Trial, Week 10: Running defense

As the defense began presenting its case in the trial of Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling this morning, one of the key defense lawyers was missing from the courtroom. Mike Ramsey, Lay's lead attorney, was undergoing tests related to a stent that was inserted in his chest March 24. On Tuesday, Ramsey is scheduled to undergo an inasive procedure so doctors can check on the stent; a spokeswoman for Lay said he hopes to be back at the trial soon.

As far as the defense goes, experts say it'll be tough, but not impossible, to upset the prosecution's case:

"The defense must do everything possible to dig their clients out of the massive hole the government has dug," says Christopher Bebel, a Houston attorney who has attended part of the trial. "The odds of a conviction have steadily mounted throughout the course of the trial as prosecutors have piled one brick on top of another while buttressing and corroborating the statements of key witnesses."

Lay and Skilling's defense team has more than a dozen witnesses lined up to help try to convince jurors that the former Enron chairman and the former CEO weren't responsible for the company's downfall. In doing so, they'll not only have to raise doubt about prosecution witnesses who said Lay and Skilling knew about and were involved in financial deception at Enron, but they'll probably have to answer the question that's been on our minds: If Lay and Skilling didn't know the company was about to go under, why didn't they? The ex-execs themselves might have something to say about that — they're both expected to testify, a move that's considered risky but perhaps necessary. Skilling could take the stand as early as this week.

For now, former Enron employees are weighing in on how they think the trial's going and jurors are trying to figure out what Lay and Skilling were thinking. So are we.