Gotta Keep 'Em Separated
August 24, 2004
From Law.com comes this article on the latest drama in the Ken Lay saga.
Enron founder Kenneth Lay doesn't want to go to trial alongside his one-time protege, former CEO Jeffrey Skilling. The feeling is mutual. Both argue in court filings -- Skilling in papers filed Friday, Lay earlier this month -- that the allegations against them thinly overlap if at all, so they should be tried separately.
The government wants to try them and the third co-defendant in their pending indictment, former Enron chief accounting officer Richard Causey, together in March next year. Lay wants a trial as soon as possible, and Skilling and Causey want another year and a half to prepare.
Lay's legal team asked that he be tried alone, and said he would forego his right to face a jury and leave his fate in a judge's hands if that would get a speedy trial.
U.S. District Judge Sim Lake said he would rule on all the separate trial requests by early October.
It would seem more than a little unfair - and indeed, constitutionally suspect - for Judge Sim to deny severance on the usual grounds of judicial economy when Lay is asserting that severance is required in order for him to obtain his constitutional right to a speedy trial.