Many seem to think the sentence is harsh based on the fact that some murderers end up spending less time behind bars.
I'm not really sure what one is supposed to do with the other. However, there are many instances of murder which need not necessarily translate into a life sentence or death. What about when a man catches his wife cheating and kills the boyfriend in an act of passion? Should that guy get life in prison or death? Or what about vehicular homicide that was an accident? What about when you are waken up in the middle of night by a prowler and shoot them, only to find out later that it was a drunken neighbor who wandered in the wrong house?
Of course, in cases of cold-blooded, pre-meditated murder, especally that of innocent people, the murderer should get a death sentence or life in prison without parole. But there are many lesser murders that do not warrant such a sentence.
In the case of the Enron fraud, some high level executives, in a pre-meditated manner, falsified company records to hurt other people financially in order to benefit themselves at their expense. They are greedy, ruthless bastards. These are not nice people and they do not deserve our sympathy. They are criminals just like those who rob banks and knock over liquor stores. Lock them up and throw away the key.
On that basis, 24-30 is more than 15-25.
(2) You wrote: "some high level executives, in a pre-meditated manner, falsified company records to hurt other people financially in order to benefit themselves at their expense."
That's not the case - the people they defrauded were stockholders - yet they themselves were wealthy insofar as they owned options in company stock. The absolute last thing they wanted to happen was for the company stock to collapse. They were certainly not premeditating a destruction of Enron's share price.
Thank you.
An ignorant inner city kid with no future who hits a bank to support his habit has more of a rational for criminal activity.
In a comparison of wrongs, the white collar criminal is worse in my book.
Not to mention, murder is a state crime and lack of funding sometimes means the release of a murderer well before their sentence is served. That doesn't happen as much in the federal system. Skilling will probably serve at least 15 years before any chance of parole.