The ruling, a rare reversal of a jury verdict, is considered a big setback for the Justice Department, which had sought to portray Mr. Quattrone as a symbol of Wall Street excesses during the boom years.
A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan unanimously found that the judge's instructions to the jurors had failed to adequately require that they establish that Mr. Quattrone intended to thwart a government investigation.
"We cannot confidently say that if a rational jury was properly instructed," it would have found Mr. Quattrone guilty, the panel wrote.
The panel also ordered a new judge for a third trial if the government decides to bring one. It didn't fault the performance of the judge who presided over the first two trials but indicated that some comments by the judge could be considered more than simply 'impatience or annoyance'.
The case against Quattrone has always been a bit light, it centered on one one-line email message that Quattrone sent echoing the mail of a subordinate which followed CSFB internal rules at the time. The government has won a number of high profile cases not on criminal acts themselves but on 'obstruction of justice', e.g., Martha Stewart. It's a powerful tool but it has been used inappropriately.
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