GLUV Corp (fka GVRP)

[BullNBear52]

I went back and read the article on AA that I posted. #msg-6522671. Sounds like this one hits a little close to home. ;)

Andersen's appeal was backed by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. It argued in a friend-of-the-court filing that broad characterization of "obstruction" used in the jury instructions would also unfairly punish criminal attorneys who advise their clients to withhold evidence in legal ways.

Someone once suggested to Nixon (prior to the subpoena for the WH tapes over Watergate) that he take the tapes out onto the south lawn and burn them. Nixon passed on that saying they were part of history. And of course we now know the rest of the story.

Back to the AA case. You're correct that the courts have to rule on the law whether we as observers like the outcome or not. (The recent debacle in FL over Schiavo is a case in point for some who did not like those opinions either.)

The judge blew the jury instruction in the AA case and the Supremes rightly tossed the conviction.

In a unanimous opinion, justices said the former Big Five accounting firm's June 2002 conviction was improper. It said the jury instructions at trial were too vague and broad for jurors to determine correctly whether Andersen obstructed justice.

"The jury instructions here were flawed in important respects," Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for the court.

However if I can play Monday morning QB maybe the case was flawed in how the prosecution brought the case to begin with. (BTW I'm no lawyer so feel free to correct me.)

Instead of singling out the Enron document destruction as a reason to put AA on trial; it seems to me that the prosecution could have been broader and brought a RICO statute violation against AA showing a pattern of auditing irregularities and subsequent document destruction tied in with it.

A good article in today's Times could certainly help a prosecutor build such a case. Going back to Waste Management the pattern of abuses appears to be clear at least to me.

#msg-6559972