As I hope I made clear, I'm not especially offended by the notion that Lay and Skilling are likely to spend a fairly huge amount of time behind bars. And my math skills are not so far in my past that I have any illusions about the percentage of the full amount of restitution that is likely to be repaid, whether they're in or out of custody, or somewhere in a halfway house between. On the whole, it seems to me that it's probably cheaper to supervise them on the outside than it is to house them on the inside, and I know a few probation officers who would be more than delighted to keep them on a fairly short leash. But I'm not comfortable, really, making decisions on that kind of basis. The problem is that, as a colleague has said, when the only tool one has is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. If the only choices are to lock them up for a long time, and restitution doesn't get paid, or supervise them out of custody for a long time, and restitution still doesn't get paid. . . well, our institutional inability to adequately and humanely address the situation is frustrating.

I'd think California can certainly take the Enron exec's to court. Proving the case, of course, is another matter (see pdq's post, immediately above -- I'm not taking sides, just noting that what is known and what can be proved in court are often quite different things). Collecting anything from the suddenly impecunious Messr's Lay and Skilling -- and whatever other co-defendants can be found -- is yet another matter. Lay, by the way, now claims that his current net worth, after paying his attorney fees, is negative $250,000. Perhaps a bake sale?

michael