Justices appear willing to limit bribery law used in corruption cases

This story was originally reported in January. It's been updated following today’s oral arguments.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday for an Indiana case that could rewrite the rules for prosecutors trying to convict public officials for corruption for a vast swath of the country.

The central issue in the case, which the court put on its docket in December, is whether prosecutors must prove that public officials had an explicit agreement in place that they would get something valuable in exchange for a corrupt act in order to be convicted under the federal theft or bribery statute for state and local officials. That section of the law is the most commonly used provision in public corruption cases, targeting roughly 100 people a year.

Federal appeals courts in most of the country say prosecutors don’t have to prove that a “quid pro quo” arrangement existed to secure a conviction. Those courts say the government can prove corruption even if an official gets a “gratuity” after the fact. But judges in a few jurisdictions insist that prosecutors have to prove a quid pro quo arrangement existed.

“Whether people may spend years in federal prison should not turn on the happenstance of where they reside,” wrote lawyers for former Portage, Indiana, Mayor James Snyder in a petition to the Supreme Court. “Yet, as it stands, public servants, constituents and others in New York, Chicago and Miami can spend up to 10 years in prison for conduct that is not a federal crime in Boston or Houston. The current arbitrary disparity cries out for this court’s resolution.”

The justices on Monday appeared sympathetic to Snyder’s argument that the federal bribery statute is vague and could be applied to all kinds of innocuous gratuities given every day, such as an apple to a teacher or a gift card to a garbage collector.

Snyder turned to the high court after he was convicted of taking $13,000 from a trucking company that won city contracts to provide garbage trucks. Snyder maintains that the payment was a valid transaction with his consulting business.

Snyder’s lawyers said the former mayor was trying to supplement his $62,000 government salary during the Great Recession with the consulting business, which is allowed under Indiana law. The mayor, according to his attorneys, “was financially strapped and owed tax penalties to the IRS” when he sought outside income. They say he helped the trucking company executives with issues like compliance with the then-new Affordable Care Act and technology issues.

Prosecutors, though, said Snyder tailored the specifications of the city contract so that Great Lakes Peterbilt would be the only competitive bidder. They said he was in frequent contact with the brothers who owned the company in the days before the bids were due. And they said Snyder provided several conflicting explanations about what the $13,000 was for.

When Snyder appealed his conviction, he argued that the payment was a gratuity rather than a bribe, and that the federal bribery law shouldn’t apply.

But a Chicago-based appeals court disagreed. The law, a three-judge panel noted, doesn’t actually use the words “bribe” or “gratuity.” Instead, it describes actions that “influenced or rewarded” a public official, the appeals court said, which would cover both bribes and gratuities. The statute Snyder was convicted under, referred to as “666” because of its number in the federal criminal code, makes it illegal to “corruptly” accept anything over $5,000 in value with the intention of being “influenced or rewarded” for an official act, regardless of whether there was a prior quid-pro-quo agreement.

Snyder’s lawyers said decisions that reached the opposite conclusion by two other appeals courts in different parts of the country should make the Chicago-based court reconsider its long-held stance, but the judges declined.

That clear conflict, Snyder’s lawyers told the Supreme Court, required the justices to intervene. “The battle lines are drawn, and only this court can break the logjam and restore uniformity on the meaning of an important federal criminal statute,” they wrote. “Officials and citizens across the country should not be left guessing when the everyday hustle and bustle of local politics becomes a federal crime.”

That issue was at the heart of much of the justices’ questions, as they grappled with the word “corruptly” and how people are supposed to know where the line is.

“What is innocuous and what is not?” Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked Colleen Roh Sinzdak, the government’s attorney, at one point. “And just as important, how is the official supposed to know ahead of time?”

In an amicus brief, a group of criminal defense attorneys raised the same issue, arguing that the Chicago-based court interpreted the law incorrectly.

“Millions of state and local government employees could face prosecution for a wide variety of conduct, with nothing short of a prosecutor’s own imagination as a check on how [the bribery law] could be used,” wrote attorneys for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

“Most local governments in the United States are run by part-time officials, many of whom maintain other careers outside their government service. But suddenly every car sold, every insurance policy written, every will drafted and every tooth pulled could be the hook for [criminal] liability if a prosecutor could characterize it as a gratuity for an official’s past conduct. The corrosive effect of that result on the relationships between local officials and their constituents cannot be overstated,” they added.

But the prosecutors told the high court that those fears were overblown. The federal law in question, they noted, specifies that defendants have to act “corruptly” in order to be convicted.

During questioning, Sinzdak argued that there is a “break” in the statute that protects such innocent conduct as described above by forcing prosecutors to prove that the gift-taker did so knowing that it was wrongful.

“Congress was not doing something wild and crazy,” Sinzdak said. She also said that “corruptly” has been defined through other court rulings as “immoral” or “wrongful,” offering a roadmap that would ward off prosecutions for innocent conduct.

It’s unclear whether the change that Snyder’s lawyers want the high court to make would even help the former Portage mayor.

“The government provided evidence that petitioner received not just a gratuity but a quid pro quo bribe in connection with the city of Portage’s truck purchases,” they told the justices in a petition. Prosecutors at trial showed that Snyder rigged the bidding process in favor of the trucking company, they argued. “A reasonable jury would readily have inferred that petitioner would not have done so absent a quid pro quo agreement or understanding with the [owners].”

The Supreme Court’s decision to take the case has already impacted at least one high-profile corruption case. The trial of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan was delayed from April until October, because the high court’s interpretation of the bribery statute could have an impact on Madigan's fate. Prosecutors charged Madigan with 22 racketeering and bribery charges in 2022, many related to his relationship with the power company Commonwealth Edison and his private law practice for property tax appeals.

The high court is expected to issue a decision in the Indiana case by the end of June.