Lady Justice pays attention to gold in her scales

The Enron rot and the new twist of the Jeffrey Skilling case points to the moral rot in the DOJ. In a bizarre twist, the DOJ will reduce his sentence by 10 years because,

In a revised sentencing agreement announced late last week, federal prosecutors cited the “extraordinary resources” required to litigate Skilling’s appeals as justification for reducing his sentence by more than 10 years. NBC News reports that in exchange, “Skilling would give up all of his remaining rights to appeal” and “he also would give up any claims to the $40 million he was ordered to forfeit” to the Enron victims fund. Reuters notes that such a sum – which will be handed over to a “depleted” victims fund – “pales in comparison” to the “$70 million Skilling has spent on legal fees.”

The result is that Skilling is being effectively deemed Too Big to Keep in Jail – a classification in which the government cites economic cost rather than exonerating evidence as a basis for prosecutorial leniency.
If this seems eerily similar to what we saw a few months ago with the Obama administration’s refusal to prosecute HSBC, that’s because it is. Just as the Justice Department back then cited potential economic fallout as a rationale to avoid prosecuting Wall Street lawbreakers (Too Big to Jail), we see today prosecutors citing financial costs as a rationale to reduce Skilling’s prison time (Too Big to Keep In Jail).

So in short, he bought his way out of jail, and his legal team is rolling in dough to the tune of $70 million. 

As Matt Taibbi reported in Rolling Stone about the unequal standards of Justice in the US today, consider the case of Curtis Wilkerson in Whittier, CA, he impulsively tried to shoplift a $2.50 pair of socks in 1995 and would be sentenced to life in prison. He's still there 18 years later, along with other third-strike people who committed minor misdemeanors, but weren't rich enough to buy their way out of prison.