Word: e-mailed
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...that, many saw it as a litmus test for cases against others who were thought to have had a role in causing last year's financial crisis. But the case may ultimately have much greater significance. The not-guilty outcome may signal the end of the era of e-mail prosecutions...
John Coffee, a law professor at Columbia University, says the Bear Stearns hedge-fund case, which jurors decided in less than a day, will make prosecutors think twice before bringing a case that hinges on e-mail. Coffee once called e-mail evidence "the biggest advancement in law enforcement since the two-way radio." But the Bear Stearns case and others have caused Coffee to reconsider how powerful e-mails are in court. "The jury was totally unconvinced," says Coffee. "It does not mean all white-collar cases will not go forward, but I do think it will cause prosecutors...
Still, legal experts say executives and others could end up getting bitten when they hit "Reply." Law professor Richard Painter of the University of Minnesota says e-mail will continue to be admitted as evidence and play an important role, particularly in white-collar prosecutions. "The fact of the matter is that people say things they shouldn't by e-mail," says Painter. "So as long as we continue to use e-mail, you are going to see it in cases...
Nevertheless, the days of e-mails driving prosecutions may be coming to an end. Eliot Spitzer exploded e-mail onto the legal scene in the early part of this decade. As New York attorney general, Spitzer used internal e-mails sent by analysts to prove that Wall Street firms were pushing stocks their professionals didn't believe were good investments just to generate investment-banking fees. In one famous case, former Merrill Lynch analyst Henry Blodget told investors to buy stocks about which he privately wrote in e-mails to colleagues were "horrible," a "disaster" and a "POS," or piece...
Since then, e-mail has played an increasingly important role in prosecutions. Unlike wiretaps, e-mails eliminate the problem of entrapment. They are records of what someone was saying voluntarily, on their own. Accounting firm Arthur Andersen was indicted for its role in Enron's financial fraud in part because of an e-mail that told employees to eliminate any unnecessary paperwork. A shredding party ensued. In the Martha Stewart insider-trading case, jurors said one of the more damaging pieces of evidence had to do with the fact that Stewart tried to alter an e-mail that had been...