In Snyder v United States, No. 23-108, 2024 US LEXIS 2843 (Jun 26, 2024), the defendant was an Indiana mayor convicted under 18 U.S.C. § 666 for steering $1 million in city contracts to a local truck dealership, which later paid him $13,000. He defended the case claiming that the payment was for consulting services. He was not charged in state court with bribery, nor was he disciplined for violating municipal gift rules.
The question the case presented was whether § 666—which prohibits certain state and local officials from “corruptly” soliciting or accepting “anything of value” “intending to be influenced or rewarded in connection with” certain official business—makes it a crime to accept gratuities after the official act is performed. 18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(1)(B). Although the provision clearly applies to bribes, it does not expressly refer to gratuities which can have incidental value. The Court held that the statute does not prohibit the receipt of gratuities. In so holding, Justice Kavanaugh writing for the majority, articulated six specific reasons.
Text. Although modeled after the federal bribery statute which has a provision for gratuities with a lesser penalty and without the “corruptly” mens rea requirement, 18 U.S.C. § 201(c), the Court observed that § 666 has no such provision. To adopt the government’s position, therefore, would lump bribes and gratuities into one provision with the same significant penalty. 2024 US LEXIS 2843, at *16-17.
Statutory history. The Court noted that within two years of its enactment, Congress eliminated the gratuities language from § 666, which certainly suggested that it chose to abandon regulation of gratuities for state and local officials under these circumstances. Id. at *17.
Statutory structure. The Court also emphasized that unlike § 666, no other provision of the United States Code prohibits bribes and gratuities in the same provision (with the same mens rea and penalty). The absence of a separate gratuities provision in § 666, the Court concluded, reinforces the view that the statute is simply a bribery statute. Id. at *17-18.
Punishments. Bribery under § 666 is punishable by 10 years’ imprisonment while accepting a gratuity under § 201(c) is punishable by two years. The Court found no rational explanation for such sentencing disparity, which supported the notion that § 666 does not apply to gratuities, especially given that it could apply to incidental payments. Id. at *18-19.
Federalism. Noting that state and local governments regulate their officials in a variety of different ways, the Court observed that Congress may well have wanted to leave the matter of gratuities to the states. Id. at *19-21.
Fair notice. Finally, the Court relied on the concept of “fair notice.” It observed that the statute could be read to ban all gratuities, no matter how trivial, leaving to the government the job of interpretation to “make atextual exceptions on the fly” for the trivial gratuities. 2024 US LEXIS 2843, at *22. Noting that such “lines are unknown and unknowable” to the state and local officials subject to the act, the Court concluded that it “cannot construe a criminal statute on the assumption that the Government will use it responsibly.’” Id. at *24 (quoting McDonnell v. United States, 579 US 550, 576 (2016)). 2024 US LEXIS 2843, at *21-22.
Justice Gorsuch concurred, noting that whether the holding is premised on inferences from the word “corruptly,” the statute’s history, structure and penalty, or the concept of fair notice, the “ancient rule of lenity” is “what’s at work behind [the] decision, just as it is in so many others. Rightly so.” 2024 US LEXIS 2843, at *30. The “bottom line is that. . .any fair reader of this statute would be left with a reasonable doubt about whether it covers the defendant’s charged conduct.” Id. *29.
Justice Jackson, with whom Justice Sotomayor and Justice Kagan joined, dissented. She reasoned that the plain text covers gratuities as “rewards” under the statute and that other statutes do as well. “[R]eading § 666 to prohibit gratuities just as it always has poses no genuine threat to common gift giving, but does honor Congress’ intent to punish rewards corruptly accepted by government officials in ways that are functionally indistinguishable from taking a bribe.” 2024 U.S. LEXIS 2843, at *59.
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Snyder is another illustration of the Court’s strict textual analysis. Moreover, it underscores the importance of fair notice and, as Justice Gorsuch emphasizes, the role of the rule of lenity in limiting the reach of federal criminal statutes. While this holding applies to a very narrow class of cases, the lawyers at Willey & Chamberlain make it our job to keep up with changes in the law now matter how broad or narrow because even the narrowest ruling can help defend a federal criminal case. Contact us for help.