Jeffrey K. Skilling v. United States (561 U.S. 358)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 24, 2010 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 561 U.S. 358 · 130 S. Ct. 2896
- Decided
- June 24, 2010
- Term
- October Term 2009
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
OPINION OF THE COURT [561 U.S. 367] Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court. In 2001, Enron Corporation, then the seventh highest-revenue-grossing company in America, crashed into bankruptcy. We consider in this opinion two questions arising from the prosecution of Jeffrey Skilling, a longtime Enron executive, for crimes committed before the corporation’s collapse. First, did pretrial publicity and community prejudice prevent Skilling from obtaining a fair trial? Second, did the jury improperly convict Skill-ing of conspiracy to commit “honest-services” wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 1343, 1346? Answering no to both questions, the Fifth Circuit affirmed Skilling’s convictions. We conclude, in common with the Court of Appeals, that Skill-ing’s fair-trial argument fails; [561 U.S. 368] Skill-ing, we hold, did not establish that a presumption of juror prejudice arose or that actual bias infected the jury that tried him. But we disagree with the Fifth Circuit’s honest-services ruling. In proscribing fraudulent deprivations of “the intangible right of honest services,” § 1346, Congress intended at least to reach schemes to defraud involving bribes and kickbacks. Construing the honest-services statute to extend beyond that core meaning, we conclude, would encounter a vagueness shoal. We therefore hold that § 1346 covers only bribery and kickback schemes. Because…
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