On March 20, 2007, Chief Judge Michael Boudin of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled that the statute under which Tobin was convicted "is not a close fit" for what Tobin did, and questioned whether the government showed that Tobin intended to harass. However, it did not void the conviction entirely as Tobin's lawyers sought, saying that conspiracy jurisprudence did not require the level of proof Tobin claimed it did. It remanded it to district court for retrial, believing that a properly instructed jury could possibly return a conviction on the basis of his actions alone.[40] Federal prosecutors said they were reviewing the decision to consider whether to appeal it in turn, or retry.[41]