Black v. United States
Headline: Corporate fraud ruling vacates appeals-court decision, holds defendants did not forfeit challenge to honest-services jury instructions and narrows when special-verdict forms matter in fraud trials.
Holding: The Court held that defendants who timely objected to honest-services jury instructions did not forfeit their right to appeal by opposing the Government’s request for special verdict forms, and it vacated and remanded the case for further proceedings.
- Allows defendants to appeal instruction errors without requesting special interrogatories.
- Courts must be cautious using special-verdict forms in criminal trials.
- Limits honest-services fraud to bribery or kickbacks, narrowing some prosecutions.
Summary
Background
Four former executives of a public newspaper company were tried for mail fraud on three counts. The Government presented two theories at trial: that the executives stole money by paying themselves bogus “noncompetition fees,” and that by hiding those payments they deprived the company of their honest services. The court instructed the jury on both theories. The Government asked for special-verdict forms to show which theory the jury relied on; the defendants opposed that request and the jury returned general guilty verdicts.
Reasoning
The Court addressed whether the defendants lost their right to challenge the honest-services jury instructions by opposing the special-verdict request. The Court noted that the Criminal Rules contain no rule authorizing routine special verdicts and that Rule 30(d) requires a specific objection before the jury retires, which the defendants made. The Seventh Circuit had treated the defendants’ resistance as a forfeiture, but the Supreme Court rejected inventing such a sanction, relied on Rule 57(b) to bar surprise penalties, and pointed to today’s Skilling decision that narrows honest-services fraud to bribery or kickbacks—making the trial instructions incorrect.
Real world impact
The Court vacated the appeals-court judgment and sent the case back for further proceedings, leaving to the lower courts the question whether the error was harmless. The ruling affects how courts and prosecutors use special verdicts and how honest-services claims are pleaded and instructed in future corporate-fraud prosecutions.
Dissents or concurrances
Justices Scalia (joined by Justice Thomas) and Kennedy concurred in part. They argued §1346 is unconstitutionally vague and criticized parts of the Court’s reasoning, including reliance on advisory-committee notes about Rule 30(d).
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