Conrad Black Prevails at Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has thrown out the government's conviction of Conrad Black:

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The U.S. Supreme Court found fault Thursday with the federal government's high-profile convictions of Enron's Jeffrey Skilling and former media mogul Conrad Black, rejecting the government's use of a key white-collar crime law on which part of the prosecutions were based.

The justices sent the cases back to two different lower courts to determine whether portions of Skilling and Black's convictions should be thrown out.

In ruling for Skilling and Black, the high court, in opinions by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, found fault with a federal law that gives prosecutors the authority to bring cases against executives who deprive companies of their honest services.

The ruling could have a significant impact on some white-collar crime prosecutions. The honest-services law has been a darling of government lawyers because it is broadly worded and gives them room to prosecute a wide range of conduct.

Ginsburg said the honest-services law should be confined only to cover fraud schemes involving bribery and kickbacks. Ginsburg said parts of Skilling's conviction were flawed, but said the flaws did not necessarily require reversal of his conviction on conspiracy charges.

Based on the court's ruling in the Skilling case, Ginsburg said in a second opinion that the jury instructions in Conrad Black's case were incorrect.

The court expressed no opinions on whether the errors in the Skilling and Black prosecutions were harmless, and instead ordered lower courts to consider those issues.

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