McDonnell v. United States

Docket No.	Op. Below	Argument	Opinion	Vote	Author	Term
15-474	4th Cir.	Apr 27, 2016 Tr.Aud.	Jun 27, 2016	8-0	Roberts	OT 2015

Holding: The federal bribery statute, 18 U.S.C. § 201, makes it a crime for a public official to “receive or accept anything of value” in exchange for being “influenced in the performance of any official act.” An "official act" is a decision or action on a "question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy"; that question or matter must involve a formal exercise of governmental power, and must also be something specific and focused that is "pending" or "may by law be brought" before a public official. To qualify as an "official act," the public official must make a decision to take an action on that question or matter, or agree to do so. Setting up a meeting, talking to another official, or organizing an event -- without more -- does not fit that definition of "official act." Because jury instructions in the case of former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell were erroneous, and those errors are not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, McDonnell's convictions are vacated.

Judgment: Vacated and remanded, 8-0, in an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts on June 27, 2016.

SCOTUSblog Coverage

Prosecutors move to dismiss charges against McDonnells (Amy Howe)
Symposium: Is it bribery or “the basic compact underlying representative government”? (Tara Malloy)
Symposium: McDonnell decision substantially weakens the government’s ability to prevent corruption and protect citizens (Fred Wertheimer)
Symposium: Federal criminal statutes are not blank checks for prosecutors (Jeffrey Green and Ivan Dominguez)
Symposium: Federal prosecutors and the power to pick defendants (Pete Patterson and John Ohlendorf)
Symposium: Upending the long-settled law of politics (Hampton Dellinger)
A “view” from the Courtroom: A final bite at the apple (Mark Walsh)
Symposium: An important victory for representative democracy (David Debold)
Opinion analysis: New barrier to public corruption cases (Lyle Denniston)
A “view” from the Courtroom: Official actions and reactions (Mark Walsh)
Argument analysis: Anti-corruption law in trouble? (Lyle Denniston)
Argument preview: Political favors as crimes (Lyle Denniston)
No action on immigration; McDonnell gets hearing (Lyle Denniston)
Ex-Governor McDonnell challenges conviction (Lyle Denniston)
Former governor to remain free during appeal (Lyle Denniston)
Former governor spared prison, for now (UPDATED) (Lyle Denniston)
Ex-Gov. McDonnell in new plea to remain out of prison (Lyle Denniston)
Virginia ex-governor's corruption case on way to Court (Lyle Denniston)

