JURIST Editorial Director Ingrid Burke Friedman contributed to this report.

In a decision that fell along starkly partisan lines, the US Supreme Court reversed the bribery conviction of former Portage, Indiana mayor James Snyder on Wednesday.

The case, Snyder v. United States, involves James Snyder, the former mayor of Portage, Indiana. Snyder was convicted under 18 U.S.C. §666(a)(1)(b) for accepting $13,000 in connection with the city’s purchases of garbage trucks. In 2013, Portage awarded two contracts to a local truck company, Great Lakes Peterbilt, purchasing five trucks for approximately $1.1 million. In 2014, Peterbilt cut a $13,000 check to Snyder, which the FBI and federal prosecutors suspected was a gratuity for the city’s trash truck contracts. Snyder claimed the payment was for consulting services. A federal jury convicted Snyder of accepting an illegal gratuity, and the District Court sentenced him to one year and 9 months in prison. The appeals court affirmed Snyder’s conviction.

The relevant section of the civil code states:

Whoever, if the circumstance described in subsection (b) of this section exists being an agent of an organization, or of a State, local, or Indian tribal government, or any agency thereof corruptly solicits or demands for the benefit of any person, or accepts or agrees 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 such organization, government, or agency involving any thing of value of $5,000 or more shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.

On review, the Supreme Court’s majority ruled that Section 666 only proscribes bribes to state and local officials and does not make it a crime for those officials to accept gratuities for their past acts. The court provided six reasons for this conclusion:

1. The wording of the statute closely resembles the bribery provision for federal officials included in 18 U.S.C. §201(b), which requires a corrupt state of mind and an intention to be influenced in an official act. By contrast, it does not resemble the gratuities provision, which does not require proof of intent.
2. The statutory history shows that when first enacted, §666 included language similar to the federal gratuities statute. Two years later, Congress amended it to align with the federal bribery statute.
3. The structure of the statute supports that it addresses bribery, as bribery and gratuities are treated as distinct crimes with different elements and penalties.
4. If the statute covered gratuities, it would impose much harsher penalties for state and local officials (up to 10 years) compared to federal officials (up to 2 years), which is inconsistent and unexplained.
5. Interpreting the statute as covering gratuities would infringe on state and local governments’ ability to regulate interactions between their officials and constituents, disrupting existing policy judgments about acceptable gifts and gratuities.
6. The Government’s interpretation could create legal traps for state and local officials, who might be uncertain about what gifts they are allowed to accept under federal law, risking severe penalties for misjudgments.

The vote fell along starkly partisan lines. The majority consisted of justices appointed by Republican presidents: George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. The minority, comprising justices appointed by Democratic presidents, included Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, appointed by President Joe Biden, who wrote a dissenting opinion. She was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, both appointed by President Barack Obama.

In her dissent, Jackson argued that the majority misinterpreted the statute by ignoring its explicit language, which targets officials who “corruptly” accept payments with the intent to be influenced or rewarded. She argues that the decision undermines congressional intent and misapplies principles of federalism principles, granting undue leniency to corrupt practices. In her view, this ruling weakens the fight against corruption, contrary to the statute’s clear purpose.

She wrote:

I wholeheartedly agree with the majority’s suggestion that, because employees of [state and local] governments are our neighbors, friends, and hometown heroes, federal law ought not be read to subject them to prosecution when grateful members of the community show their thanks. … But nothing about the facts of this case implicates any of that kind of conduct. And the text of §666 clearly covers the kind of corrupt (albeit perhaps non-quid pro quo) payment Snyder solicited after steering the city contracts to the dealership. Because reading §666 to prohibit gratuities—just as it always has—poses no genuine threat to common gift giving, but does honor Congress’s intent to punish rewards corruptly accepted by government officials in ways that are functionally indistinguishable from taking a bribe, I respectfully dissent.