Supreme Court considers when a ‘gift’ is really a bribe of officials
Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The Supreme Court met Friday to decide which cases it will hear, including one that would more closely define when a public official has taken a bribe.
The case involves a $3.2 billion sewer project in Birmingham, AL. Two county officials were convicted of taking bribes from construction companies that repaired and replaced the Jefferson County sewer system.
The Supreme Court is trying to decide whether anti-bribery laws can result in convictions even when the proof is sketchy whether public officials gave something in return for the money they took.
In other words, did they commit a crime by merely accepting money or must there also be proof they promised an illegal favor in return for the cash?
Lower courts said taking the money was enough to convict the two county officials and four contractors.
The evidence was based on an FBI investigation that began in 2002.
The defendants appealed the trial court’s judgment against them to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, which affirmed the convictions in a May 12, 2010, decision.
The appellate court’s ruling said, “We conclude the evidence at the trials overwhelmingly established the defendant-appellants’ guilt, and they have shown no reversible error in the district courts’ rulings, pre-trial or in the trials, in the cases consolidated.”
The main issue for the Supreme Court would be how it interprets Section 666 of the federal funds corruption statute.
The law forbids local government officials who are administering federal funds from “corruptly solicit[ing] or demand[ing] … or accept[ing] or agree[ing] to accept, anything of value from any person, intending to be influenced or rewarded in connection with any business, transaction, or series of transactions” of the local government involving $5,000 or more.
The law also requires a “corrupt” intent by the persons accepting the bribes.
County officials Chris McNair and Jack Swann said they had no corrupt intent.
The Justice Department brief says that in 1996 McNair approved contractors’ pay requests and contract modifications as no-bid contracts.
About the same time, McNair owned a photography studio that was renovated with materials and labor donated by two of the sewer project contractors, Rast Construction, Inc. and Roland Pugh Construction, Inc., the Justice Department’s brief says.
Pugh Construction and another contractor also paid to build a retirement home for McNair in Arkansas.
Swann, who negotiated no-bid contracts for the sewer project contractors, received materials and labor from them to renovate his home, the prosecutors’ brief says.
The sewer project contracts McNair and Swann negotiated or awarded were worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
During their trials, the county officials admitted receiving the services, but said they were acts of friendship rather than bribes.
Federal prosecutors say the county officials’ definition of gifts of friendship violates section 666 of the federal funds corruption statute.
Appeals courts have correctly and consistently ruled that public officials can be convicted of bribery “in cases involving an intent to exchange something of value for official acts, even where the official acts to be undertaken have not been determined with precision,” the government’s brief says.
The Supreme Court case is Rast v. U.S., Docket No. 10-516.
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