Date	Proceedings and Orders (key to color coding)
Aug 20 2015	Application (15A218) for a stay of the mandate, or in the alternative for release on bail pending the timely filing and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, submitted to The Chief Justice.
Aug 24 2015	Upon consideration of the application of counsel for the applicant, it is ordered that a response to the application be filed on or before Wednesday, August 26, 2015, by 4 p.m. It is further ordered that the issuance of the mandate of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in case No. 15-4019 is hereby stayed pending consideration of the response and further order of The Chief Justice or of the Court.
Aug 26 2015	Response to application from respondent United States filed.
Aug 27 2015	Reply of applicant Robert F. McDonnell filed.
Aug 31 2015	Application (15A218) referred to the Court.
Aug 31 2015	Application (15A218) granted by the Court. The application for stay of the mandate presented to The Chief Justice and by him referred to the Court is granted, and the issuance of the mandate of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in case No. 15-4019 is stayed pending the timely filing and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari. Should the petition for a writ of certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event the petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the issuance of the judgment of this Court.
Oct 13 2015	Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due November 16, 2015)
Oct 16 2015	Consent to the filing of amicus curiae briefs, in support of either party or of neither party, received from counsel for the responhdent.
Oct 16 2015	Consent to the filing of amicus curiae briefs, in support of either party or of neither party, received from counsel for the petitioner.
Nov 12 2015	Order extending time to file response to petition to and including December 8, 2015.
Nov 13 2015	Brief amicus curiae of National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed.
Nov 16 2015	Brief amicus curiae of Republican Governors Public Policy Committee filed.
Nov 16 2015	Brief amici curiae of Former Federal Officials filed.
Nov 16 2015	Brief amicus curiae of American Center for Law and Justice filed.
Nov 16 2015	Brief amici curiae of Public Policy Advocates and Business Leaders filed.
Nov 16 2015	Brief amici curiae of Law Professors filed.
Nov 16 2015	Brief amici curiae of Former Attorneys General filed.
Nov 16 2015	Brief amici curiae of 60 Former State Attorneys General (non - Virginian) filed.
Nov 16 2015	Brief amici curiae of Virginia Law Professors filed.
Nov 16 2015	Brief amici curiae of Members of the Virginia General Assembly filed.
Nov 16 2015	Brief amici curiae of Benjamin Todd Jealous, et al. filed.
Dec 8 2015	Brief of respondent United States in opposition filed.
Dec 21 2015	Reply of petitioner Robert F. McDonnell filed.
Dec 22 2015	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of January 8, 2016.
Jan 11 2016	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of January 15, 2016.
Jan 15 2016	Petition GRANTED limited to Question 1 presented by the petition.
Feb 10 2016	Consent to the filing of amicus curiae briefs, in support of either party or of neither party, received from counsel for the petitioner.
Feb 12 2016	Consent to the filing of amicus curiae briefs in support of either party or of neither party received from counsel for the respondent.
Feb 24 2016	Motion to deem the Court of Appeals joint appendix and supplemental appendix as the joint appendix in this Court filed by petitioner Robert F. McDonnell.
Feb 24 2016	Supplemental joint appendix filed. (Statement of costs filed)
Feb 29 2016	Brief of petitioner Robert F. McDonnell filed.
Mar 4 2016	SET FOR ARGUMENT ON Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Mar 7 2016	Motion to deem the Court of Appeals joint appendix and supplemental appendix as the joint appendix in this Court GRANTED.
Mar 7 2016	Brief amicus curiae of National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed.
Mar 7 2016	Brief amici curiae of Former Virginia Attorneys General filed.
Mar 7 2016	Brief amici curiae of Former Federal Officials filed.
Mar 7 2016	Brief amicus curiae of American Center for Law and Justice filed.
Mar 7 2016	Brief amici curiae of U.S. Justice Foundation, et al. filed.
Mar 7 2016	Brief amici curiae of Public Policy Advocates and Business Leaders filed.
Mar 7 2016	Brief amicus curiae of Republican Governors Public Policy Committee filed.
Mar 7 2016	Brief amici curiae of 77 Former State Attorneys General (non - Virginian) filed.
Mar 7 2016	Brief amicus curiae of James Madison Center for Free Speech filed.
Mar 7 2016	Brief amici curiae of Law Professors filed.
Mar 7 2016	Brief amici curiae of Benjamin Todd Jealous, Dolores McQuinn, and Algie T. Howell filed.
Mar 7 2016	Joint appendix consisting of 12 volumes of appendices filed in the U.S.Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit filed.
Mar 7 2016	Brief amici curiae of Members of the Virginia General Assembly filed.
Mar 7 2016	Brief amici curiae of Virginia Law Professors filed.
Mar 14 2016	Record requested from the U.S.C.A. 4th Circuit.
Mar 15 2016	CIRCULATED.
Mar 17 2016	Record received from U.S.C.A. 4th Circuit is electronic and located on PACER. SEALED record is electronic.
Mar 23 2016	Record received from U.S.D.C. Eastern District of Virginia is electronic and located on PACER. SEALED record is electronic.
Mar 30 2016	Brief of respondent United States filed. (Distributed)
Apr 6 2016	Brief amicus curiae of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed. (Distributed)
Apr 6 2016	Brief amicus curiae of Brennan Center for Justice at N.Y.U. School of Law filed. (Distributed)
Apr 6 2016	Brief amici curiae of Judicial Watch, Inc. and Allied Educational Foundation filed. (Distributed)
Apr 6 2016	Brief amici curiae of Public Citizen, Inc., and Democracy 21 filed. (Distributed)
Apr 6 2016	Brief amicus curiae of Campaign Legal Center filed. (Distributed)
Apr 13 2016	Reply of petitioner Robert F. McDonnell filed. (Distributed)
Apr 27 2016	Argued. For petitioner: Noel J. Francisco, Washington, D. C. For respondent: Michael R. Dreeben, Deputy Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C.
Jun 27 2016	Judgment VACATED and case REMANDED. Roberts, C. J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
Jul 29 2016	JUDGMENT ISSUED
Aug 19 2016	Record from U.S.D.C. Eastern District of Virginia has been returned.

