The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously overturned former Virginia governor Robert McDonnell’s public corruption conviction and made it harder to prosecute public officials for alleged wrongdoing.
The court said it had no opinion on whether McDonnell should be retried under the stricter standards the decision imposes, but Chief Justice John Roberts described the former governor’s actions as “tawdry” in announcing the decision from the bench.
McDonnell’s promising political career was derailed by his entanglement with a businessman who showered McDonnell and his family with luxury gifts and financial benefits.
“If the court below determines that there is sufficient evidence for a jury to convict Governor McDonnell of committing or agreeing to commit an ‘official act,’ his case may be set for a new trial,” Roberts wrote. “If the court instead determines that the evidence is insufficient, the charges against him must be dismissed. We express no view on that question.”
Roberts added: “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.”
McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, were convicted by a federal jury in 2014, and McDonnell was close to reporting to prison before the Supreme Court decided to take his case.
The McDonnell case stems from more than $175,000 in loans and gifts – a Rolex watch, vacations, partial payments of a daughter’s wedding reception, among them – that the governor and his family received from Richmond businessman Jonnie Williams. Williams, the chief executive of Star Scientific, wanted state universities to perform important clinical tests on a dietary supplement the company had developed.
The gifts were not barred by Virginia law, and the tests were not conducted. But federal prosecutors said Williams’s generosity was part of an illegal quid pro quo arrangement. McDonnell’s part of the deal, they said, came in the form of meetings arranged to connect Williams with state officials, a luncheon Williams was allowed to throw at the governor’s mansion to help launch the product, and a guest list Williams was allowed to shape at a mansion reception meant for health-care leaders.
McDonnell and his lawyers said he never took any official state action to benefit Williams. He amassed an outpouring of bipartisan officials who told the court that upholding McDonnell’s conviction would criminalize the routine favors that politicians do for benefactors and give federal prosecutors too much power.
In a statement Monday afternoon, McDonnell expressed gratitude for the justices’ decision. “Today, a unanimous United States Supreme Court vacated my convictions, and it is a day in which my family and I rejoice and give thanks,” he said. “From the outset, I strongly asserted my innocence. . . . I have not, and would not, betray the sacred trust the people of Virginia bestowed upon me during 22 years in elected office. It is my hope that this matter will soon be over and that my family and I can begin to rebuild our lives.”
McDonnell was in Virginia Beach, Virginia, when he received word of the court’s decision.
Hank Asbill, one of McDonnell’s attorneys, noted that the defense team said in January 2015 that the legal battle would be a “marathon,” and he now believed they had “run that full race.” He said it was possible prosecutors could continue to press the case, though they had not yet indicated what their plans were.
Justice Department officials had no immediate comment.
“I think we’ve proved the governor didn’t get a fair trial because he was prosecuted on flawed legal instructions,” Asbill said.
In Monday’s ruling, Roberts wrote: “Setting up a meeting, calling another public official, or hosting an event does not, standing alone, qualify as an ‘official act.'”
He said that for prosecutors to prevail, they must identify a “question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy” that “may at any time be pending” or “may by law be brought” before a public official.
Secondly, the government must prove that the public official made a decision or took an action “on” that question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding, or controversy, or agreed to do so, Roberts wrote. “The issue here is whether arranging a meeting, contacting another official, or hosting an event – without more” qualifies, Roberts wrote.
He said that matter before a public official must be “of the same stripe as a lawsuit before a court, a determination before an agency or a hearing before a committee.”
Roberts said the government took too broad a view of when a politician’s actions can be viewed as nefarious.
“Conscientious public officials arrange meetings for constituents, contact other officials on their behalf, and include them in events all the time,” the chief justice wrote. “The basic compact underlying representative government assumes that public officials will hear from their constituents and act appropriately on their concerns – whether it is the union official worried about a plant closing or the homeowners who wonder why it took five days to restore power to their neighborhood after a storm.”
He said the government’s position “could cast a pall of potential prosecution over these relationships” if the union or group made some show of gratitude.
But the court seemed concerned that it could be seen as endorsing politics-as-usual, which has been cited by angry voters this year in elections.
Roberts took pains not to excuse McDonnell’s conduct. Even though McDonnell and his supporters said his conviction made routine acts performed by politicians illegal, Roberts disagreed.
“None of this, of course, is to suggest that the facts of this case typify normal political interaction between public officials and their constituents,” he wrote. “Far from it. But the government’s legal interpretation is not confined to cases involving extravagant gifts or large sums of money, and we cannot construe a criminal statute on the assumption that the government will ‘use it responsibly.'”
(c) 2016, The Washington Post · Robert Barnes
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One Response
This is really the most important case of the year and the one that affects us the most (bluntly, worrying about the safety of abortion is of no concern to us, and whether a state can ban mentally unbalance criminals from owning a gun isn’t something to get excited about). Along with the very public collapse of the prosecution of the police in Baltimore, this is a major blow against prosecutorial abuse. Our community is a politically weak minority whose very existence offends the dominant notion of political correctness, and so anything that impairs those who would oppress is good news.