“We have no personal interest in the outcome of this appeal. Nor is it our role to pass judgment on whether the conduct prosecuted here was prudent or not. But that is likewise not the purpose of federal public corruption law. That law should not subject government officials to the threat of prosecution for engaging in innocent conduct that occurs on a routine basis. The district court’s interpretation of ‘official act,’ however, would do just that.”
Harvard Law School professors Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge, and Charles Ogletree Jr., along with John Jeffries Jr. of the University of Virginia School of Law, filed a brief together. Represented by William Taylor III of Zuckerman Spaeder, they wrote that previous U.S. Supreme Court cases showed the “erroneous breadth” of the trial judge’s jury instructions. They argued:
“The law must provide notice to citizens of what is or is not criminal, and through that notice, cabin a prosecutor’s discretion to charge. If there is ambiguity as to whether the Hobbs Act and honest services wire fraud statute cover the conduct alleged here—and there plainly is—due process bars this prosecution.”
Troutman Sanders represented a group of former Virginia attorneys general who served between 1970 and 2001. They wrote:
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