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ARTHUR ANDERSEN LLP V. UNITED STATES (04-368)
Web-accessible at:
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/04-368.ZS.html
Argued April 27, 2005 -- Decided May 31, 2005
Opinion author: Rehnquist
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As Enron Corporation's financial
difficulties became public, petitioner, Enron's auditor,
instructed its employees to destroy documents pursuant to its
document retention policy. Petitioner was indicted under 18
U.S.C. sect. 1512(b)(2)(A) and (B), which make it a crime to
"knowingly ... corruptly persuad[e] another person
.... with intent to ... cause" that person to
"withhold" documents from, or "alter"
documents for use in, an "official proceeding." The
jury returned a guilty verdict, and the Fifth Circuit affirmed,
holding that the District Court's jury instructions
properly conveyed the meaning of "corruptly
persuades" and "official proceeding" in
sect.1512(b); that the jury need not find any consciousness of
wrongdoing in order to convict; and that there was no
reversible error.
Held: The jury instructions
failed to convey properly the elements of a "corrup[t]
persuas[ion]" conviction under sect.1512(b).
Pp. 6-12.
(a) This Court's traditional restraint in assessing federal
criminal statutes' reach, see, e.g., United States
v. Aguilar, 515
U.S. 593, 600, is particularly appropriate here, where the
act underlying the
conviction--"persua[sion]"--is by itself
innocuous. Even "persuad[ing]" a person "with
intent to ... cause" that person to
"withhold" testimony or documents from the Government
is not inherently malign. Under ordinary circumstances, it is
not wrongful for a manager to instruct his employees to comply
with a valid document retention policy, even though the policy,
in part, is created to keep certain information from others,
including the Government. Thus, sect.1512(b)'s
"knowingly ... corruptly persuades" phrase is key
to what may or may not lawfully be done in the situation
presented here. The Government suggests that
"knowingly" does not modify "corruptly
persuades," but that is not how the statute most naturally
reads."[K]nowledge" and "knowingly" are
normally associated with awareness, understanding, or
consciousness, and "corrupt" and
"corruptly" with wrongful, immoral, depraved, or
evil. Joining these meanings together makes sense both
linguistically and in the statutory scheme. Only persons
conscious of wrongdoing can be said to "knowingly ...
corruptly persuad[e]."And limiting criminality to
persuaders conscious of their wrongdoing sensibly allows
sect.1512(b) to reach only those with the level of culpability
usually required to impose criminal liability.See
Aguilar, supra, at 602. Pp. 6-9.
(b) The jury instructions failed to convey the requisite
consciousness of wrongdoing. Indeed, it is striking how little
culpability the instructions required. For example, the jury was
told that, even if petitioner honestly and sincerely believed its
conduct was lawful, the jury could convict. The instructions also
diluted the meaning of "corruptly" such that it
covered innocent conduct. The District Court based its
instruction on the Fifth Circuit Pattern Jury Instruction for
sect.1503, which defined "corruptly" as
"knowingly and dishonestly, with the specific intent to
subvert or undermine the integrity" of a proceeding.
However, the court agreed with the Government's insistence
on excluding "dishonestly" and adding the term
"impede" to the phrase "subvert or
undermine," so the jury was told to convict if it found
petitioner intended to "subvert, undermine, or
impede" governmental factfinding by suggesting to its
employees that they enforce the document retention policy.
These changes were significant. "[D]ishonest[y]" was
no longer necessary to a finding of guilt, and it was enough
for petitioner to have simply "impede[d]" the
Government's factfinding ability."Impede" has
broader connotations than "subvert" or even
"undermine," and many of these connotations do not
incorporate any "corrupt[ness]" at all. Under the
dictionary definition of "impede," anyone who
innocently persuades another to withhold information from the
Government "get[s] in the way of the progress of" the
Government. With regard to such innocent conduct, the
"corruptly" instructions did no limiting work
whatsoever. The instructions also led the jury to believe that
it did not have to find any nexus between the
"persua[sion]" to destroy documents and any
particular proceeding.In resisting any nexus element, the
Government relies on sect.1512(e)(1), which states that an
official proceeding "need not be pending or about to be
instituted at the time of the offense." It is, however,
quite another thing to say a proceeding need not even be
foreseen. A "knowingly ... corrup[t] persaude[r]"
cannot be someone who persuades others to shred documents under
a document retention policy when he does not have in
contemplation any particular official proceeding in which those
documents might be material. Cf. Aguilar, supra, at
599-600. Pp. 9-12.
374 F.3d 281, reversed and remanded.
Rehnquist,
C. J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
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