The Honest Services of Public Officials

THIS CASEBOOK contains a selection of U. S. Court of Appeals decisions that analyze and discuss issues surrounding the doctrine of honest-services fraud. Volume 1 of the casebook covers the District of Columbia Circuit and the First through the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. * * * It is not a defense to an honest-services fraud charge to claim that a public official would have lawfully performed the official action in question even without having accepted a thing of value. * * * A conviction for honest-services wire fraud requires proof that the defendant used wire communications in interstate commerce to carry out a "scheme or artifice to defraud," 18 U.S.C. § 1343, by depriving another of "the intangible right of honest services," id. § 1346. In Skilling, the Supreme Court construed § 1346 narrowly and held that honest-services fraud encompasses only bribery and kickback schemes. 561 U.S. at 408-09, 130 S.Ct. 2896. To define the scope of the honest-services statute's proscription of bribes and kickbacks, the Skilling Court directed courts to look to, inter alia, federal statutes defining similar crimes, such as 18 U.S.C. § 201(b), the principal federal bribery statute. See id. at 412-13 & n. 45, 130 S.Ct. 2896. * * * We follow the Supreme Court's direction in Skilling and look to § 201(b) to give substance to the prohibition on honest-services fraud. In United States v. Valle, we held that an official may be convicted of bribery under § 201(b)(2) "if he has corruptly entered into a quid pro quo, knowing that the purpose behind the payment that he has ... agreed to receive[] is to induce or influence him in an official act, even if he has no intention of actually fulfilling his end of the bargain." 538 F.3d 341, 347 (5th Cir.2008). Accordingly, pursuant to Valle, a conviction for bribery under § 201(b)(2) does not require proof that the official intended to be influenced in his official actions. See id. Viewed through Skilling's lens, Valle instructs that honest-services fraud also does not require such proof. See Skilling, 561 U.S. at 412, 130 S.Ct. 2896; Valle, 538 F.3d at 347. US v. Nagin, 810 F. 3d 348 (5th Cir. 2016)