Lawyers don’t give Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling much chance of getting their convictions in the Enron trial overturned on appeal, reports the Houston Chronicle.

The main points they will probably argue are that the judge should have moved the trial from Houston, should have separated the trials, should have granted immunity to defense witnesses, should have been more thorough in picking the jury and should not have instructed the jury that deliberately looking the other way when bad stuff was going on was enough to support the fraud charges.

Local lawyers say the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals is unlikely to decide the judge abused his discretion in any of these matters. One defense attorney tells the paper, “The 5th Circuit would rather set the courthouse on fire than question a judge’s discretion.”

And it’s interesting to see Kurt Eichenwald’s analysis of the trial. He’s absolutely right that even if these technicalities upset the jury verdict, the overwhelming amount of evidence the government put up showed that these executives were responsible for what happened or at least criminally negligent in ignoring it.

He offers this very cogent explanation of how tough but successful executives fell into a life of crime: “It was not simply that the ethics of the corporate world changed overnight; the ever-rising bubble of market prices created a sense of invincibility among corporate executives, who read market delusions as proof of their own genius. Arrogance gave way to recklessness, which in turn opened the door to criminality.”

Of course, even understanding this history won’t stop it from being repeated. The next time, a company thinks that it’s re-engineered the fundamental of business, it is likely to fall into the same delusional trap. If you’re so smart you can’t fail, then the crimes on the way to success won’t matter. That’s what Lay and Skilling thought and it is likely to happen next time senior executives think they’re leading a managerial revolution.