Ignorance Claim Did Not Sway Enron Jury

One after another, the jurors spoke and, in different voices, it all added up to the same thing.

They simply could not believe, the eight women and four men of the jury explained in an extraordinary joint press conference after rendering their verdict, that Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling were telling the truth when they claimed they didn't realize that something was rotten at Enron....

--New York Times

I wonder how much the political moment we're going through in this country helped to make these jurors skeptical of the ignorance defense. Think about a certain other chief executive, and what the public thinks of him now. This really might have been the worst possible moment to try to defend oneself by saying, "As far as I knew, I consistently did the right thing. It turns out I was wrong about certain things, but even though I was the guy in charge, I didn't know I was wrong. Therefore I'm blameless."