Court gives Nacchio 14 days to respond

By Jeff Smith, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published May 1, 2008 at 11:15 a.m.

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Joe Nacchio leaves the federal courthouse in Denver with his wife, Anne Esker, and son, Michael, on March 19, 2007.

An appellate court panel on Thursday ordered Joe Nacchio's defense team to respond in 14 days to a government petition seeking the reinstatement of his 2007 conviction.

The order came a day after federal prosecutors asked the full 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to review a three-judge panel's decision to overturn former Qwest CEO Nacchio's insider-trading conviction.

Thursday's development could be a good sign for the government.

"If courts are considering granting the petition (to review the case), it will request a response (from the defense)," Marcy Glenn, chairwoman of the appellate practice group at Holland & Hart in Denver, said after the government filing.

Glenn also said that in a case of this prominence, the court might request a response regardless. And the speed of the request shouldn't be a surprise because the appellate court has been handling the Nacchio case in an expedited fashion all along.

Nacchio's defense team declined comment.

The three-judge panel voted 2-1 in March to toss out Nacchio's conviction and order a new trial. The panel's majority said U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham had improperly prevented a defense witness from providing an economic analysis of Nacchio's stock sales.

In the petition this week, prosecutors argued that the panel had departed from precedent by restricting a district judge's discretion to exclude "unsupported expert opinions and unnecessary economic commentary."

The 10th Circuit hears only a handful of cases a year and only if a question involves one of "exceptional importance" or to "maintain uniformity" of previous court decisions.

Nacchio was convicted last year on 19 counts of insider trading in connection with selling $52 million of stock in April and May 2001. He was sentenced to six years in prison but has remained free on $2 million bail during his appeal.

• May 2, 2008

  8:46 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  SufferingFromFools writes:

  Froward69, you must be a conspiracy theorist. His prosecution went forward in the first place, because there is the appearance of inside trading.

• May 7, 2008

  3:19 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  RobinHood writes:

  "The law in a republic such as this is in danger and cannot stand if a large portion or a significant portion of the citizens of that republic come to believe that it is not evenly enforced. That is what is meant by equal justice under the law. It is not that you get the same sentence as everyone else, of course. It is that you are treated equally.

  If it is perceived that there is one law for the rich and one law for everybody else, the law will ultimately fall into disrespect."
  -- Chief Judge Edward J. Nottingham

  I'm stunned, but not shocked. Nacchio gets limousine treatment, while the rest of us persons of color get to ride in the back of the bus.

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