Search this site
Matching entries from Houston's Clear Thinkers
Ellen Podgor on the trial penalty
Stetson College of Law Professor Ellen S. Podgor, who authors the popular White Collar Crime Prof Blog, has written an important law review article on a key issue that is confronting defense attorneys and courts in this age of...
An Enron Task Force-induced nightmare ends
So, the Fifth Circuit followed the instructions of the U.S. Supreme Court and finally directed the U.S. District Court in Houston to dismiss all remaining charges against former Enron Broadband executive, Scott Yeager. The appellate court's order effectively ends...
Not a good week for freedom
First, in the face of a duplicitous government prosecution and a draconian trial penalty, Kevin Howard was forced to plead guilty to a crime that he did not commit. Then, the executive branch of the federal government, unchecked by...
Chalk up another trial penalty deal
With no valid case against former Enron Broadband CFO Kevin Howard, what was the Department of Justice to do? Rattle the saber of the trial penalty and cut a deal. On one hand, the deal appears to be an...
Hedging the Enron trial penalty
On the heels of this news, and given the mainstream media's ubiquitous characterization of Enron as the harbinger of the current Wall Street financial crisis, it's really not surprising that former Enron Broadband co-CEO Joe Hirko opted to cop...
So, what's the difference?
Mel Weiss was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison yesterday for making undisclosed payments to class representatives in class action lawsuits that his firm handled. As noted here about a year ago, Weiss didn't have much of a choice given...
Conrad Black faces the trial penalty
Former Hollinger International chairman and CEO Conrad Black (previous posts here) was sentenced on Monday to six and a half years in prison as a result of his conviction on three counts of mail fraud and one count of obstruction...
The real NatWest Three deal
I gave up hope long ago that the mainstream media would ever provide particularly accurate reports regarding the Enron-related criminal prosecutions. However, the mainstream media news reports on the plea bargain hearing earlier this week in the Enron-related NatWest Three...
Hedging the trial penalty
Although some have questioned his business ethics, no one has ever questioned that legendary Houston oilman Oscar Wyatt is good at hedging risk. After Wyatt was sentenced yesterday to a year in prison as a result of his plea deal...
Thinking about the Bonds case
Two topics on this blog are legal matters and baseball, so Barry Bonds has been a frequent subject of posts here over the past four years. Inasmuch as this post from over two years ago speculated that Bonds would be...
The Lerach deal
Former class action securities plaintiffs' lawyer William Lerach finally cut a non-cooperation plea deal (Nathan Koppel's WSJ Law Blog post is here) to resolve the longstanding criminal investigation into alleged undisclosed payments that Lerach and his firm made to class...
Professor Podgor on the trial penalty
As noted in this prior post, one of the most perverse elements of the government's criminalization of business in the post-Enron era has been the trial penalty -- that is, the substantially longer prison sentences that executives face if they...
The Skilling sentencing hearing
Former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's sentencing hearing is Monday afternoon, so it's a good time to provide some links that will provide a basis for an objective evaluation of Skilling's case as a counterbalance to what the mainstream media typically...
The trial penalty issue in the Skilling case
One of the many troubling aspects of the Enron Task Force's prosecution of former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling is the "trial penalty" that Skilling faces in connection with his sentencing (which is next Monday, October 23rd) -- that is, the...
The resentencing of Jamie Olis
US District Judge Sim Lake announced yesterday that Jamie Olis will be resentenced on Friday at 2 p.m., almost a year after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Judge Lake's previous 24+ year sentence. As we await another chapter...
Feed Subscription
If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to a feed of all future entries matching '"trial penalty"'. [What is this?]
