United States v. Sun-diamond Growers of California (526 U.S. 398)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided April 27, 1999 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 526 U.S. 398 · 119 S. Ct. 1402
- Decided
- April 27, 1999
- Term
- October Term 1998
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Scalia
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court. Talmudic sages believed that judges who accepted bribes would be punished by eventually losing all knowledge of the divine law. The Federal Government, dealing with many public officials who are not judges, and with at least some judges for whom this sanction holds no terror, has constructed a framework of human laws and regulations defining various sorts of impermissible gifts, and punishing those who give or receive them with administrative sanctions, fines, and incarceration. One element of that framework is 18 U. S. C. § 201(c)(1)(A), the “illegal gratuity statute,” which prohibits giving “anything of value” to a present, past, or future public official “for or because of any official act performed or to be performed by such public official.” In this ease, we consider whether conviction under the illegal gratuity statute requires any showing beyond the fact that a gratuity was given because of the recipient’s official position. I Respondent is a trade association that engaged in marketing and lobbying activities on behalf of its member cooperatives, which were owned by approximately 5,000 individual growers of raisins, figs, walnuts, prunes, and hazelnuts. Petitioner United States is represented by Independent Counsel Donald Smaltz, who, as a consequence of his investigation of former Secretary of Agriculture Michael…
Excerpt of a 28,447-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.