This is almost off-topic. Skip if that bugs you. It is interesting to think about the effect that coalitions of criminals have had on the criminal justice syst

This is almost off-topic. Skip if that bugs you. It is interesting to think about the effect that coalitions of criminals have had on the criminal justice system. Impulsive face-punchers don't tend to have sophisticated attorneys, and at least many of them probably agree that face-punching should be illegal in general, even if they had their reasons in this case. Contrast with finance criminals. Many of them probably convince themselves they're in the right, and they have access to the best justice money can buy. So over time they've managed to raise the costs of prosecution so high that we see this - it takes multiple years to nail down a solid prosecution. There are other aspects of course - some financial crime really is difficult to prove. But what I mean is that if all the accounting frauds before Ken Lay had depended on overworked public defenders, prosecuting him would have been much simpler.