Following on this post from earlier this week on the closing arguments in the Enron Broadband trial, a Clear Thinkers reader offered the comments below on the closing arguments, a transcript of which is downloadable here (the pdf file is bookmarked in Adobe Acrobat for each morning and afternoon session of the arguments).
Inasmuch as the author of the following comment actually attended the closing arguments (I did not), the author’s account is different — and likely far more accurate — than mine:
The trial may have been a snoozer, but the closing arguments were not — everything but [Prosecutor Ben] Campbell’s arguments, that is.
From watching the jury, about three of the fourteen were even looking at Campbell during his three hour argument, which included such “zinger” lines as: “I’m from Iowa, and I didn’t just fall of the turnip truck, and neither did you,” and “As Jerry Maguire said, ‘Show me the money!'” That’s right, he referenced Jerry Maguire.
Defense attorneys had a better time holding the jury’s attention, Dave Angeli through power-points and videos, and Tony Canales through colorful analogy and talking directly to the jury. At the end of both attorneys’ arguments, the jury was intent and leaning forward. After Mr. Canales’s, half the jurors — and all of the defendants’ families and friends — were in tears. At some point Canales retorted, “Show me the money? How about show me the evidence!” He also showed the indictment to the jury (though the government filed a motion to keep it away from the jury) which, if you read it, is all about the Shelby BOS video, which was never shown. He then said, in reference to the supposedly damning Collins lipstick email, “you can put all the lipstick you want on this indictment, it isn’t going away.” If at this point the jury just wants relief from the drudgery of the trial, they got their wish from the defense.
