Defying the skeptics, Judge Sim Lake managed to seat the jury to try former Enron Chairman Ken Lay and CEO Jeffrey Skilling in just one day, reports the Houston Chronicle. After various motions to move the trial to avoid the wrath of the locals, many of whom lost money in the energy trader’s collapse, the defense lawyers declared themselves happy with the jury.

With seven college degrees, the 12 men and women seem better educated than the average jury and they’ll probably need all their combined knowledge to follow the ins and outs of the intricate accounting games that brought the company down. Analysts say the government will want to cut to the chase and concentrate on the main events rather than drown the jury in minutiae of every deal.

And, of course, the government will be relying on smaller fish farther down the feeding chain, many of whom have already taken a deal to testify against Lay and Skilling. That gives the defense a huge opening to attack the witnesses credibility.

Back in the summer, I read Kurt Eichenwald’s massive book on the collapse of the company. My impression then was that the big fish had a good chance of swimming free. Certainly, as Eichenwald tells it, Lay and Skilling thought they were very creative business minds but their stupidity and that of those around them was what finally killed the company.

We should know by summer what the jury thinks.