Where's the love for Lay and Skilling?

So the lawyers for ex-Enron bigwigs Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling have been looking at questionnaires sent to potential jurors in the dynamic duo's trial on conspiracy and fraud charges in connection with Enron's collapse. Hang on to your hats, becuase what they found is a shocker: People around here really don't think much of Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling.

Of 280 potential jurors who returned polls concerning their feelings about Enron, 80 percent had a negative perception of the company. "I have never seen a jury panel like this," Mike Ramsey, Lay's lawyer, told the Chronicle. He and Daniel Petrocelli, Skilling's lawyer, blame the negativity on "poisonous publicity" in the local media — of course, they overlooked the thousands of former Enron employees who lost their jobs and their savings, and the fact that Houstonians in general weren't too happy about ending up at ground zero of the nation's biggest corporate implosion.

We were entertained by the Chron's sampling of responses from the jury pool:

• One out of every eight had read an Enron book or seen an Enron movie.
• 60 percent had an opinion on the cause of Enron's bankruptcy, most attributing it to "greed," "accounting fraud," "lie(s)" or other "criminal" and "illegal activities" by upper management.
• More that 40 percent admit to being "angry" about Enron.
• People called Skilling "the devil," "a high class crook," "projects high sleaze factor" and "without a moral compass."
• People called Lay "a snake in the grass" who "made too much money by screwing other people over," "crooked" and "the biggest lying crook of all."
• Executives were sometimes demonized: "All the little regular people got ruined and rich guys got richer." and "Crooked executives, cooked books, and the employees paid the price." and "These guys are guilty, they don't even deserve a trial. Let all the people they ruined have at them."
• Sherron Watkins, a former employee who warned about fraud, was lauded with "courageous," "brave" and "did the right thing."

These people obviously haven't yet had the epiphany Ken Lay had: that it was unspecified "others" who drove his honest, upright company into the ground. Why can't they see it? The poor are just so dense sometimes, right, Ken?

The lawyers are asking for a change of venue or a new jury pool, which would mean the trial's start date of Jan. 30 would be pushed back. The judge, Sim Lake, isn't expected to agree to move the trial, but he will likely rule on requests that the lawyers be able to question potential jurors one-on-one. Once the trial begins, it's expected to take about four months.