Thank goodness.
Despite the government’s sordid expansion of crimes against business people over the past decade, at least it’s not a crime to decline to throw in the towel on a business venture simply because there are signs that it might fail. As John Carney eloquently points out, that’s in all of our best interests.
Sort of makes one wonder what would have happened if Jeff Skilling had been tried in even a reasonably fair environment?
And the government’s response of putting Messrs. Cioffi and Tannin through hell over the past year?:
"Of course, we are disappointed by the outcome in this case, but the jurors have spoken, and we accept their verdict," said Benton Campbell, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, in a written statement.
Of course, the off-the-record response was a tad less diplomatic toward the jury. But at least Campbell should know about failed prosecutions. Is a result such as this the reason why he insists on continuing to bring them?
Update: Frostburg State Economics Professor William Anderson, who has written extensively on the adverse economic impact of the government’s criminalization of business policy, followed the trial closely and provides this insightful postscript, which includes the following insightful observation about the obstacles that defendants face even in the face of a weak prosecution:
If anything, the slanderous and dishonest post-acquittal remarks by prosecutors drive home just how contemptuous federal prosecutors are of everyone else. The jury did not acquit because they were too stupid and vapid to understand the clarity of the prosecutionís case; they acquitted because they did understand that the governmentís simple, clear presentation was not true, or, at very best, did not do a good job of meeting the “reasonable doubt” standards.
I was not surprised at the acquittal, given what I knew was presented in court and given what my sources had been telling me. My only fear was a federal jury being, well, a federal jury that throws sops to those poor, underpaid prosecutors who claim they only are trying to do justice.
In the end, however, the jury did its job, and judge did his job, the defendants were innocent, and the prosecution continued to lie. Oh, and the media will continue to be the media. Like the Bourbons, they “learn nothing and they forget nothing.”
Just to clarify, Tom. What would you consider a “reasonably fair environment”? Would anything less than a not guilty verdict, or even better, dropped charges satisfy you?
I’m just wondering, because reading your stuff for a few years, now, I don’t recall you ever coming down on the side of anyone that didn’t have a whole bunch of money.
JD, a reasonably fair environment would be one where the media attention surrounding the trial had not created a presumption of community prejudice, as the Fifth Circuit found regarding the Skilling trial.
As to your second comment, I will presume that you don’t read this blog regularly. I quite often post materials criticizing the unjust exercise of governmental power against people regardless of their net worth.
Thanks for checking in, though.
Although the damage was less than it could have been if they’d been convicted, the prosecution itself will still chill managers. These prosecutions are destructive almost without exception. The continuing policy of criminalizing and attempting to criminalize risk taking and agency is among this country’s biggest competitive stumbling blocks.
Dude. If your posts pop up on my RSS – I’m here. I don’t comment much at all because the sign-in crap is irritating.
It just seems to me that ALL of these wealthy people can’t ALL be totally innocent. I quite agree that often the prosecutors rig the contest in any way possible. But that’s the way the game is played. It’s played the same way for somebody that has no money – but they, and I mean “we” when I say that, have nobody but a court appointed atty to represent them, and those guys can sometimes be less than totally engaged. I know that you know that is true.