United States Supreme Court

The Seventh Circuit's affirmance of defendants' honest-services mail fraud convictions is vacated where: 1) per the ruling today in Skilling v. US, the honest-services component of the federal mail-fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. section 1346, criminalizes only schemes to defraud that involved bribes or kickbacks, and that holding renders the honest-services instructions given in this case incorrect; and 2) by properly objecting to the honest-services jury instructions at trial, defendants secured their right to challenge those instructions on appeal, and they did not forfeit that right by declining to acquiesce in the government-proposed special-verdict forms.

Appellate Information

• Decided 06/24/2010
• Published 06/24/2010

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Court

• United States Supreme Court

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