EDITORIAL JUSTICE SERVED ENRON VERDICTS HELP RESTORE FAITH IN THE LAW AND MARKET.

SEEING that Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling used devious business tricks to defraud investors, employees, retirees and the California energy market, we can all take some satisfaction in their conviction on federal fraud and conspiracy charges.

This time, money wasn't enough to buy an acquittal or a slap on the wrist for rich and powerful defendants. The two former Enron executives are likely to spend the rest of their lives behind bars.

But the good news here is more than just that justice has been served. Enron's spectacular rise and fall brought some much-needed public scrutiny to corporate America, with big companies now forced -- by market pressures and the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act-- to pay more attention to matters of ethics.

This is a good and necessary correction, one that reaffirms the country's sense of the judicial system, as well as its faith in its economic institutions.