In a result that was anticipated by this earlier post, the ever-observant Peter Lattman reports this afternoon that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in this 61-page opinion has overturned the conviction of former Credit Suisse First Boston investment banker Frank Quattrone on witness tampering and obstruction of justice charges. The Second Circuit remanded the case to the District Court for yet another trial (this will be the third) and, in an unusual move, ordered that U.S. District Judge Richard Owen — the judge of Quattrone’s first two trials — be replaced for Quattrone’s third trial.
The Second Circuit’s opinion essentially concludes that there was sufficient evidence to convict Quattrone of the charges, but that the jury instructions that Judge Owen were fatally flawed. Here is the meat of the decision on that issue, which relies heavily on the U.S. Supreme Court’s reasoning in its Arthur Andersen decision:
Quattrone claims that both charges incorrectly explained the nexus requirement in that each allowed the jury to convict without finding that Quattrone knew that the relevant subpoena or document request called for documents he sought to destroy. Quattrone also argues forcefully that the second portion of that section of the charge, presented in the alternative, is error. He argues that the instruction allowed the jury to find a nexus as a matter of law merely if it found that Quattrone ìhad reason to believe [the documents] were within the scope of the grand juryís investigation.î
In 