The judge's hand is forced to delve into this once a defendant speaks out so publicly about a difference between himself and his counsel. |
The jurors can determine that this is a 43-year-old man with three young daughters looking at a very long stretch in jail. |
The key for the defense is to put aside the baggage that is Enron, get the jury to see their clients as individuals and show why each of these transactions was business as usual. The longer, the more technical this gets, the more it hurts the government. |
The test will be the conversations. Prosecutors need to clearly spell out a disconnect ? between what was presented inside and what was said outside to the public. |
There is a good possibility the judge will give them some additional time. But we're talking weeks instead of months. |
There is a lot of tension there. |
There is still no explosive evidence. |
There is still no explosive evidence. Jurors will be expecting prosecutors to dissect their testimony with a scalpel. |
They will say he was the proverbial captain willing to go down with the ship. |
They've done deal after deal with an eye toward getting to the top. Now that they are there, they're not in a position to hand out any attractive plea offers without looking like they're just giving away the store. |
They've got to make this case clear-cut for the jury and keep them awake and involved. Otherwise, they play right into the defense's hands. |
This is the turning point and will determine the outcome of this case. |
This trial schedule is a tacit acknowledgement that the case was far too complex for the jury to understand what was going on, |
This was a misstep by Spitzer's office, in an otherwise extremely successful series of prosecutions, |
Typically, you don't see the government willing to sign on a cooperating defendant on the eve of the trial. This is a tacit acknowledgement by the government that their case is far from overwhelming and they are willing to take all the help they can get. |