The Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned the conviction of the Arthur Andersen accounting firm for destroying Enron Corp.-related documents before the energy giant’s collapse.--msnbc
on edit: something i caught over on DU about this that bears mentioning:
Why would you need to do anything so slick when the Supreme Court is in your back pocket?
This result is contrary to my understanding of the rules of statutory construction as they apply to criminal statutes. The instructions expressly mentioned "intent," which is widely recognized to equal either "knowledge" (or in adverbial form "knowingly") OR purpose ("purposefully). However, this opinion says that the statute's use of the term "knowingly" also impliedly required "dishonesty." Additionally, the court ruled the instructions invalid because they didn't think that "intent" equated to "knowledge," which it most certainly does... Very perplexing.
Upon further reflection, I think the reporter must be mistaken about this point; there's no way the court could reach such an absurd conclusion. They probably ruled that this was a specific intent crime, and therefore certain other defenses inhered, and the wording confused the reporter.
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