task force. He said: “Our joint mission is to bring corporate criminals, corporate crooks [i.e., Ken Lay] to justice in this country.”
Well, if my indictment is “the most prominent” in this effort, why can’t we get on to trial? Perhaps, as my lawyers said in a court filing, it’s because the acting attorney general was “unable to determine whether he was announcing an indictment or holding a political rally” and finally decided on the latter. Some other statements at that rally:
? Linda C. Thomsen, deputy director of enforcement for the Securities and Exchange Commission: “[T]he president’s corporate task force, which celebrates its second anniversary tomorrow . . . [has demonstrated that] just the mention of the name Enron evokes images of duplicity and greed.”
? Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Mark W. Everson: “[T]he corporate culture of Enron guided by Mr. Lay is now synonymous with corporate fraud and greed at its worst. And Enron’s crooked ‘E’ logo depicts the corporate management team at Enron — crooked.”
Are these signs of a dispassionate prosecution of crime? To me they look more like part of a political campaign.

Mr. Lay has a point and he makes it well:

Now, I know about politics. I have been active for years and I ask neither sympathy nor special treatment. But justice is a different issue. The tragic circumstances surrounding the collapse of Enron and the harm it caused to so many victims is something I will take to my grave. My inability to save Enron is one of my greatest regrets. But I am guilty of no crime and eager to prove my innocence. Our Constitution guarantees justice and a speedy trial. Yet, without the agreement of the president’s task force, as hard as I may try, I may not be granted either.
I would ask James Comey and Andrew Weissmann: With justice in the balance, do you have a real case, based on the law and not on politics? Subject to the judge’s schedule, meet me in court before November, and agree to a stand-alone trial, with or without a jury — your option. If you agree to a non-jury trial, the trial can begin and end before the election. It will determine not only whether the charges against me are “significant” but also whether they are “real.”

Overall, I agree with Mr. Lay, although his fixation on a trial before the November elections seems somewhat contrived. My sense is that Mr. Lay will get his speedy trial — severed from that of his co-defendants, Messrs. Skilling and Causey — and that the trial will likely begin some time early next year. Given the normal progression of these types of cases, that’s not unreasonable.
But Mr. Lay’s larger point is valid — the way in which the Government has handled the Enron criminal cases has elevated politics far beyond justice, and that is not a good thing.
Almost three years now after Enron spiraled into bankruptcy, the Enron Task Force has not prosecuted a single trial involving a former Enron executive (the first is scheduled to begin on September 20 in the Nigerian Barge case). Rather, the Task Force has take the approach of sledgehammering former Enron executives with multi-count indictments so that each of the executives is faced with the prospect of what amounts to a life prison sentence if they risk attempting to defend themselves against the charges. In the meantime, just to make sure that the public perception remains biased against anything having to do with Enron, the Task Force makes public statements and disclosures about its indictments that strongly imply guilt and wrongdoing.
And where the Government does not have the grounds in a case to justify the prospect of a life sentence, the prosecutors have no problem making them up. They did just that recently in the Nigerian Barge case in a superceding indictment prompted by the Supreme Court’s recent Blakely decision that placed the federal sentencing guidelines into question. On a $25 million deal in which neither Enron nor Merrill Lynch lost a dime, and in which the basis for the Government’s allegation that a “true sale” did not occur was not even discovered until well after Enron had gone into bankruptcy and its stock had become worthless, the Government now claims that the “damage to the market” resulting from the Nigerian Barge transaction was $80 million.
There is no factual basis for that allegation. The only reason that it has been made is to justify a sentence at the harshest levels of the federal sentencing guidelines. And this in a case that is so weak that it likely would not have been prosecuted but for the fact that the Task Force currently believes that it can play on the extraordinary public bias against Enron to obtain a conviction against anyone who was associated with the company.
So, why should we care? Wasn’t Enron just a house of cards run by some bad folks at the top? Aren’t they just getting what they deserve? Who cares if the Government simply makes things a bit more efficient by obtaining plea bargains rather than convictions after protracted trials?
Well, Professor Ribstein has one very good reason that the fair adminstration of justice is important to anyone who is interested in the promotion of business and risk taking:

[Mr. Lay] is entitled to fairness whether he’s a businessman or not. But it’s important because he is a businessman to send the right signals to future entrepreneurs about how risk-taking behavior is going to be treated.

But there is also another even more important reason that the Government should dispense with the political wrangling and get on with the fair administration of justice against the former Enron executives — that is, because that process protects you and me.
I made the same point several months ago in connection with the Martha Stewart trial by passing along the following dialogue from the fine movie, “A Man For All Seasons“.”
In this insightful scene, one of Sir Thomas More’s apprentices — Richard Rich — confronts Sir Thomas while Sir Thomas is conversing with his wife, daughter, and his daughter’s fiancee, Will Roper (an aspiring lawyer). Rich begs Sir Thomas for a political appointment, which Sir Thomas proceeds to refuse because Sir Thomas knows that Rich is prone toward corruption and would never be able to resist the bribes that he would be tempted to take in such an appointment (Sir Thomas thought Rich should be a teacher). After an embittered Rich leaves Sir Thomas and his family, it is obvious to Sir Thomas’ wife, daughter, and Roper that Rich is resentful and will ultimately betray Sir Thomas, which indeed Rich does later in the movie. That leads to the following dialogue:

Wife: “Arrest him!”
Sir Thomas: “For what?”
Wife: “He’s dangerous!”
Roper: “For all we know he’s a spy!”
Daughter: “Father, that man is bad!”
Sir Thomas: “There’s no law against that!”
Roper: “But there is, God’s law!”
Sir Thomas: “Then let God arrest him!”
Wife: “While you talk he’s gone!”
Sir Thomas: “And go he should, if he were the Devil himself, until he broke the law!”
Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”
Sir Thomas: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”
Roper: “Why, yes! I’d cut down every law in England to do that!”
Sir Thomas: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down–and you’re just the man to do it, Roper!–do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?”
“Yes,” Sir Thomas concludes. “I’d give the Devil the benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”

Ken Lay is entitled to the speedy and fair administration of justice. I am hopeful that he receives it, not so much for his sake, but for ours.