Accounting for an Injustice

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But it's not too late to make sure this ruling prevents prosecutors or judges from once again misusing the law to appease a popular desire to nail anyone in the vicinity of a corporate scandal like Enron's. Arthur Andersen, after all, was not tried on aiding Enron's "off balance sheet" activities, but on charges of a coverup.

The high court found a lower court judge failed to instruct the jury that it had to decide if Anderson had "the requisite consciousness of wrongdoing" in shredding Enron-related documents before it was subpoenaed. Withholding documents is not "necessarily corrupt" unless such intent can be proven, the justices stated. It wasn't in this case.

This ruling's basic reasoning - that a failure to assist government in an investigation isn't a crime by itself - should force Congress to reconsider its onerous requirements for record-keeping in the post-Enron accounting reform law known as Sarbanes-Oxley.

Restraint is always needed in fighting crime. People need "fair warning," as the court stated, that their conduct is illegal. Otherwise lives can be overturned in a rush to judgment.