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Is Public Corruption Still a Crime? The Effect of McDonnell Narrowing Test
No full textThe Supreme Court has been limiting the types of public corruption crimes since the 1990s. In 2016, the Supreme Court found that the jury instructions defined official acts too broadly and narrowed its definition significantly in McDonnell v. U.S. The Court created a two-part test to differentiate acts to help one’s constituency versus acts to help oneself because the Court was concerned with the criminalization of politics. From the ruling to March 2019, the federal courts have cited the McDonnell ruling in 151 decisions. These cases were collected and examined using context analysis to understand (in)actions of public officials that underlie the convictions and whether these actions were now considered not illegal under the narrowing of the definition. The cases in which the court distinguished the situation from McDonnell are also discussed. Implications for prosecutorial decision-making and public perception of corrupt acts are discussed
