{
  "id": "R40852",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "R40852",
  "active": true,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com, University of North Texas Libraries Government Documents Department",
  "versions": [
    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 390781,
      "date": "2011-09-16",
      "retrieved": "2016-04-06T21:59:09.288610",
      "title": "Deprivation of Honest Services as a Basis for Federal Mail and Wire Fraud Convictions",
      "summary": "The United States Supreme Court in Skilling v. United States construed the honest services branch of the federal mail and wire fraud statutes to reach no more than cases involving bribery or kickbacks. The mail and wire fraud statutes, 18 U.S.C. Sections 1341 and 1343, impose criminal penalties for the use of mail or interstate wire communications to deprive another of money or property through a \u201cscheme or artifice to defraud.\u201d In its 1987 McNally decision, the Court had held that while the fraud statutes reached schemes to deprive another of property rights, they did not cover \u201cthe intangible right of the citizenry to good government.\u201d Congress responded almost immediately by enacting the \u201chonest services\u201d statute, 18 U.S.C. Section 1346, which declares that the phrase \u201cscheme or artifice to defraud\u201d in the mail and wire statutes also encompasses depriving \u201canother of the intangible right of honest services.\u201d\nIn its 2009 term, the Court was presented with three honest services cases\u2014Skilling, Black, and Weyhrauch. Each offered the Court a slightly different prerequisite for an honest services conviction\u2014for Weyhrauch, a public official, it was an underlying state law violation; for Black, in the private sector, it was foreseeable harm; for Skilling, an Enron executive, it was private gain. The Court instead returned to the pre-McNally case law which it felt Congress intended the honest services statute to revive. In the pre-McNally world, most of the honest services cases, the core cases, involved bribery or kickbacks. This, the Court said, is what Congress meant when it spoke of honest services: the deprivation of honest services, public or private, by bribery or kickbacks.\nTo construe the statute otherwise, the Court felt, would ground the statute on \u201ca vagueness shoal.\u201d In fact, three members of the Court refused to endorse the majority opinion in full because they thought the honest services statute unconstitutionally vague on due process grounds. Should Congress desire a more inclusive definition of honest services fraud, the Court urged that it \u201cemploy standards of sufficient definiteness and specificity to overcome due process concerns.\u201d\nThe Court sent each of the three cases back to the lower courts\u2014Black and Skilling, for a determination of whether erroneous jury instructions on honest services fraud had so tainted their convictions as to require a new trial or whether the instructions simply constituted harmless error; Weyhrauch, for the reconsideration in light of the Court\u2019s Skilling decision.\nRelated CRS Reports include CRS Report R41930, Mail and Wire Fraud: A Brief Overview of Federal Criminal Law, by Charles Doyle, and CRS Report R42016, Prosecution of Public Corruption: An Overview of Amendments Under H.R. 2572 and S. 401, by Charles Doyle.",
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORTS",
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      "topics": []
    },
    {
      "source": "University of North Texas Libraries Government Documents Department",
      "sourceLink": "https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc491069/",
      "id": "R40852_2010Jul28",
      "date": "2010-07-28",
      "retrieved": "2015-01-27T19:40:46",
      "title": "Deprivation of Honest Services as a Basis for Federal Mail and Wire Fraud Convictions",
      "summary": "The United States Supreme Court in Skilling v. United States construed the honest services branch of the federal mail and wire fraud statutes to reach no more than cases involving bribery or kickbacks. The mail and wire fraud statutes, 18 U.S.C. \u00a7\u00a7 1341 and 1343, impose criminal penalties for the use of mail or interstate wire communications to deprive another of money or property through a \"scheme or artifice to defraud.\" This report discusses wire and mail fraud and examines relevant court cases.",
      "type": "CRS Report",
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      ],
      "topics": [
        {
          "source": "LIV",
          "id": "Postal crimes",
          "name": "Postal crimes"
        },
        {
          "source": "LIV",
          "id": "Crime and criminals",
          "name": "Crime and criminals"
        },
        {
          "source": "LIV",
          "id": "Criminal justice",
          "name": "Criminal justice"
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          "id": "Supreme Court decisions",
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    {
      "source": "University of North Texas Libraries Government Documents Department",
      "sourceLink": "https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc689240/",
      "id": "R40852_2009Oct06",
      "date": "2009-10-06",
      "retrieved": "2015-08-03T15:06:47",
      "title": "Deprivation of Honest Services as a Basis for Federal Mail and Wire Fraud Convictions",
      "summary": "This report discusses wire and mail fraud and examines relevant court cases.",
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORT",
      "active": false,
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      "topics": [
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          "source": "LIV",
          "id": "Congress",
          "name": "Congress"
        },
        {
          "source": "LIV",
          "id": "Crime and criminals",
          "name": "Crime and criminals"
        },
        {
          "source": "LIV",
          "id": "Criminal justice",
          "name": "Criminal justice"
        },
        {
          "source": "LIV",
          "id": "Postal crimes",
          "name": "Postal crimes"
        },
        {
          "source": "LIV",
          "id": "Supreme Court decisions",
          "name": "Supreme Court decisions"
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  "topics": [
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}