Supreme Court Unanimously Tosses Out Andersen Accounting Case

Whoa! From CNN:

The Supreme Court Tuesday unanimously threw out the conviction of accounting firm Arthur Andersen, a symbolic victory for a nearly defunct company torn apart in a document-shredding case involving the fallen energy giant Enron.

The ruling is a major defeat for the federal government in its aggressive efforts to fight corporate wrongdoing.

In a 9-0 opinion, the justices concluded that "jury instructions at issue simply failed to convey the requisite consciousness of wrongdoing." Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote the opinion, saying, "Indeed, it is striking how little culpability the instructions required."

The opinion came unusually quickly after oral arguments in the case were held April 27, a clear sign the justices found the government's arguments quite unpersuasive. Lawyers for the Justice Department faced tough questioning from the bench during the arguments.

The ruling threw the case back to lower federal courts to sort out, but it gave no indication whether Andersen would be granted a new trial.

Andersen officials were convicted in June 2002 of obstructing justice for destroying thousands of documents related to the firm's work for Enron, the energy company that filed for bankruptcy in December 2001 after a huge accounting scandal made it a symbol of the corporate abuse and excess of the late 1990s.

Hmmm.

So - considering how very rarely this court ever rules unanimously, is it worth wondering whether Bush's Justice Department - with its many close ties to Andersen companies like Enron and Halliburton - purposely cooked the cake for this result?