Although such matters are notoriously unpredictable, the SCOTUS blog — the premier U.S. Supreme Court blog — reports that observors of the oral argument earlier today on Arthur Andersen’s appeal to the Supreme Court of its witness tampering conviction unanimously reported that the Justices appeared to favor Andersen’s side of the argument strongly. In particular, Justice Scalia expressed incredulity at the government’s position:

“You want criminal liability to attach to that?” Justice Scalia asked, referring to Andersen in-house lawyer Nancy Temple’s email. “You want somebody to go to jail?”

Here is the Washington Post report on the argument.