Many Abramoff scandal defendants have pleaded guilty to Honest Services Fraud (HSF), a statute under Constitutional challenge before the Supreme Court of the United States. Persons admitting felonious acts in violation of the HSF statute include:
Michael Scanlon (2005)
Jack Abramoff (2006)
Tony Rudy (2006)
Neil Volz (2006)
Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) (2006)
Will Heaton (2007)
Mark Zachares (2007)
John Albaugh (2008)
Jim Hirni (2008)
Todd Boulanger (2009)
Ann Copland (2009)
In addition to the above guilty pleas, Abramoff lieutenant Kevin Ring still has an outstanding ten-count indictment that includes some HSF charges.
The ACR Blog has repeatedly staked out the editorial position that the HSF statute is a valuable tool for the Justice Department to use in fighting public corruption cases. Although we don't expect the U.S. Supreme Court to find HSF unconstitutionally vague, the prospect is certainly disconcerting.
The Supreme Court is likely to make its HSF verdict known sometime this month. Meanwhile, former Democratic Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is scheduled to face a jury later this week on HSF charges unrelated to the Abramoff scandal. Mr. Blagojevich's lawyers wanted to delay his trial until the SCOTUS provided clarity on the status of the HSF statute.
Last week, Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens denied Mr. Blagojevich's request. We don't know how much to read into Justice Stevens' denial. But since Justice Stevens knows whether HSF will be found unconstitutional, it would have been an undeniably bad sign for HSF if he had granted Blagojevich's request.
Blagojevich's lawyers said, "The unreasonable march toward trial in this case has created an array of constitutional violations and has set the stage for a constitutionally infirm trial." Nevertheless, similar prior requests had been declined by lower courts. Justice Stevens' decision can't be considered unexpected. Furthermore, DoJ lawyers had argued that regardless of the SCOTUS' pending decision on HSF, Blagojevich's trial should continue as planned because the factual elements of the HSF counts and the non-HSF counts are the same. According to the Justice Department, the trial would cover the same ground regardless of the HSF decision.
We admit that the predictive power of Justice Stevens' refusal to delay Mr. Balgojevich's trial is not as strong as it would have been if Justice Stevens had granted the delay. But we prefer this denial over the alternative. Our optimism that the Supreme Court will not find public-sector bribery-esque HSF unconsitutional remains intact after last week's decision.
1 comments:
ACR
I wouldn't get your hopes up.
Remember this article...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-s-chafetz/the-final-days-of-honest_b_387403.html
"It would appear almost certain that not only will the high court strike down the law, but that its decision will be unanimous. Therefore, one can infer that federal prosecutors' vigorous and longstanding use and defense of such an obviously flawed law has been intellectually, morally, and legally underhanded. In fact, it is the prosecutors themselves who are guilty of honest-services fraud.
"As Justice Antonin Scalia recently noted: , "Without some coherent limiting principle to define what 'the intangible right of honest services' is, whence it derives, and how it is violated, this expansive phrase invites abuse by headline-grabbing prosecutors in pursuit of local officials, state legislators, and corporate CEOs who engage in any manner of unappealing or ethically questionable conduct.''
With certainty, the floodgates will now open. All convicted of honest-services fraud--especially those still in prison like Abramoff and Ryan--will petition the court that sentenced them to vacate the judgment and free them at once.
It is no secret that honest-services fraud has turned federal prosecutors into Torquemadas of the American justice system, because it has allowed them to charge anybody with a federal felony. Prosecutors have used the following subterfuge with alarming success: Threaten a terrified white-collar defendant with a long jail term in a maximum-security prison with violent offenders, unless he or she pleads guilty to honest-services fraud. In return, the defendant will receive a much-reduced sentence in a relatively cushy federal prison camp. In this way, prosecutors are guaranteed a conviction. They also don't have to run the risk of a trial by jury. Even judges have become irrelevant, because they essentially rubberstamp the prison sentence the prosecutors recommend. Cagily, prosecutors, in effect, have usurped the entire legal process for themselves.
Fortunately, the Supreme Court appears on the verge of finally putting an end to this dangerous abuse of unchecked prosecutorial power....
Stick a fork in this grossly unjust toy for corruptly ambitious prosecutors..
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