Enron's Skilling Goes to Supreme Court?

reuters.com | 3/1/10 | suspect: Jeffrey Skilling

Lawyers for federal prisoner 29296-179 will take their last shot at shredding a lower court's conviction that sentenced him to 24 years in jail. If Skilling succeeds, his sentence could be shortened or he could win a new trial.

Skilling's appeal hinges on his contention that his trial should have been moved from Enron's home town of Houston amid public hostility and pervasive publicity and a prosecution theory that backfired in other Enron cases.

That theory holds that Skilling robbed Enron and its shareholders of his "honest services" by setting a corporate agenda met by fraud while he and other top executives hid the company's troubles with lies and murky financial statements.

The honest services theory has been used in other fraud cases elsewhere, particularly when outright theft, embezzlement or bribery were absent. Some appellate courts upheld it while others did not, prompting challenges that it is too vague and apt to stretch business aggression or failure into crimes.

The high court last December heard arguments involving honest services fraud in two other appeals, those of former Hollinger International CEO Conrad Black and former Alaska state legislator Bruce Weyhrauch.