Did the Prosecution Illegally Withhold Exculpatory Evidence in Enron?
Former Enron Chief Skilling’s is making a very explosive charge, apparently with evidentiary warrant, that the prosecution in Enron improperly withheld exculpatory evidence in its possession:
The stench of prosecutorial abuse has long hung over the Enron-related criminal cases. But the extent of that abuse became crystal clear this afternoon when the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals granted former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling’s motion to unseal his supplemental brief relating to the government’s interview notes of former Enron CFO and chief Skilling accuser, Andrew Fastow. I bookmarked the supplemental brief in Adobe Acrobat to facilitate ease of review.
The brief reveals suppression of exculpatory evidence by the Enron Task Force on a massive scale. The entire brief is devastating to the Task Force’s prosecution of Skilling and the late Enron chairman, Ken Lay. But if you do not have time to read the entire brief, read the excellent 11-page introduction, which includes the following passage:
The raw notes are shocking. The 420 pages of contemporaneous notes, which we have spent the last many weeks comparing to the thousands of pages of trial record and the Task Force’s pretrial disclosures, confirm our worst fears. On the most crucial issues in Skilling’s case-especially where it was only Fastow’s word against Skilling’s-the Task Force suppressed vital exculpatory evidence from its “composite” FBI Form 302s for Fastow and all other disclosures given to Skilling. The Task Force then proceeded to present critical testimony and argument at trial it knew was contradicted by the evidence withheld from Skilling.
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I think letting loose on businesses these ambitious prosecutors who have no idea of business practices, hold a progressive’s distaste for capitalism, have at their disposal some really nightmarish statutes and practices without substantial oversight is a recipe for prosecutorial abuse. I think that was the case here, in Anderson, in the Conrad Black matter.
I studied Soviet Law in law school and this is right out of the old Stalinist playbook, including the selective leaking to the press to demonize the defendants to the jury pool .
Read the whole thing. I blame Bush. His failure to “clean house” after the Clinton administration “seeded” so many govt agents with leftie appointees has produced many excesses, and this is the latest one to come to light.
I wonder what kind of DoJ we would have under President McCain?
