The Justice Department filed its argument with the high court late Tuesday.

It will hear arguments April 27 on whether U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon's instructions to the jury were so broad that jurors could have convicted a company that innocently destroyed documents in the normal course of business.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had upheld the 2002 conviction and Harmon's instructions to the jury.

Andersen "portrays its document destruction campaign, in the face of a looming SEC investigation, as wholly legitimate conduct -- as if American corporations routinely find it proper to instruct their employees to lay waste to vast troves of documents when a government investigation is viewed as highly probable. Nothing could be farther from the truth," the government said.

At issue are jury instructions about whether employees who asked for document destruction were "corrupt persuaders," how aware employees had to be that they were committing a crime and how far along the SEC investigation had to be to trigger a crime.

Business groups have filed friend of the court briefs backing Andersen's argument that innocent behavior could have been punished in the case and could set a dangerous precedent for American businesses.

Arthur Andersen once had 28,000 U.S. employees, but it largely dissolved after its indictment. Many of those employees went with the accounting firm's clients to the other firms. It now has about 200 employees.

The firm was found guilty, and Harmon sentenced Arthur Andersen to the maximum possible sentence of a $500,000 fine and five years' probation.

-- Mary Flood