Of Course They Did

The thoroughly corrupt Supreme Court just issued another ruling making it harder to prosecute corruption.

They overturned the conviction of former Andrew "Rat-Faced Andy" Cuomo aide:

The Supreme Court on Thursday reversed the conviction of Joseph Percoco, the manager of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s re-election campaign who was sentenced to six years in prison after he took money in exchange for helping to facilitate a real estate development. Percoco was convicted of violating a federal fraud law that makes it a crime to deprive members of the public of the intangible right to “honest services.” But in a unanimous ruling, the justices threw out Percoco’s conviction, holding that the jury instructions used to convict him were too vague.

The ruling was the latest in a series of cases, dating back more than a decade, in which the justices have narrowed the reach of federal public-corruption laws.

Percoco spent nearly five years working as a senior aide to Cuomo in the governor’s office. But he was managing Cuomo’s re-election campaign in 2014 when a real estate developer paid him $35,000 for his help in avoiding having to enter into a “labor peace agreement” with local unions. Shortly before he officially returned to the governor’s office, Percoco called the head of a state development agency and urged him to let the development go forward without the agreement; just one day later, state officials reversed their decision that the developer needed to reach an agreement with the unions.

Before his 2018 trial, Percoco asked the judge to dismiss the “honest services” charge against him, arguing that a private citizen cannot be convicted of depriving the public of its right to honest services. The court rejected that request, and Percoco was convicted and sentenced to a total of six years in prison. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit upheld his conviction.

In an opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court on Thursday threw out Percoco’s conviction. Like the lower courts before them, the justices declined to adopt a bright-line rule holding that private citizens can never have the kind of fiduciary responsibility to the public that would allow them to be held liable for depriving the public of its right to their honest services.

This sounds a lot like what Scalia, Thomas, Gorsuch, Alito, and Kavanaugh have been doing all these years.

To be fair, it was a unanimous decision, but the legal precedents were initially pushed by the most corrupt members of the court.