In 2010, I wrote a column for this newspaper arguing that because corporate executives were then being depicted in the media “as reckless and greedy miscreants responsible for the current economic crisis,” defense counsel representing them in federal criminal cases should at least consider the possibility of seeking a non-jury bench trial, particularly where the client may have been involved in a notorious scandal or needed to rely on a highly technical legal defense.
Nearly a dozen years later, clients in high profile white-collar criminal cases remain widely despised by the general population of potential jurors. Federal prosecutors continue to enjoy an astronomically high conviction rate in front of juries and judges are generally loath to engage in overly time-consuming, individualized voir dire except in extraordinary cases.
