In the final case of its current term, a unanimous Supreme Court vacated former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s corruption conviction, disagreeing with how his alleged criminal acts were defined.
The stakes are high for McDonnell, who is facing a two-year prison sentence in the case. The McDonnell case is about the definition of alleged “official acts” undertaken by McDonnell to benefit a businessman, and if those acts were actually bribes.
Link: Read The Decision
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the eight Justices, said that “given the court's interpretation of official act, the district court's jury instructions were erroneous, and the jury may have convicted Governor McDonnell for conduct that is not unlawful. Because the errors in the jury instructions are not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, the Court vacates Governor McDonnell's convictions.”
Roberts also said that "in addition to being inconsistent with both text and precedent, the Government’s expansive interpretation of ‘official act’ would raise significant constitutional concerns." However, the Court ruled against two other claims made by McDonnell’s attorneys.
McDonnell and his wife were convicted under a handful of laws that make it a crime to take money or other valuable things in return for the exercise of “official acts” in government, at the national, state or local level. Congress, in passing those laws, however, did not specify what “official acts” would be covered.
The Court considered whether “official action” is limited to “exercising actual governmental power, threatening to exercise such power, or pressuring others to exercise such power, and whether the jury must be so instructed.”
“To qualify as an ‘official act,’ the public official must make a decision or take an action on that question or matter, or agree to do so. Setting up a meeting, talking to another official, or organizing an event—without more—does not fit that definition of ‘official act,’” said Roberts.
He concluded that “there is no doubt that this case is distasteful; it may be worse than that. But our concern is not with tawdry tales of Ferraris, Rolexes, and ball gowns. It is instead with the broader legal implications of the Government’s boundless interpretation of the federal bribery statute.”
For now, federal prosecutors will need consider if and how McDonnell would face a new trial under the Court’s definitions in the McDonnell decision.
