This Houston Chronicle article reports on a survey that defense attorneys commissioned in connection with one of the upcoming Enron-related criminal trials. The survey concludes that over 80% of potential jurors in Houston believe that believe that the indicted Enron executives are guilty.
The survey claims 81.4% of potential jurors said they thought the former Enron executives accused of misleading the public and profiting off the sale of their own Enron stock were guilty, 7.8% said they were not guilty, and 8.7% said they did not know. The survey also polled potential jurors in Austin, Corpus Christi and Albuquerque, N.M., and the percentages of those who said the Enron executives were guilty in those cities were 71.9%, 67.9% and 71.1%, respectively.
In discussing the change of venue issue with one of the defense attorneys for a prominent former Enron executive, I asked him where he would prefer to try the case. His reply:
“How about Rio?”