The court, in a 6-3 vote Thursday, threw out an appeals court ruling that would have allowed the retrial of F. Scott Yeager, a former executive at Enron’s failed broadband venture, on charges for which a jury could not reach a verdict at his first trial.
But Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, did not completely shut the door to another trial.
Mr. Yeager sold Enron stock for more than $54 million before the company began a downward spiral that ended in bankruptcy in 2001.
In his first trial in 2005, he faced 125 counts and was acquitted of five, including four counts of wire fraud and one of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud. The jury could not reach a verdict on the remaining counts, which included insider trading and money laundering.
Mr. Yeager was later reindicted on 13 counts of insider trading and money laundering.
The issue for the court is whether a variation on the Constitution’s guarantee against double jeopardy applies in this situation: The jury votes not guilty on some charges, but fails to reach a verdict on others that are based upon the same essential facts as the charges that resulted in acquittal.
Prosecutors frequently retry defendants when juries cannot reach a verdict. They cannot pursue a defendant when juries return not guilty verdicts. This case was about what happens when there is a combination of those elements.
The court said that if the charges all rely on the same basic facts, the defendant’s acquittal on some charges “protects him from prosecution for any charge for which that is an essential element.”
Thursday’s decision reversed a ruling by the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for Fifth Circuit in New Orleans. That court said the jury “must have found when it acquitted Yeager that Yeager himself did not have any insider information.”
But the government has argued that the jury did not necessarily decide that issue, and Justice Stevens said the appeals court could take another look at it if it wishes. Such a reconsideration could allow Mr. Yeager to be tried again.
Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented.
“There is no clear, unanimous jury finding here,” Justice Scalia said, referencing the many counts on which the jury hung.
In another ruling, justices agreed to reinstate a roughly $500 million settlement of asbestos lawsuits against the Travelers Companies Inc.
Travelers had been named in lawsuits asserting that it had tried to hide dangerous health effects of asbestos. The company argued that asbestos claims be paid out of a trust created by Johns Manville in the 1980s and approved by a federal bankruptcy judge.
Travelers settled with several groups of plaintiffs with the caveat that federal courts make clear the company would not have to face any new similar lawsuits.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York overturned lower-court approval of the settlement, saying a bankruptcy judge lacks the authority to act so broadly.
The Supreme Court overturned that decision.