Tag: USSC

Louisiana readies for change in "honest services" with new "sweet potato" processing plant

As the rest of the nation ponders the implications of the USSC decision narrowing “honest services” to cases involving alleged bribes and kick-backs, our friends in Louisiana stand ready to open what agriculture giant “ConAgra thinks… is the first factory dedicated to sweet potatoes in North America”.

In Skilling v. United States, Justice Ginsburg’s majority opinion acknowledged that in prior case law there was “considerable disarray” about what it means to deprive omeone of honest services, at least at the outer boundaries of the doctrine.  But six justices agreed that at its core, the doctrine clearly prohibits schemes involving bribes and kickbacks.  The prototypical honest-services fraud case, according to the Court, involves a public official who accepts a bribe or kickback from a third party in exchange for awarding a contract; even if the government incurs no tangible loss, it has been deprived of the official’s honest services…

The implications of the Court’s holding that the honest-services theory of mail fraud encompasses only bribery and kickbacks are significant, to say the least.  The government should expect an avalanche of legal challenges on both direct and collateral review.  Any defendant whose conviction possibly rests on an honest- Continue reading “Louisiana readies for change in "honest services" with new "sweet potato" processing plant”

We are all captives of the picture in our head… – so, whose head pictured honest-services fraud?

Prosecutors have used the following subterfuge with alarming success: Threaten a terrified white-collar defendant with a long jail term in a maximum-security prison with violent offenders, unless he or she pleads guilty to honest-services fraud. In return, the defendant will receive a much-reduced sentence in a relatively cushy federal prison camp.

In this way, prosecutors are guaranteed a conviction. They also don’t have to run the risk of a trial by jury. Even judges have become irrelevant, because they essentially rubberstamp the prison sentence the prosecutors recommend. Cagily, prosecutors, in effect, have usurped the entire legal process for themselves.

Although the columnist (h/t Huffington Post) used far fewer words, his take on honest-services fraud is a summary of the Motion to Dismiss the Indictment for Outrageous Government Conduct filed in USA v Scruggs – which, in turn, brought to mind the Lippman quote:

We are all captives of the picture in our head – our belief that the world we have experienced is the world that really exists.

Unflattering pictures of Dick Scruggs and Paul Minor held some very powerful heads captive.  All it took was for each to commit Continue reading “We are all captives of the picture in our head… – so, whose head pictured honest-services fraud?”