Justices of the Supreme Court on Monday voiced deep concern over the way Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling's Houston jury was chosen as well as the law used to convict him. But at the same time, justices voiced reluctance to make sweeping changes. With Skilling's family looking on from the back of the marble-pillared courtroom, several justices said they were irked by the five-hour jury selection conducted by U.S. District Judge Sim Lake in the 2006 trial of Skilling and the late Enron chairman Ken Lay. Justice Stephen Breyer suggested that jury selection was troubling enough to call into question whether Skilling had received a fair trial. 'I'm genuinely worried,' Breyer said. But Breyer and others noted they would be loath to take discretion away from a trial judge and get 'into the business of running the trial court.' Skilling, the former CEO of Enron, is serving a sentence in excess of 24 years in federal prison in suburban Denver. A jury convicted him of 19 counts of conspiracy, securities fraud, insider trading and lying to auditors in connection with the 2001 collapse of Enron. Skilling's conviction rests in large measure on a federal law that makes it illegal to deprive business or government of 'honest services.' Several justices appeared concerned that the honest services law is vague and that any employee who lies might be committing a federal felony. Sri Srinivasan, the lawyer who argued for the imprisoned Skilling, told the high court that bias was so pervasive in Houston after Enron's 2001 fall that the judge should not have taken potential jurors' word that they could render a fair verdict based on the evidence. Srinivasan likened the Skilling case to the Oklahoma City bombing trial, which was moved to Denver because of doubts that the bomber, Timothy McVeigh, could get a fair trial in the community where the 1995 blast took 168 lives. He noted jury selection in that case took more than 18 days, but only five hours in Skilling's trial. Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben argued that the selection process was sufficient to find a fair jury because of a 70-question, 14-page written questionnaire that prospective jurors filled out. Dreeben said the judge in the case 'had that juror right in front of him, eyeball to eyeball.' In such instances, Dreeben said, a jurist can observe a lot about a person that won't make it into a transcript. But Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that the judge failed to strike a prospective juror who claimed to be a victim of Enron's dissolution. 'I don't know,' Sotomayor said. 'I would find it strange that we would permit jurors who are victims of the crime to serve as jurors.' The juror was eliminated by one or more of the lawyers, who are not required to state a reason for doing so. Several justices appeared concerned that the 'honest services' law is vague and that any employee who lies might be committing a federal felony. Srinivasan argued the law could mean an employee using a business computer for private use could be as guilty as Skilling. Justice Antonin Scalia, who has previously voiced his displeasure with the law, asked Dreeben if the 'honest services' statute might is too sweeping -- as Skilling contends -- even if it does cover some crimes. Using the crime of murder as an example, Scalia said: 'Just because you can pick something that everybody would agree comes within a denial of 'honest services,' doesn't mean (there is always) sufficient content to support a criminal prosecution.' Dreeben argued that the Skilling conviction was a 'logical extension of other non-disclosure cases,' referring to executives and government officials who failed to disclose ulterior motives for their actions. A central allegation in the Enron investigation was that company executives misled investors about Enron's plummeting finances in order to prop up the Peter Henning, a Wayne State University law professor who specializes in white collar cases, said his best guess is that the court will grant Skilling a retrial on the honest services issue and skirt the dangerous waters of jury selection. But Henning also said he doesn't think the high court wants to overturn the entire law and send the honest services issue back to Congress again, as it did in the late 1980s. Sam Buell, a former Enron prosecutor who is currently teaching law at Duke University, said he thinks the accounting fraud in Enron clearly comes under the 'honest services' law. Buell agreed it would be difficult for this court to address the jury issue without creating massive problems for trial courts. He thinks it more likely the court will carve out a clearer 'honest services' definition and deal with the jury issue very narrowly and just in this case. 'I think it likely the government wouldn't retry Skilling if some charges are dropped and they can work out a deal. It's very difficult to redo a trial this many years later,' Buell said. The high court is likely to decide the Skilling case by the end of June. 