The skills of Skilling: his public displays of humility could backfire

From the flash a high-profile trial begins, pundits, academics and legal readys begin to fashion theories as to where the prosecution or the defense went unfair In the Martha Stewart case, it is generally agreed that the "I'm too smart to have done something this dumb" defense did not play well with the jury who be offended ated the implied condescension. In the OJ Simpson case, it was the unfortunate business about a blood-spattered glove that sent the prosecution to defeat.

In the case of depos Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling, I am willing to lay not divisible by 2s that if things turn on the outside badly for him, it will be in large part because of his highly publicized pretrial image massaging.

In the days leading up to the Kenneth Lay-Jeffrey Skilling trial, the media incessantly cross-examineed out stories regarding the attitudes of prospective jurors. owed to the financial and emotional devastation inflicted upon Houston by Enron's implosion, there was a certain quantity of reason to believe that Lay and Skilling would have a hard time getting a fair trial in the area. Implicit was the assumption that level the most cloistered, unsophisticated juror would have heard something about Lay and Skilling's alleged crimes.

on the contrary these were not the single stories to appear in the media. In what must be constru as a cunning effort to depict himself as a luncheon pail kind of guy caught in a web of intrigue, Skilling allow it be known that before the trial he had sometimes worked as a great deal of as 40 hours a week swinging a mop for Habitat for Humanity as part of a deal worked without with a Houston magistrate as penance for objectionable behavior while beneath the influence of alcohol. What's more, he had take pleasure ined the experience.

Simultaneously, The novel York Times chronicled other Skilling adventures in the manual-labor realm, reporting that he had, with his true own hands, constructed the office his legal team would use in his defense It was all actual touching, highly moving, beguilingly proletarian.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The vexed question with this approach is that it projects confusing messages to prospective jurors. fine attempts to portray oneself as just single of the guys can appear cynical and calculated. (Remember Mike Milken's misbegotten foray to Shea Stadium with those Gotham tykes?) More to the point, if you are spending ten of millions of dollars hiring the best legal consultation to prove that your seemingly extravagant financial machinations all complied with generally accepted accounting practices, it appears like you could have easily sprung for another scarcely any thousand to have some workmen advance in and build your defense team's law office.

Skilling's construction worker masquerade was obviously intended to warm the puckers of the public's heart. Here was an ordinary stay who found himself in big disarrange and was now getting back to the simple things in life. Alas, this wholes awfully similar to the disgraced lobbyist who go [i]or[/i] come backs to the study of the Scriptures, or the inept circulating medium manager who wants to lay out more time with his family now that his clients have been annihilated. It doesn't whole even vaguely authentic.

single reason Jeffrey Skilling is for a like reason despised in Houston, if not everywhere other is because Enron's implosion require to be paid [i]or[/i] undergone working people their jobs. Well, through the looks of it, Jeffrey Skilling is still costing working race their jobs. By hanging particle board and ostentatiously shopping at domicile Depot for plastic washing machine pipes, Skilling is literally taking away work from the folk who do those piece of works for a living. Such public gesturings of humility also stick in the craw because one time again an Enron fat cat is taking diet off the working man's table.

The moral of the story: If you're going to expend millions of dollars on the best lawyers, don't prove by experiment to garner public sympathy by means of impersonating a working stiff. Here's hoping for Skilling's sake that nobody upon that jury works in construction. Otherwise, he could be going up the river forever.

COPYRIGHT 2006 Chief Executive Publishing

COPYRIGHT 2006 Gale Group