Question

One of the leading figures in the Enron debacle was company founder Kenneth Lay who died in mid-2006 after his conviction for fraud and conspiracy but before he began serving his sentence. Prior to the events that led to the trial and conviction, Lay was viewed in Houston as one of its “genuine heroes” and Enron was a “shining beacon” according to a professor at Rice University in Houston. The Houston Astros’ field was named after Enron when the company gave the Astros a large grant. Enron also gave money to local organizations such as the ballet and national organizations based in Houston such as United Way. The Lays individually supported Houston’s opera and ballet its Museum the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and other charitable organizations. If you were on the jury would any of this information be relevant to your decision about Mr. Lay’s guilt or innocence? If your jury had determined that Mr. Lay was guilty would any f this information be relevant to your decision about the sentence you would then impose? Defend your decision from an ethical perspective.

Please write detailed at least two paragraphs.

Answer 1

Answer:

Yes, if I were on the jury then any of this information be relevant to our decision about Mr. Lay’s guilt or innocence. Because we would like to understand the past big good works that Mr. Lay has carried out for the society and help to people in the society. These fall under the ethical approach that we would like to understand the ethical history of Mr. Lay that he had done as a Nobel work for the society. We would like to review this information against the evidence for his guilt or innocence. The guilt or innocence will be proved based on the evidences and trials bit this information will be helpful for understanding the environment, as per ethical approach.

Yes, if our jury had determined that Mr. Lay was guilty then any of this information would be relevant to our decision about the sentence we would then impose to Mr. Lay. The sentence we would like to give for the guilty Mr. Lay will be based on the guilt he had carried out and the evidences available to prove the guilt. Thus based on evidence and guilt we would like to give sentence to Mr. Lay. When we give sentence to any guilty person, as an ethical approach, we would like to understand the ethical and Nobel behavior he has done to the society for uplifting the standard of the society. Hence these directly do not impact on the sentence but it helps in the background from an ethical perspective. The jury always concern with the ethical approach so that a person gets the sentence he deserve based on his guilt or crime he had carried out. If the crime or guilt is carried out in innocence or knowingly, then accordingly the sentenced will be carried out.