In a decision that stunned plenty of legal beagles, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review Conrad Black's fraud conviction. One lawyer I spoke to said it's a “one-in-a-million” chance that SCOTUS agrees to review a criminal conviction.
But review, they will. (They will not be reviewing Black's obstruction of justice conviction.) Black has been in jail in Florida since March, 2008 on a 6 1/2 year stretch. The court will review his case in October.
From SCOTUS Blog:
Docket: 08-876
Title: Black, et al. v. United States
Issue: Whether the “honest services” clause of 18 U.S.C. § 1346 applies in cases where the jury did not find – nor did the district court instruct them that they had to find – that the defendants “reasonably contemplated identifiable economic harm,” and if the defendants’ reversal claim is preserved for review after they objected to the government’s request for a special verdict.