Mike Ramsey, the attorney for Ken Lay, made two important points yesterday.  One point has been picked up by others, including Dave Hoffman:  Failure is not a crime.  That is an important distinction to make, and probably a difficult admission.  Ken Lay may have been a business failure, but we don't put business failures in jail.

The second point that Mike Ramsey made was more Houston-specific.  The challenge for the defense is that Houstonians can point to the fall of Enron in November 2001 and blame all the differences in 2002 Houston from 2000 Houston on Enron.  Although not fair, the fall of Enron came close enough in time with 9/11 to be conflated with that tragedy, the bust of the technology boom, and the economic aftermath.  At about the same time as 9/11 and Enron, two other companies in Houston were rattled:  Continental Airlines (because of post-9/11 events) and Compaq (which was acquired by HP and swiftly downsized).  Other large oil companies with trading floors are investigated and firings happen at those shops as well.  After the dust settles, Enron becomes an easy scapegoat for all of 2002's ills.  Business was horrible.  For downtown attorneys, you could not buy a billable hour in 2002.  I had one friend who made partner in 2002 but spent all of December doing CLE for the next two or three years because there was no work to be found.  Mike Ramsey has to turn back these bad memories of post-Enron Houston. 

So, Ramsey focused on what Ken Lay and Enron did for Houston.  This is tricky, but it may work.  Ramsey gave a State of the Union address for the city of Houston.  By comparing Houston in the early 90s and Houston in the late 90s, Ramsey can remind Houston what it was like to have an economic boom and the role that Enron played in that boom.  Ramsey credited Lay for keeping the Astros in Houston and for getting a new baseball stadium built.  (Drayton McLane is on the witness list as a character witness.)  Keep reading the Chronicle blog for more today.

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