Featured Posts

Argument analysis: Justices have strong views about removal of class actions – Ronald Mann

Opinion analysis: Interesting 5-4 coalition holds that the ACCA reaches robberies that require force sufficient to overcome resistance (Corrected) – Rory Little

Argument analysis: Justices weigh text and history of 21st Amendment in challenge to state residency requirement for liquor licenses – Amy Howe
Email Digest Sign-Up
Receive a daily email digest from Feedburner by entering your email.
Merits Case Pages and Archives

Archives

or

This Week at the Court
The Supreme Court released additional orders from the January 11 conference on Monday; the justices called for the views of the U.S. solicitor general in CSX Transportation Inc. v. Alabama Department of Revenue, Alabama Department of Revenue v. CSX Transportation Inc. and Toshiba Corp. v. Automotive Industries Pension Trust Fund.
On Tuesday, the justices released their opinions in New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira and Stokeling v. United States.
On Monday, the justices heard oral argument in Thacker v. Tennessee Valley Authority and Rimini Street Inc. v. Oracle USA Inc.
On Tuesday, the justices heard oral argument in Home Depot U.S.A. Inc. v. Jackson and Azar v. Allina Health Services.
On Wednesday, the justices heard oral argument in Knick v. Township of Scott and Tennessee Wine & Spirits Retailers Association v. Blair.
On Friday, the justices meet for their January 18 conference; John Elwood's Relist Watch compiles the petitions relisted for this conference.
Recent Decisions
- New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira A court should determine whether the Federal Arbitration Act’s Section 1 exclusion for disputes involving the “contracts of employment” of certain transportation workers applies before ordering arbitration; here, truck driver Dominic Oliveira’s independent contractor operating agreement with New Prime Inc. falls within that exception.
- Stokeling v. United States The Armed Career Criminal Act’s elements clause encompasses a robbery offense that, like Florida’s law, requires the criminal to overcome the victim’s resistance.
- Culbertson v. Berryhill The Social Security Act’s fee cap of 25 percent of past-due benefits imposed on attorneys who successfully represent Title II benefit claimants in court proceedings applies only to fees for court representation and not to aggregate fees for both court and agency representation.
- Henry Schein Inc. v. Archer and White Sales Inc. The “wholly groundless” exception to the general rule that courts must enforce contracts that delegate threshold arbitrability questions to an arbitrator, not a court, is inconsistent with the Federal Arbitration Act and Supreme Court precedent.
- City of Escondido, California v. Emmons The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit failed to conduct the analysis required by Supreme Court precedents in determining whether two Escondido police officers were entitled to qualified immunity.
- Shoop v. Hill Because Danny Hill’s intellectual disability claim must be evaluated based solely on holdings of the Supreme Court that were clearly established at the time the state-court decisions were rendered, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit’s reliance on Moore v. Texas -- which was handed down much later -- was plainly improper.
see all this term’s cases »
Current Relists
- Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda Whether the prohibition in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1), against employment discrimination “because of . . . sex” encompasses discrimination based on an individual’s sexual orientation.
- Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia Whether discrimination against an employee because of sexual orientation constitutes prohibited employment discrimination “because of . . . sex” within the meaning of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2.
- Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. (1) Whether a state may require health-care facilities to dispose of fetal remains in the same manner as other human remains, i.e., by burial or cremation; and (2) whether a state may prohibit abortions motivated solely by the race, sex or disability of the fetus and require abortion doctors to inform patients of the prohibition.
More Petitions »
Major Cases
- Lamone v. Benisek
  In case in which the plaintiffs allege that a Maryland congressional district was gerrymandered to retaliate against them for their political views: (1) whether the various legal claims articulated by the three-judge district court are unmanageable; (2) whether the three-judge district court erred when, in granting plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, it resolved disputes of material fact as to multiple elements of plaintiffs’ claims, failed to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, and treated as “undisputed” evidence that is the subject of still-unresolved hearsay and other evidentiary objections; and (3) whether the three-judge district court abused its discretion in entering an injunction despite the plaintiffs’ years-long delay in seeking injunctive relief, rendering the remedy applicable to at most one election before the next decennial census necessitates another redistricting.
- Kisor v. Wilkie
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule Auer v. Robbins and Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., which direct courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation.
- Department of Commerce v. U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
  Whether, in an action seeking to set aside agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 701 et seq., a district court may order discovery outside the administrative record to probe the mental processes of the agency decisionmaker—including by compelling the testimony of high-ranking Executive Branch officials—when there is no evidence that the decisionmaker disbelieved the objective reasons in the administrative record, irreversibly prejudged the issue, or acted on a legally forbidden basis.
- Rucho v. Common Cause
  (1) Whether plaintiffs have standing to press their partisan gerrymandering claims; (2) whether plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable; and (3) whether North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map is, in fact, an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.
- The American Legion v. American Humanist Association
  (1) Whether a 93-year-old memorial to the fallen of World War I is unconstitutional merely because it is shaped like a cross; (2) whether the constitutionality of a passive display incorporating religious symbolism should be assessed under the tests articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Van Orden v. Perry, Town of Greece v. Galloway or some other test; and (3) whether, if the test from Lemon v. Kurtzman applies, the expenditure of funds for the routine upkeep and maintenance of a cross-shaped war memorial, without more, amounts to an excessive entanglement with religion in violation of the First Amendment.
- Gamble v. United States
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule the “separate sovereigns” exception to the double jeopardy clause.
see all this term’s cases »
Recent Special Features
Statistical Snapshot

