What's to deliberate in the trial of Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling?

Enron employees and investors lost everything, while Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling made out like -- dare I say -- bandits! If these two men are not convicted, then there is no justice in this country.

Mary Flood, in "NOW IT'S UP TO THE JURY" for the Houston Chronicle, reports:

The government is accusing Skilling, in 28 counts, and Lay, in six, of manipulating Enron's finances and lying about the company's financial health to investors in order to enrich themselves.

"If what you heard in these past four months is business as usual in corporate America, ladies and gentlemen, I would suggest we all take our money out of the stock market and never put a nickel back in," said Berkowitz.

He said Lay and Skilling both kept trying to cover Enron's financial failures just "a little longer" and deprive investors and employees of the real facts while they both sold stock — Skilling through a broker and Lay quietly back to the company for cash.

And what is Lay and Skilling's defense? That they weren't minding the store.

Kenneth Lay, Enron's former chief executive, faces charges of conspiracy, false statements, and securities and bank fraud. Lay maintains he relied on subordinates who deceived him. Argues he spent most of his time focusing on diplomatic and business missions rather than on the company's accounting practices.

Jeffrey Skilling, Enron's former chief executive, president and chief operating officer, faces charges of conspiracy, money laundering, insider trading and securities fraud. Skilling argues he was kept in the dark by then-Chief Financial Officer Andrew S. Fastow.

Does anyone believe that these two men didn't know exactly what was going on? The proof should be in the fact that they were quietly dumping their own Enron stock.

Was the defense all just an act?

A former prosecutor observing the case said it's not unusual to see a more theatrical and dramatic defense and a prosecutorial response that relies more on just a professional tone as Berkowitz did Wednesday. This contrasted with the sometimes emotional, sometimes shouted presentations of the defense lawyers.

The Chronicle asked entertainment writer Eric Harrison, a veteran film critic, to review the theater of the closing arguments in the Enron case.

In the first part of the Enron Task Force's closing argument Monday, prosecutor Kathryn Ruemmler spent the better part of a day imposing structure -- a story -- on 15 weeks of testimony and evidence. Methodically, she laid out a tale of monumental greed and deceit in which Skilling and Ken Lay, former CEOs of what was then the country's seventh-largest company, masterminded a conspiracy to defraud investors.

Prosecutors Ruemmler and Sean Berkowitz, who finished the government's argument Wednesday, were earnest technicians who marshaled voluminous evidence and testimony with compelling, though mostly dry, logic. Ruemmler, in particular, was effective at breaking months of complex evidence into easily grasped issues.

During his summation Tuesday [Kenneth Lay's attorney], George "Mac" Secrest, an animated man with a folksy manner, jumped into the witness stand to demonstrate the government's power to compel testimony. Chip Lewis, in his brief summation, screamed at prosecutors, accusing them of lying about his client.

Harrison went on to say:

Lawyers and reporters who make their living covering trials say there are ways you can gauge the interest and sympathies of a jury. One is by paying attention to when jurors take notes.

Jurors scribbled continuously during Ruemmler's arguments Monday. They wrote less during final prosecution arguments Wednesday, but hardly wrote at all when defense attorneys had the floor.

Did they take notes for Ruemmler because her story riveted them? Or because it was so complicated? Did they lay down their pencils during the defense' summation because they weren't interested? Or was it because they didn't want to miss the show?

Hopefully, we will soon know.