Posted on 12/08/2009 2:43:29 PM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A lawyer for former media baron Conrad Black urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to overturn his fraud conviction, and several justices asked whether the federal law at issue was too vague.
The Canadian-born Black, a member of Britain's House of Lords, has been in prison since March 2008, when he began serving a 6 1/2-year sentence for fraud and obstruction of justice.
Attorney Miguel Estrada, representing Black and two ex-colleagues who were found guilty of defrauding shareholders of one-time newspaper publishing giant Hollinger International Inc, argued before the Supreme Court that all convictions in the case must be overturned.
A U.S. jury in Chicago found the three men guilty of swindling the company out of $6.1 million by giving themselves illegal bonuses. Hollinger was once the world's third-largest publisher of English-language newspapers.
At issue in the case is a 28-word law that the U.S. Congress adopted in 1988 that makes it illegal for public officials and executives to commit fraud by depriving those they work for of the right to "honest services."
The law has been used in a number of high-profile business cases, including that of former Enron Corp Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling, whose case the Supreme Court is expected to hear in March.
It also has been used in a wide range of public corruption cases, including those of disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and two former Illinois governors, George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday considered two cases -- one involving Black and the other involving former Alaska legislator Bruce Weyhrauch, who was charged under the law.
Justice Antonin Scalia repeatedly criticized the law for being "inherently vague" and said Congress should have been more specific.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Conrad Black was more in favor of the USA and traditional family than any other publication owner in Canada or Britain. That’s why he’s been officiously and falsely attacked by the richest constituents and their judicial employees.
High Court: Vague law may free Conrad Black - NYP, 2009 December 9, by Paul Tharp
The imprisoned former publisher, who still sits in the British House of Lords, stands to have his conviction for looting $6.1 million from his collapsed company tossed by the US Supreme Court. The high court yesterday agreed to review his conviction, as well as the convictions of two other white-collar criminals, on the grounds that a single-sentence law hastily added by Congress to the stronger antitrust statutes is unconstitutional. In arguments yesterday, the high court hammered for an hour at vagueness in the law, raising prospects it might shoot down the section when its review is completed in about eight months. Justice Stephen Breyer chided one government lawyer, who pressed to keep Black behind bars, that of the 150 million workers in the US "I think possibly 140 million of them would flunk your test" of the law. Black, 65, who has long boasted he would beat the system, was able to focus on the law's narrow flaw, which said "failure to deliver honest services" is a felony, without offering any definitions of "honest services," said legal experts. The narrow law was tagged onto statutes in 1988 at the height of Wall Street's insider-trading and junk-bond scandals, and was used in Enron prosecutions it the late 1990s. Black, who's served barely two years of a 6½-year sentence, and two of his executives were convicted in 2007 of stealing $6.1 million from Hollinger, a newspaper publisher he controlled. The Supreme Court's ruling could also set free Enron's former CEO Jeffrey Skilling, who's served three years of a 24-year sentence. He's also submitting papers to fight the "honest services" clause. Conrad Black's ego could swell even larger if he succeeds as the convict who opened the cells of some of the most notorious white-collar criminals jailed in the past decade.
Baron Black of Crossharbour or Lord Black, in fact - he's a Lord, not a Knight, and is not entitled to be addressed as Sir (which is actually a lower rank than he holds).
Was not sure if he is still in the House of Lords, there has been several attempts to oust him in the last couple of years, as well as Jeffrey Archer, on the Tory side, or whether the title would stay after being expelled.
In any case, I did “Americanize” the salutation, him being a former Canadian. Correction noted and apology extended.
It’s just one of my things - whether they have any real value or not, I know a few people with titles, and I have wound up a fair expert on the honours system.
Lord Black is still allowed to sit in the House of Lords, but was expelled from his party so would have to sit on the cross benches unless they or another party took him in.
At the moment, there’s no way to remove a Life Peer from the Lords (there isn’t even a mechanism by which they can voluntarily resign their peerage, which does exist for hereditary peers) and while there are moves to introduce one, it probably won’t be retroactive.
In the past, Peers have been executed for murder or even treason - and they still didn’t lose their title. The only exception were four Lords (three Princes and Dukes of the British Royal Family who were also German royals, and a Viscount) all of whom fought for the Germans in World War I, and who were stripped of the British titles in 1919.
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