Cases argued 43

Cases decided 9

Summary reversals 2

Merits cases granted to date 73

see all »
Live Blog Archives
See all
Twitter Feed

Tweets by @SCOTUSblog

Full Calendar Submit Event

Jan. 2019

Su	Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa
		1 Holiday	2	3	4 Conference	5
6	7 Orders MERCK SHARP & DOHME CORP. V. ALBRECHT (17-290) OBDUSKEY V. MCCARTHY & HOLTHUS LLP (17-1307)	8 HERRERA V. WYOMING (17-532) FOURTH ESTATE PUBLIC BENEFIT CORP. V. WALL-STREET.COM, LLC (17-571) Opinions	9 FRANCHISE TAX BOARD OF CALIFORNIA V. HYATT (17-1299)	10	11 Conference	12
13	14 Orders THACKER V. TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY (17-1201) RIMINI STREET INC. V. ORACLE USA INC. (17-1625)	15 HOME DEPOT U.S.A. INC. V. JACKSON (17-1471) AZAR V. ALLINA HEALTH SERVICES (17-1484) Opinions	16 KNICK V. TOWNSHIP OF SCOTT, PENNSYLVANIA (17-647) TENNESSEE WINE AND SPIRITS RETAILERS ASSOCIATION V. BLAIR (18-96)	17	18 Conference	19
20	21 Holiday	22 Orders	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

Orders/Opinions
Arguments
Conferences

Events
Holidays
Multiple

Download our App in the Apple Store
First Mondays see all
Videos see all

Justice Sotomayor at Harvard

On November 13, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit and Judge Susan Carney of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit presided over the final round of the 2018 Ames Moot Court Competition at Harvard Law School.

Peabody Award
Awarded the Peabody Award for excellence in electronic media.
Sigma Delta Chi
Awarded the Sigma Delta Chi deadline reporting award for online coverage of the Affordable Care Act decision.
National Press Club Award
Awarded the National Press Club's Breaking News Award for coverage of the Affordable Care Act decision.
Silver Gavel Award
Awarded the Silver Gavel Award by the American Bar Association for fostering the American public’s understanding of the law and the legal system.
American Gavel Award
Awarded the American Gavel Award for Distinguished Reporting About the Judiciary to recognize the highest standards of reporting about courts and the justice system.
Webby Award
Awarded the Webby Award for excellence on the internet.

Cases argued	43
Cases decided	9
Summary reversals	2
Merits cases granted to date	73

McDonnell v. United States

SCOTUSblog Coverage

Featured Posts

Argument analysis: Justices have strong views about removal of class actions – Ronald Mann

Opinion analysis: Interesting 5-4 coalition holds that the ACCA reaches robberies that require force sufficient to overcome resistance (Corrected) – Rory Little

Argument analysis: Justices weigh text and history of 21st Amendment in challenge to state residency requirement for liquor licenses – Amy Howe

Email Digest Sign-Up

Merits Case Pages and Archives

Recent Decisions

Current Relists

Conference of January 18, 2019

Major Cases

Recent Special Features

Live Blog Archives

Jan. 2019

Download our App in the Apple Store

First Mondays see all

Videos see all

Peabody Award

Sigma Delta Chi

National Press Club Award

Silver Gavel Award

American Gavel Award

Webby Award