WASHINGTON – U.S. Supreme Court justices of all stripes appeared sharply critical yesterday of the federal law that makes it a crime to “deprive another of honest services,” leaving the often-used prosecutorial tool in serious doubt.

Justice Stephen Breyer ridiculed the law’s language as so broad that as many as 140 million of the nation’s 150 million workers would violate it with offenses as minor as telling the boss falsely that they like his hat.