Supreme Court majority appears to side with former governor appealing corruption conviction
Then-Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell in 2012. Mavrick / Shutterstock.com
A majority of the eight justices on the U.S. Supreme Court appeared to side with former Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell on Wednesday in a challenge to his political corruption conviction.
McDonnell’s lawyer, Noel Francisco, argued that the former governor’s favors for a businessman promoting a diet supplement were not the kind of “official acts” that are barred by federal bribery laws. A Supreme Court majority appeared to side with Francisco, report USA Today, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) and the New York Times.
The laws used to prosecute McDonnell put at risk “behavior that is common, particularly when the ‘quid’ is a lunch or a baseball ticket, throughout this country,” Justice Stephen G. Breyer said. “That is a recipe for giving the Justice Department and prosecutors enormous power over elected officials.”
McDonnell was accused of helping the businessman in exchange for gifts, vacations and loans that were valued at more than $175,000. The gifts themselves were legal, and the issue is the legality of McDonnell’s actions, the New York Times explains. McDonnell’s lawyers said his actions amounted to “routine political courtesies” such as arranging meetings and attending events.
The only justice who seemed certain to side with prosecutors was Justice Sonia Sotomayor, USA Today reports. But the Washington Post reports that both Sotomayor and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg “voiced some support for the government’s position.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, the question after the argument “was less whether Mr. McDonnell’s conviction would survive, but whether the court would provide federal prosecutors a road map for revising its charges that could plausibly allow for a retrial.”
