Bribery Redefined by SCOTUS

[DaisyDay]

Supreme Court limits scope of anti-bribery law - SCOTUSblog

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a federal anti-bribery law does not make it a crime for state and local officials to accept a gratuity for acts that they have already taken. Writing for a six-justice majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh explained that state and local governments already regul

www.scotusblog.com

Basically, if an official gets paid before performing an act benefiting the payer, then that's bribery and prosecutable but if the payment is subsequent to the act, it is all good. So folks, keep your politicians and judges on retainer but save the bonuses for end of the year!

 

[FireDragon76]

Supreme Court limits scope of anti-bribery law - SCOTUSblog

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a federal anti-bribery law does not make it a crime for state and local officials to accept a gratuity for acts that they have already taken. Writing for a six-justice majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh explained that state and local governments already regul

www.scotusblog.com

Basically, if an official gets paid before performing an act benefiting the payer, then that's bribery and prosecutable but if the payment is subsequent to the act, it is all good. So folks, keep your politicians and judges on retainer but save the bonuses for end of the year!

So instead of bribery, we are left endorsing patronage?

If there is ever a consensus again in this country demanding actual justice, we need to have some impeachment hearings and reign in the nation's courts.

 

[Hank77]

Basically, if an official gets paid before performing an act benefiting the payer, then that's bribery and prosecutable but if the payment is subsequent to the act, it is all good.

Sorry, but I must disagree with this conclusion "it is all good." That is not the case. I suggest reading the short syllabus of this case and I think just that will make it clear why the court ruled as they did and how payments made after an official act can still be considered a bribe and be charged under section 666. I'll make a couple of examples from the text.

Federal and state law distinguish between two kinds of payments to
public officials—bribes and gratuities. Bribes are typically payments
made or agreed to before an official act in order to influence the public
official with respect to that future official act.

So we see that if a payment was agreed to (though not received) before the official act it's still a bribe, not a gratuity. Gratuities may be legal or illegal. So was the payment a bribe or was it a gratuity and if it was a gratuity was it legal or was it prohibited?

For example, Congress has established comprehensive prohibitions
on both bribes and gratuities to federal officials. If a federal official
accepts a bribe for an official act, federal bribery law provides for a 15-
year maximum prison sentence. See 18 U. S. C. §201(b). By contrast,
if a federal official accepts a prohibited gratuity, federal gratuities law
sets a 2-year maximum prison sentence. See §201(c).
...
As amended, the text of §666 now closely resembles the bribery provision for federal officials, §201(b), and makes it a crime for most state and local officials to “corruptly” solicit, accept, or agree to accept “anything of value” “intending to be influenced or rewarded in connection with” any official business or transaction worth $5,000 or more.

(1) The statutory text strongly suggests that §666—like §201(b)—
is a bribery statute, not a gratuities statute. The dividing line between
§201(b)’s bribery provision and §201(c)’s gratuities provision is that
bribery requires an official to have a corrupt state of mind and to
accept (or agree to accept) a payment intending to be influenced in an
official act. Section 666 shares the defining characteristics of §201(b)’s
bribery provision. By contrast, §666 bears little resemblance to
§201(c), which contains no express mens rea requirement. Pp. 7–8.

I think I understand what the court wrote to explain their decision and I think that the court ruled correctly.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-108_8n5a.pdf

 

[Hans Blaster]

So instead of bribery, we are left endorsing patronage?

If there is ever a consensus again in this country demanding actual justice, we need to have some impeachment hearings and reign in the nation's courts.

Someday we will have a Congress that values the rule of law and good government and they can fix most of the things the SC has broken. In this case it is just statutory law and not some principle based on the Constitution that lead to the ruling. Making the bribery statutes more explicit would be a good start. (The Anti-Corruption Act of 2025 has a nice ring to it.)

 

[JSRG]

Supreme Court limits scope of anti-bribery law - SCOTUSblog

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a federal anti-bribery law does not make it a crime for state and local officials to accept a gratuity for acts that they have already taken. Writing for a six-justice majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh explained that state and local governments already regul

www.scotusblog.com

Basically, if an official gets paid before performing an act benefiting the payer, then that's bribery and prosecutable but if the payment is subsequent to the act, it is all good. So folks, keep your politicians and judges on retainer but save the bonuses for end of the year!

That's not what the decision said.

A bribe is when you give someone something, or tell them you'll give them something, in order for them to do something. So if you say "I'll give you this if you do this" but only give it to them after the fact, that's still bribery. So to claim "if the payment is subsequent to the act, it is all good" isn't true.

And the fact that there is a difference between a payment (or promise of payment) before the fact or giving one after the fact with no prior promise is different is true. Giving someone something for doing something (or promising to do so) before the fact is a bribe. Giving someone something for doing something after the fact, with no prearranged agreement, is a gratuity, which can be legal or illegal depending on the circumstances. These are separate things. The dissent didn't disagree there was a difference between the two! The dispute was whether the federal statue as written applied to bribes and gratuities or only bribes.

Unfortunately, the linked SCOTUS Blog writeup doesn't make this fact as clear as it could have. They're usually pretty good with their synopses but didn't do a great job with this one.

For the record, I did read the opinion. I don't think it was a slam dunk for the dissent (which was arguing the statute in question applied to both bribes and gratuities), but I do think their argument was the stronger one.

And as Hank77 pointed out, there is an undisputed law elsewhere in the federal code that criminalizes corrupt gratuities, though its punishments are lesser.