Count 13 on the indictment is the tough one: Obstruction of justice - ie, Conrad Black carrying boxes down the 10 Toronto Street stairwell, as captured by the security video. This is the one that some of the wise old Chicago legal analysts who hang around the sidewalks in hopes of getting interviewed by CZZZ-AM, Queen Maud Gulf's newstalk leader, assure all us naive Canucks that the big guy's going down for.

Yes, there was an in-house "document retention policy" that Conrad was clearly flipping the finger at, and yes, there was a court order by a judge in Toronto, though the Ontario Superior Court has declined to take any action in respect of Lord Black's apparent breach. But in her instructions to the jury Judge Amy was explicit that, under US law, "obstruction of justice" means you have to obstruct an "official proceeding" - ie, not Bloggs Security's guidelines and procedures. Furthermore, it has to be an "official proceeding" in the United States - an Ontario court order isn't going to cut it. Patrick Fitzgerald can't prosecute obstruction of Canadian justice.

So to convict on this charge you have to find that Black was seeking to obstruct at least one of three proceedings: a) the SEC investigation; b) the grand jury's criminal investigation; c) or any forthcoming case before the US District Court in Chicago (the US Attorney's investigation alone does not qualify as an "official proceeding").

Was Conrad seeking to obstruct the SEC investigation? I don't think a reasonable person could conclude so. Every document in the boxes the SEC already had. Could he have been seeking to obstruct a criminal case that had not yet begun? In theory, possible. But that's not exactly a ringing proof of criminal intent - and furthermore he has what most of us would regard as an entirely plausible explanation: He'd been served with an eviction order from his Toronto office so he had to get his stuff out anyway.

Nevertheless, this is the one the experts seem inclined to think is just too obvious for a jury to ignore. As Mr Mahmoud, the security guard, said, "Mr Conrad Black, I never saw him carrying boxes before." As it happens, one of the defence witnesses, called to testify entirely about other matters, mentioned en passant to me that he had seen Conrad carrying and loading boxes on a previous occasion. So apparently it's not an unprecedented sight even for chaps with chauffeurs and butlers. The fact that none of the Black legal team thought to ask this guy about the box-loading stuff is testament perhaps to the somewhat desultory witness-preparation procedures of the defence.

Still, here's the thing: For this charge to stick, all 12 jurors have to agree Black was seeking to obstruct the same "proceeding". It's not enough for five jurors to think he was obstructing the SEC investigation and another seven to think he was obstructing a forthcoming criminal trial. That makes it a slightly trickier proposition. Around the court, you'll hear folks say that, if Black walks on the non-competes, convicting him on obstruction is an easy way for the jury to demonstrate how sophisticated they are. Other legal experts tell me a basic equity issue comes into play: if he's found not guilty on the non-competes, you can't expose him to 20 years in jail for "obstructing" a proceeding in which there's no underlying crime. Yes, that's more or less what happened to Scooter Libby and Martha Stewart, but in both cases each was specifically prosecuted for the peripheral offence alone.

That sounds right to me. This was the most shameless jurisdictional overreach by a government which banged on incessantly about a Toronto judge's order as if the Northern District of Illinois had annexed Ontario. It hasn't. And, without that Superior Court order, there's no there there. Conrad Black should be acquitted of obstruction.